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Kevin Simons
Founder @Kitemaker (YC W21)
Kevin Simons is the Founder and CTO of Kitemaker, a startup he co-founded in September 2019.13 He is an experienced engineering leader who transitioned into entrepreneurship. Simons holds a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science and Music from Colby College (1998-2002) and a Master's degree in Computer Science from Tufts University (2002-2004).3
Before founding Kitemaker, Simons had an extensive career in the tech industry:
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He worked at Nokia from 2004 to 2012, holding various senior positions including Principal Architect for Qt and Team Lead for Qt JSON DB.13
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From 2012 to 2016, he was at Telenor Digital, where he served as VP Strategic Engineering and Tech Lead for Firefox OS.13
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Simons then joined Schibsted from 2016 to 2019, where he held roles such as Senior Engineering Manager for Identity and Insights, and Interim Head of Data & Insights.13
In 2021, Kitemaker participated in Y Combinator's W21 batch.13 Simons is passionate about efficient software development, believing that small, talented teams can produce remarkable results quickly.3 He advocates for running code over extensive documentation, emphasizing practical results in software development.3
On LinkedIn, Simons can be found under the username ksimons, where he frequently shares updates about Kitemaker and insights into software development practices.2456
Highlights
One of my favorite things about being a founder in a small startup is how closely I get to work with our users every single day.
Last week, Privacy Company (makers of Privacy Nexus) switched from using Product Board for managing their user feedback to using Kitemaker (YC W21).
I had a blast working with Laura Macchini to use Kitemaker's API to import the data. She was super patient as we ironed out some kinks in the API, added a feature on the fly to be able to highlight insights in feedback straight from the API, and even debugged a few boneheaded mistakes by yours truly in the scripts we wrote to do the import.
If you're really trying to make something people want, there's no substitute for constant dialogue with your users.
And if you're looking for a great place to store all the feedback and insights you get from all those discussions with your users, give Kitemaker a try! https://kitemaker.co.
