About Us

Management Team

Mob4Hire’s seasoned management team includes 2nd and 3rd generation mobile pioneers & successful software entrepreneurs with deep mobile, web and business development leadership.

Stephen King, CEO

Stephen’s 25 years in the software industry includes writing a million lines of code, sales and marketing, product management and business development leadership. He co-founded Greenpoint Software in 1995 and helped develop the ProFile Professional Tax Software Suite that was acquired by Intuit in 2000. After leading the ProAdvisor and Accountant business at Intuit Canada, he became VP, Sales and Marketing of the $105M subsidiary, managing 100+ staff and running brand marketing for QuickTax, Quicken, QuickBooks and Profile across all sales channels, in addition to government and public relations. Stephen was also a director of Mountainview-based Intuit U.S. and was on the senior leadership team that helped define Intuit’s Web 2.0 online community strategy in 2004/2005.

Paul Poutanen, PEng., President and Founder

Paul has been a Calgary-based high-tech executive for the past 15 years, entering the mobile field after long stint as a Senior Management Consultant with Ernst and Young. He developed extensive mobile expertise working in management for wireless hardware and cellular location firms such as Wi-LAN and Cell-Loc. Paul became President of Blister Entertainment where he developed the first cellular location-based games for North America, including the award-winning title “Swordfish.” Inspired to find a solution to the complex global testing process for mobile devices, Paul launched Mob4Hire in 2007. He is an Industrial and Mechanical Engineer.

Robert Knight, CFO

Bob has over 30 years experience growing and diversifying corporate entities. As President for the Denro Group, Bob transformed an established real estate corporation into a conglomerate which included capital management, high-tech ventures, resource investments and project management. Bob’s financial acumen has served him well through numerous technology mergers and acquisitions. Bob is an active member of the World Presidents’ Organization.

John Carpenter, PEng. CTO

With an engineering degree in Geomatics and spatial programming, John has incorporated mapping and LBS technologies into mobile applications and games since 1999. He’s served as the Director of Technology for KnowledgeWhere Corp, and Architect, Geoservices for Useful Networks. John has many years of first-hand experience on the difficulties and expense of mobile application testing. John is also a noted mobile technology evangelist and speaker.

Richard Cooke, VP Technology

Richard has broad experience creating innovative and effective software solutions. He entered the mobile applications market following several years developing automotive powertrain controls. Equally skilled at broad software strategy and wireless technology challenges, Richard has created and oversees the ongoing establishment of Mob4Hire’s service offerings. Richard is based in London, U.K.

Allen Poutanen, VP Business Development

Highly regarded as a team-builder and marketing strategist, Allen has twice held the position of VP Sales with technology firms that each achieved market caps in excess of $1 billion. Allen has established and managed large international sales and marketing teams and developed comprehensive worldwide distribution networks for wireless products. Enthused by the concept of crowd-sourcing and the endless opportunities in the mobile space, Allen joined Mob4Hire to establish partnerships and plot Mob4Hire’s growth strategy. This is the third successful high-tech startup that Paul and Allen have been involved in together.

Advisory Board

Mob4Hire’s advisory board includes a wide range of experience:

Keith Cook, Mobile Testing Pioneer

Based in Silicon Valley, Keith has developed strategic partnerships and alliances within the entire mobile ecosystem; service providers, mobile platforms, OEM/ODM, and content providers. He is a founder of DeviceAnywhere that pioneered the use of remote control handset testing. He’s currently co-founder of NexGen Innovations, an incubator for mobile start-ups in Silicon Valley.

Cameron Peters, Intuit Director, Software Architect, Greenpoint co-founder http://www.accountant.intuit.ca/en/wow.shtm (2005)

Cameron Peters has been developing software for consumers and professional businesses for twenty-four years. His first joint venture with Cantax from 1985 to 1995 saw him as President and Chief Architect. He co-founded GreenPoint Software in May, 1995, and developed the Profile Financial Tax Application Suite, which was acquired by Intuit in 2000. In 2002, Cameron moved to the United Kingdom to work as director of the UK tax division.  From 2005 to 2008, he was the Chief Technology Officer for Intuit Canada and UK.  Cameron is currently based in Calgary, and serves as Director of Innovation and Tax Product Development for the Intuit Global Business Division.

Marc Wachman, Partner, http://www.growwireless.com/, Calgary

With 17 years' experience in senior level corporate direction, Marc Wachmann builds companies and teams with a holistic, people-centric approach. Marc is most recognized as a mobile project leader expert, having worked as CTO at both KnowledgeWhere and RedWood Technologies. Marc is a partner of Grow Wireless (www.growwireless.com).

David Craddock, Macleod Dixon LLP

David is a partner at Macleod Dixon LLP and practices corporate and commercial law with a focus on all aspects of technology and intellectual property.

Jonathan Kohl, Q/A Testing Evangelist, co-founder, http://www.kohl.ca/, Calgary

Jonathan Kohl is an internationally-recognized software testing consultant. A noted software thinker and strategist, Jonathan works to help teams define product vision, and apply testing strategically to maximize their effectiveness. Jonathan is passionate about developing tester skill, and using testing tools to empower testers. He is a popular author and speaker who believes that testing, like other aspects of software development, is a challenging intellectual craft. He is the founder of Kohl Concepts @  www.kohl.ca.

Bob Hayes, Ph.D. Customer Loyalty Guru, http://www.businessoverbroadway.com/, Seattle

Bob E. Hayes is the president and founder of Business Over Broadway (www.businessoverbroadway.com) in Seattle, WA. Dr. Hayes, holds a Ph.D. in industrial-organizational psychology, is a leading expert in survey research methodology and author of the book, “Measuring Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty.” He has conducted survey research for many enterprise companies including Oracle, Siebel, Agilent Technologies, and Cisco. Dr. Hayes is based in Seattle.

Stephen Nykolyn, Owner, Tidal Wave Communication, Partner http://www.growwireless.com/, Calgary

Stephen is a sales and marketing specialist with 16 years experience within both the wireless and advertising agency sectors. Stephen’s interest resides in the mobile application sectors where he’s spent the last four years in location-based services, mobile entertainment, and ‘prosumer’ applications. Stephen is a partner of Grow Wireless (www.growwireless.com), and President / Founder of Tidal Wave Communications

Tony Fish, AMF Ventures and Wireless Industry Expert, http://www.amfventures.com/, London

Tony Fish is an experienced, professionally qualified executive and an accomplished public speaker. He has worked on trends and global business issues with numerous organizations, and has particular expertise in the development of innovation through partnership. He has an excellent grasp of strategic and economic issues relating to growth businesses, and their patterns for survival. Tony is known for delivery, his probing questioning, clear decision making, simple no-nonsense attitude and robust financial views and governance controls. He brings an innovative flare to delivery, deal execution and fund raising. With an enviable professional reputation, he has a wide and diverse professional network. “Mobile Web 2.0” is Tony’s second book and provides a detailed strategic analysis of the changing relationships in mobile, media and retail as the markets move towards openness. Tony Fish MBA BEng CEng FIET FCIM has been involved for over 20 years in the Technology Media and Telecoms industries, and has been associated with building hi-tech companies since his first IPO (OFEX) in 1994. Tony is based in London, U.K.

Does Your Application Pass the Test? – The Background Story of Mob4Hire

Imagine yourself pitching your killer mobile application to the largest carrier in Europe. You are high up in some glass office tower. The room is full of suits, all of them looking expectantly at their handsets as they download your application. There are a few beeps and then…nothing. Blank screens, blank looks, and you staring blankly out the window as you fly back home, wondering what went wrong.

Mobile application developers have access to enormous markets, but they’ve also got to prove their product does exactly what they claim. Carriers are anxious to have the best applications available for their customers, but they need them to work on every handset they support. Unfortunately, what an application that works perfectly on a Nokia 6300 in New York likely doesn’t work on the same phone in London. The ugly truth is that applications don’t work seamlessly across multiple platforms on multiple handsets. Every single scenario needs to be tested and proven successful before a carrier reaches across the table and says “We’ve got a deal!”

There are hundreds of thousands of mobile application developers out there working on their next great thing. 750 carriers operate around the world. Each of them supports dozens or even hundreds of the 25,000 handsets currently on the market everywhere from Bahrain to Beijing to Baltimore. Comprehensive quality assurance testing is key to launching any successful mobile application. The only way to ensure your application will function properly on a specific handset supported on a carrier’s network is to physically go within range of their network and try it out.

Professional testing houses exist, but they are always limited to testing on the networks which serve their physical area. That’s great if you want to sell your application to carriers in a specific region, but it leaves the rest of the globe off limits. Who’s got the time or resources to travel the world to test their new application? Paul Poutanen didn’t, but he sure tried.

At great expense he flew his development team to San Francisco, purchased every phone supported by his client’s carrier network, subscribed to the phone service, and spent three days in a hotel where they ran their application on every single handset.“At the airport on the way home, I see a guy talking on his cell and I realized that if only I knew him, I could have simply stayed home and asked him to test my application on his phone,” recalls Poutanen. “It would certainly save all the time and costs for travel, handsets, and paid subscriptions to networks I’d never be using again.”

It’s ironic that the mobile industry - free of wires, communicating with satellites, keeping the world in touch – still requires physically moving people around the globe to download some software and push a few buttons to see if it works. That’s the reality, and it doesn’t make the already complex testing phase any easier. Testing your software is the most onerous part of application development, and the most critical. Your product needs to work flawlessly to be of any value. It’s hard enough to test and work out bugs in your own office, but things become infinitely more complicated when trying to incorporate a range of foreign platforms, unique languages and carrier requirements, then multiplying that effort by whatever number of handsets they support. On the flight back home, Paul Poutanen began to consider how crowd-sourcing could be applied to mobile application testing. What if that one person at the San Francisco airport was part of an enormous, informal community of testers? Technically savvy people live everywhere in the world. If they were tapped into a network of application developers who need their service precisely because of where they live, it could be an ideal meeting place for both communities.

Would developers be interested in having qualified individuals do their testing work for them, at a fraction of the cost of traditional location-based testing? Would savvy early adopters, who already own their handsets and subscribe to their local carrier, be prepared to try out some new software in exchange for some money? The answer is yes. Poutanen launched Mob4Hire, a brokerage house where application developers post their testing requirements online and testers with active handsets in the right geographic area bid on the job.

While there are other testing options available to the mobile developer, Mob4hire is the only crowd-sourced company in this space that provides true mobility testing as well as the ability to conduct market research with the Mob4Hire team of testers. After all, just because an application works well enough to pass carrier certification, doesn’t mean it is necessarily a good application. Why not run your application through these mobile early adopters. This is the group that often gives the early thumbs-up or thumbs down to burgeoning applications. While Developers are great at developing, they are not always so successful at testing. Let’s face it – tester bias is part of the human condition.

Testers receive the application wirelessly and the testing instructions are picked up at the Mob4Hire website. They conduct the test and report back with a test report. Mob4Hire is responsible for building and maintaining a large database of testers and maintains quality control through an online rating system. Testers are rated based on their timeliness and quality of their response. Developers are rated on how clearly they outline the job in the bidding process and the quality of their test plan. Tests could be a simple ping test to see if the application is blocked by a carrier, or it could be an extremely complicated test which could take many hours to complete. The bidding process and rating system are built into the Mob4Hire system to ensure quality and fairness. Payments are made through PayPal. If no concerns are raised by the application developer five days after the tester submits his report, the funds are transferred to the tester’s account.

A surprise development has been the number of large application developers interested in using Mob4Hire – both as testers and developers. These companies have their own testers in-house – at a significant cost. When this staff is idle, the company can bid on Mob4Hire testing projects and generate additional income. Suddenly a cost center becomes an active source of revenue. Interestingly enough, many of the handsets are in the hands of professional testers – a fact that speaks well to the quality of the service and prompted Mob4Hire to launch its MobPro Tester Program.

Application developers can speed up their development process immediately by registering at www.Mob4Hire.com.
Your testers are ready and waiting!