About
The Input Output Toolkit (IOTK) is a framework for developing scalable, standardized database driven Web applications. It includes:
- A PHP API
- Extensive documentation on building standardized code
- Processes for managing the construction of Web applications
It was written by me, Michael Montero. I have been developing Web applications since 1994 and was the co-founder of 2 large, successful Internet start ups. Community Connect Inc., founded in June 1996, was the publisher of AsianAve.com, BlackPlanet.com, MiGente.com, GLEE.com, and Faithbase.com. The company was sold for $38 million to Interactive One in April 2008. Fotolog.net (the 57th largest site on the Internet), founded in May 2002, was sold to the Hi-Media Group in August 2007 for $90 million.
For both companies I acted as the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and primary architect of their software and wrote several of the versions that were used to run the businesses. Today I am the CTO for Real Estate On-Line (REOL) and CityRealty.com.
Since I was a co-founder of both of the aforementioned start ups, I was responsible, in the early days of their creation, for personally managing all technical aspects of their products: code writing, systems administrations, database administration. In other words, throughout my career I have been very hands on with respect to writing software and scaling very large sites. One of the highlights of my career, and something about which I am very proud, is the fact that I singlehandedly developed and managed Fotolog.net to 750 million page views per month across over 30 servers.
But I was also involved in the people operations of these businesses learning how to manage and grow not just their audiences but their revenues and staffs as well. At CCI I managed all of the disciplines involved in product development totaling over 50 people. This gave me an unique chance to observe how software products get built by large teams and to understand how important a solid software foundation is to making these types of projects successful.
The culmination of the last 15 plus years is the framework of which the Input Output Toolkit (IOTK) is one part. My goal in building it was, first and foremost, to create a foundation upon which I could personally build new Web based start ups. I wanted to mitigate the need to migrate a prototype (often the first version of software written by a start up) to a mature, scalable piece of software by enforcing good programming practices that technically enforce scalable solutions.
“Scalable”, in my experience, is not just about being able to handle billions of page views and hundreds of millions of rows (though these issues are accounted for in IOTK) but also about accommodating teams of product managers, designers, front end developers, back end developers, system administrators, and database administrators, often geographically dispersed, by providing a consistent means of interacting both with the process of building a Web application and also of interacting with the underlying technology.
In essence I wanted to “smooth out” the curve of building a Web based business, tipping, growing the traffic to very large numbers, and bringing on skilled people to continue to grow. My hope is that as my next starts up grow, the initial founding and product construction feels like the rapidly growing business which feels like the mature entity with staff and revenues – no hitting the wall or pausing to rebuild a product that was never designed to be used for where the business ended up.
I take my career and my craft very seriously. It is important for me to engage in responsible software development and responsible business building. I work hard and I do my best to be fun to work with while providing innovative, killer products. I absolutely love working with passionate people and building businesses out of ideas. I can bring to bear an extensive set of technical skills backed by hands on success and leadership.
More about me on my LinkedIn profile. Or you can download my resume.
So what can you expect from this site?
- I will evangelize IOTK
- I will evangelize my start ups and businesses (all of which use IOTK)
- I will provide my opinion on interesting technology and technology news
- I will discuss how I built IOTK
- I will promote my technical partners and vendors
