[LRUG] [JOBS] Startup looking for a dev ( with stock options )

[Najaf Ali]

Hi David,

Not currently on the market for work but I *do* have some unsolicited
advice for you :)

I noticed on your website that images were loading a bit slowly. On
inspecting the image URLs, it appears as though you're serving images from
S3. S3 isn't really designed to serve web traffic directly, so a quick (say
10-30 minutes) way to speed things up would be to serve your images from
Amazon Cloudfront.

I'm not an expert on conversion optimisation, but I believe there's
evidence[1] suggesting that page load times have a not-insignificant effect
on user engagement and therefore basket-size and conversion. That being the
case, it strikes me as a low-risk, high-reward activity to have one of your
developers spend 30 minutes on. I've explained in detail how to do this
many times, so I went ahead and wrote it up in a blog post[2].

Briefly, you can set up a Cloudfront distribution to point to the S3 bucket
that's currently serving your images and modify your asset host to point to
your new distribution. If you're using a version of Rails that inclues the
asset pipeline, your Cloudfront distribution can point directly to your
application, allowing you to skip the synch to S3 step entirely.

The end result of this will be your assets served out of edge cache
locations closest to the user, at speeds you won't be able to deliver using
your own infrastructure. I've done this with a few clients and all of them
have been pleasantly surprised at how much more snappy their sites feel for
users, especially ones with an empty cache.

Good hunting!

-Ali

P.S. If you do this and see a statistically significant bump in conversion,
I'd love to hear about it!

[1]: Speed Is A Killer – Why Decreasing Page Load Time Can Drastically
Increase Conversions <http://blog.kissmetrics.com/speed-is-a-killer/> -
KissMetrics Blog
[2]: How to speed up your Rails app with Amazon Cloudfront and the asset
pipeline<http://happybearsoftware.com/use-cloudfront-and-the-rails-asset-pipeline-to-speed-up-your-app.html>-
Happy Bear Software Blog (me!)


On Thu, May 23, 2013 at 3:31 PM, David Dawson <david at woolandthegang.com>wrote:

> Hi,
>
> We are a young established company ( www.woolandthegang.com ) that has
> just taken on our first round of funding from a very well known VC ( index
> ventures ), and looking to build a team of developers to work on an
> exciting new greenfield e-commerce platform with strong social and fashion
> influences.
>
> The current site is going to be phased out and replaced with responsive
> single page web app using either backbone or ember, built on top of a Rails
> Api using the Spree framework.
>
> Because this is a greenfield project you will have a lot of influence on
> the design and the technology choices, working alongside a team based in
> north london in fun and relaxed but hardworking environment.
>
> Ideally we are after a permanent mid-level developer and looking to pay
> around £35-40K + generous stock options, but will also consider contractors.
>
> So if you are either a Ruby developer with good front-end skills, or a
> Frontend developer with a bit of Ruby knowledge looking to join a fun
> startup, please get in touch: david at woolandthegang.com
>
> Currently we are not dealing with agencies, so please do not contact me if
> you are an agency.
>
> Dave
>
> _______________________________________________
> Chat mailing list
> Chat at lists.lrug.org
> http://lists.lrug.org/listinfo.cgi/chat-lrug.org
>
>


-- 
Ali, http://happybearsoftware.com
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