Prairie Portrait: Aaron Hoffman, agile development consultant

I do what I do because… I enjoy it and so far people still pay me to do it. In my own small way, I see it as freeing people from traditional application development and helping them to be more efficient and accelerate innovation.

Name: Aaron Hoffman
Title/Occupation: Agile development consultant
Age: 28
Hometown: Marion, Linn County, Iowa
Current city: West Des Moines, Iowa
Twitter: @aaron_hoffman

Personal

Title of my autobiography: “I kneel to no man and I pray only to God”
Thing I can’t live without: Food and the Internet. I would not have very many useful skills if not for the Internet.
Drink of choice: Coffee—Americano specifically. 
Last book I read: “Lean Analytics” by Alistair Croll
Ultimate road trip snack: Reese’s Pieces 
Entrance song if I was a wrestler: “Fear” by Disturbed
Celebrity doppelgänger: Maybe Michael J. Fox?
Guilty pleasure band and/or film: How about TV? Then I would have to say “Doomsday Preppers.”
Chosen career in an alternate reality: Starfleet Captain (or First Officer to Captain Picard)
Worst OCD tendency: Making sure the indentation in source code is perfect
Quote I might have said: “If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.” – Antoine de Saint Exupéry
Which actor or actress, and why: Sean Connery, the reasons are obvious.
Favorite YouTube video: “Who favors more freedom, liberals or conservatives?” (Answer: neither do).

Local

Best place in Des Moines no one knows about: Can’t say, then people would know about it.
Des Moines’ obligatory tourist stop: Zombie Burger, the State Fair or the Farmers’ Market.
One thing Des Moines has that other Silicon Prairie cities don’t: The Des Moines Kubb Klassic
Best thing going for Des Moines’ startup community: Tenacity. And Iowa is home to the nicest people on earth.
Last local restaurant I ate at: Monterrey
Best meal I’ve had in Des Moines: Backyard BBQ
Des Moines would be better if… we built a few more lanes on I-235.

The Startup Scene

Social media pet peeve: Twitter not embedding Instagram photos.
App I’m obsessed with: Feedly—pretty good Google Reader replacement. I use it every morning.
Silicon Prairie startup crush:  Offspring—they are just about to launch. I’m jealous because I know my family is going to love this app and use it a lot.
Most comfortable startup T-shirt I own:  I/OWA Conference staff T-shirt
Something most people don’t know about me: I believe in a good education, but I’m not a fan of our current form of schooling. I don’t value (most) college degrees in their current form and I never got one myself.
Entrepreneur I most want to grab a drink with: Nikola Tesla (more of an inventor than entrepreneur, but still).
I do what I do because… I enjoy it and so far people still pay me to do it. In my own small way, I see it as freeing people from traditional application development and helping them to be more efficient and accelerate innovation.
Before I was in startups… I grew up on a family farm/small business, then did the corporate thing for a while, then consulting.
If money wasn’t an object, my next company would be… Probably what I’m doing today, but if not that then a Tiki Hut on a beach somewhere, a big game hunting outfitter or a ski lodge.
The Silicon Prairie startup scene is missing…  exposure. It would benefit the entire community (not just the entrepreneurs within that community) if local entrepreneurs were supported better by their local media outlets and those communities understood entrepreneurism and the challenges entrepreneurs faced.
In five years, I’ll… have a small agile development consultancy that employs the best software developers in Des Moines.
In five years, the Silicon Prairie… will be connected by a system of high-speed rail allowing fast travel between all major Midwest cities. That or teleporters.

 

Credits: Photos courtesy of Aaron Hoffman. 

This story is part of the AIM Archive

This story is part of the AIM Institute Archive on Silicon Prairie News. AIM gifted SPN to the Nebraska Journalism Trust in January 2023. Learn more about SPN’s origin »

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