Who are you?
Hi! I'm Daniel Podaru, an entrepreneurial developer based in Paris, France. I'm passionate about startups and my developer experience was acquired in this context. I've previously attended Apple's WWDC as a Swift developer and built web platforms using Rails and Go. I'm building my next product on Flow.
What lured you into the world of blockchain?
I discovered Bitcoin in 2013 and was excited about the programmable money concept and the things that could be built in this new paradigm. My excitement was quickly put off by Script, Bitcoin's programming language.
Script resembles Assembly - a low-level programming language that appeared in the 1950s where programs are written using opcodes.
Why did you decide to build on Flow?
The motivation behind choosing Flow:
Cadence: Paul Graham (YCombinator) says in his essay, "A company that gets software written faster and better will, all other things being equal, put its competitors out of business". At the beginning of the web, Paul Graham used Lisp to build Viaweb, which later became Yahoo! Store. Lisp was less popular than C++ or Pearl at the time but helped him deliver a better product faster.
We're at the beginning of the decentralized web. Cadence is intuitive, easy to read and learn, and makes it possible to quickly build secure complex contracts with less code.
Standing on the shoulders of giants: Flow is built to scale.Dapper Labs is building its own products on Flow. NBA Top Shot has the potential to bring 2 billion basketball fans to the blockchain. Every basketball fan, once onboarded, could be interested in using other DApps built on Flow.
Community: Building good products is hard. There are always multiple ways of doing things and having someone answer your questions on time is an unfair advantage. I found the community and the Flow team on Discord to be knowledgeable, curious and always willing to help.
What should I watch and read next?
Watch:
Johnny Mnemonic - if you're looking for a cyberpunk action thriller from the 90's starring Keanu Reeves.
Read:
“Programming Bitcoin” by Jimmy Song - to learn how to program Bitcoin from scratch.
“The Mom Test” by Rob Fitzpatrick - to learn how to validate your idea for a product.
“Hello, My Name Is Awesome” by Alexandra Watkins - to find a name for your product that users will love.
“Hooked” by Nir Eyal - to understand how products influence our behaviour.
“Zero to One” by Peter Thiel - to learn how to build companies that create new things.
What movie completely changes its plot when you change one letter in its title? What’s the new movie about?
“The Germinator - a cyborg travels back in time to the Dutch Golden Age to prevent the tulip mania”
Where can we find you?
You can contact me on the Flow Discord: @Daniel(morpheus#5239) or on Twitter: @cybercent.
