Steve Hanov
Coding since age 8 | startups, GTM & Growth | embedded/IoT | ai | ml
ex-SortableStartups. AI agents.
More
Waterloo/Toronto. 5M Saas sales. Growth in a zero-click worldCode used to be the hard part. Now it's distribution. I write about what technical founders need to know next When I have time I might consult. DM for availability
GTM Index
- HANOV SOLUTIONSJOB
- Founder / GTM Eng16Y 7M
Founder / GTM Engineer
Hanov Solutions Inc.
Bootstrapped and operate a portfolio of profitable SaaS products — no VC, no outside funding. • WebSequenceDiagrams: The web's go-to tool for software sequence diagrams. Serves billions of diagrams to date. • Zwibbler: Collaborative canvas for diagramming, sketching, and whiteboarding used by Y thousand teams. • RhymeBrain: The web's largest rhyming dictionary, used by songwriters, poets, and language learners worldwide. • Eh-trade: AI-driven financial analysis platform for retail investors (in development). Consulting practice: AI strategy, software architecture review, and product execution for founders and technical teams. Clients range from early-stage startups to established comp…
- UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOOSCHOOL
- Continuing education, Math12Y 9M
Continuing education, Math
University of Waterloo
- Masters of Mathematics, Co…4Y 11M
Masters of Mathematics, Computer Science
University of Waterloo
- BMath, Math5Y 11M
BMath, Math
University of Waterloo
- NIFT INCORPORATEDJOB
- Co-founder1Y 4M
Co-founder
Nift Incorporated
Help solidify the idea and pitch, developed prototype software. Learned what not to do for GTM strategy
- SORTABLEJOB
- Developer6M
Developer
Sortable
I worked on their codebase in Scala fixing bugs and adding new features. When they were acquired by Rebellion media, it didn't feel right quit the next day.
- RESEARCH IN MOTIONJOB
- Senior Software Developer,…10M
Senior Software Developer, Office of the CTO
Research in motion
Working in a small research think tank, I contributed to frequent discussions about the future of technology. It was our role to create prototypes to learn about new technology areas, and evangelize them to others in the organization. I used python, HTML5, and Riak to create machine learning and cloud storage technology demos. The company lacked direction, and people were being let go every Friday. I was safe but I left anyway because it wasn't fun anymore.
- BLACKBERRYJOB
- Team Lead, EDGE/LTE firmware8Y 3M
Team Lead, EDGE/LTE firmware
BlackBerry
Call me Mr. EDGE. I developed a large chunk of the 2G cellular protocol stack, and I singlehandedly developed 90% of the UMA layer which connects cellular and Wifi networks together. I filed five or six patents along the way. I relish opportunities to write code, as you can see by my personal projects. However, lately I have also been bringing groups together to focus effort, creating estimates, placating panicking managers, and developing new employees to achieve their full potential. Addendum: My work was at the cell selection, multiframe, ARQ and block sched level. I can quote 3GPP specs verbatim years later. No viturbi alg or DSP stuff but I'm sure I could learn it.
- MICROSOFTJOB
- Software Design Eng, Netwo…3M
Software Design Engineer, Networking and Transports
Microsoft
The task: implement a plugin to Winsock that made IPv4 applications work over IPv6 sockets. I wrote a design document, coded it and held coding reviews for the project, and drank lots of free milk.
- SOMA NETWORKSJOB
- Software Developer3M
Software Developer
SOMA Networks
SOMA made a fixed box that you put on your desk and provided phone and internet jacks. It used C for the timing critical code, and Java for everything else. My job was to modify some audio filters in C so that they could output some pre-recorded tones over RTP, compressed using the G729 codec. But they ran out of funding, so I also had to integrate some half-finished changes in the Java code, from fulltimers who were laid off just after I got there. Ouch!
- QUACK.COMJOB
- Software Developer1Y 11M
Software Developer
Quack.com
Quack.com was the first "voice portal". You dialed a number and said "weather" or "movies" or "email" and it would read you some information from the web. I developed a clean C++ interface to allow a windows application to communicate with Dialogic and other telephony hardware interfaces. I also created a speech recognition server which forwarded and processed HTTP requests to convert waveforms into speech commands.
- COREL CORPORATIONJOB
- Software, Developer, Text…11M
Software, Developer, Text Engines
Corel Corporation
Write some text that wraps around a circle. Now click on it and drag it away. That was my idea and I implemented it. I also fixed over 75 bugs in application, text rendering, and font engines, and that included modifying the 2000 line recursive function called "FormatText()". I improved the quality of code using C++ destructors to eliminate memory leaks.
- Job: Hanov Solutions Inc. — Founder / GTM Engineer · 2010-03 – present · 16y 5mo — Bootstrapped and operate a portfolio of profitable SaaS products — no VC, no outside funding. • WebSequenceDiagrams: The web's go-to tool for software sequence diagrams. Serves billions of diagrams to date. • Zwibbler: Collaborative canvas for diagramming, sketching, and whiteboarding used by Y thousand teams. • RhymeBrain: The web's largest rhyming dictionary, used by songwriters, poets, and language learners worldwide. • Eh-trade: AI-driven financial analysis platform for retail investors (in development). Consulting practice: AI strategy, software architecture review, and product execution for founders and technical teams. Clients range from early-stage startups to established comp…
- Job: Nift Incorporated — Co-founder · 2012-12 – 2014-04 · 1y 4mo — Help solidify the idea and pitch, developed prototype software. Learned what not to do for GTM strategy
- Job: Sortable — Developer · 2012-02 – 2012-08 · 6 mo — I worked on their codebase in Scala fixing bugs and adding new features. When they were acquired by Rebellion media, it didn't feel right quit the next day.
- Job: Research in motion — Senior Software Developer, Office of the CTO · 2011-05 – 2012-03 · 10 mo — Working in a small research think tank, I contributed to frequent discussions about the future of technology. It was our role to create prototypes to learn about new technology areas, and evangelize them to others in the organization. I used python, HTML5, and Riak to create machine learning and cloud storage technology demos. The company lacked direction, and people were being let go every Friday. I was safe but I left anyway because it wasn't fun anymore.
- Job: BlackBerry — Team Lead, EDGE/LTE firmware · 2003 – 2011-04 · 8y 3mo — Call me Mr. EDGE. I developed a large chunk of the 2G cellular protocol stack, and I singlehandedly developed 90% of the UMA layer which connects cellular and Wifi networks together. I filed five or six patents along the way. I relish opportunities to write code, as you can see by my personal projects. However, lately I have also been bringing groups together to focus effort, creating estimates, placating panicking managers, and developing new employees to achieve their full potential. Addendum: My work was at the cell selection, multiframe, ARQ and block sched level. I can quote 3GPP specs verbatim years later. No viturbi alg or DSP stuff but I'm sure I could learn it.
- Job: Microsoft — Software Design Engineer, Networking and Transports · 2002-05 – 2002-08 · 3 mo — The task: implement a plugin to Winsock that made IPv4 applications work over IPv6 sockets. I wrote a design document, coded it and held coding reviews for the project, and drank lots of free milk.
- Job: SOMA Networks — Software Developer · 2001-09 – 2001-12 · 3 mo — SOMA made a fixed box that you put on your desk and provided phone and internet jacks. It used C for the timing critical code, and Java for everything else. My job was to modify some audio filters in C so that they could output some pre-recorded tones over RTP, compressed using the G729 codec. But they ran out of funding, so I also had to integrate some half-finished changes in the Java code, from fulltimers who were laid off just after I got there. Ouch!
- Job: Quack.com — Software Developer · 2000 – 2001 · 1y — Quack.com was the first "voice portal". You dialed a number and said "weather" or "movies" or "email" and it would read you some information from the web. I developed a clean C++ interface to allow a windows application to communicate with Dialogic and other telephony hardware interfaces. I also created a speech recognition server which forwarded and processed HTTP requests to convert waveforms into speech commands.
- Job: Corel Corporation — Software, Developer, Text Engines · 1999-01 – 1999-12 · 11 mo — Write some text that wraps around a circle. Now click on it and drag it away. That was my idea and I implemented it. I also fixed over 75 bugs in application, text rendering, and font engines, and that included modifying the 2000 line recursive function called "FormatText()". I improved the quality of code using C++ destructors to eliminate memory leaks.
- Job: No-company. (Self-employed.) — Software Developer · unknown – present
- Job: Mike Ollefs — Software Developer · unknown – present
- Job: Go To Market Engineering — Software Developer · unknown – present
- School: University of Waterloo — Masters of Mathematics, Computer Science · 2005 – 2009
- School: University of Waterloo — BMath, Math · 1998 – 2003
- School: University of Waterloo — Continuing education, Math · 2014 – present
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