Jumio’s staff is expanding rapidly.

And even though we operate in a state of anardemocracy here at the Jumio HQ and the development centre, the screens on the desks reveal who is important at Jumio and who is not quite there yet. As cruel as it sounds, once again it looks like size does matter.

Here are the gadgets, and the according position within the company.

Coffee Gophers/Interns

Marketing Assistants

Marketing Head Honcho and the Creative Cluster

Development Interns

Flash/Backend/Action Script Gurus and the Biz Dev Boss

HR Chief, Financial Master, Developer Villain

The Founder!

More than 60,000 people showed up at this years Mobile World Congress 2011 in Barcelona. Naturally, Jumio founder Daniel was one of them.

The number of attendees is a new record, and organizer GSMA’s CEO John Hoffman knows why. “Mobile truly is leading a transformation in how the world communicates.”

Sounds like an obvious statement, but if you dwell deeper you will realize that mobile has not yet reached all of our daily – let’s call them needs to its full potential.

Daniel attended to take a closer look at solutions, apps in particular, that tackle the issue of mobile money. (“Mobile money” is, on a completely different note, a brilliant term in our humble opinion.) Any topic that touches money automatically requires a more “serious” approach, especially when fraud and security issues come into play. Maybe that explains the unprecedented number of attendees from the world’s government delegations.

“What mobile voice communication was for the first decade of this century, is payment for the second”, says Daniel Mattes. And by the way, he loved the mobile phone sushi-style bar.

My payment resolutions for this year and the years to follow:

- I will not get irritated and angry about outdated payment solutions
and scenarios, but rather use them to come up with something better.

- I will be more understanding if I cannot pay with a payment card

- My new project Jumio is above all about making people’s life easier
and less frustrating. However Jumio evolves, I will keep that in mind.

- I will keep my ears and eyes wide open to learn how merchants think
about the payment options they offer. What do they want?

- Is one card enough? It should be.

- Credit card companies and payment providers are my friends.

- I will try and get by without using cash. I will share that experience.

Have a great 2011 everyone!

The answer is Yes.

But wait! Before you call us arrogant, aloof and self assured, give us a second to explain why Jumio is a hot start-up. Naturally, our own expectations are high, and the hard work the developers are putting in at the moment seems to be a strong indicator that we are indeed working on something that will put Jumio spot on the map of the payment world.

But it is not our own high expectations that lead us to boastful statements. Recently, Jumio got some really good press we’d love to share with you. Starting off is former FT journalist Tom Foremski with a Silicon Valley Watcher interview with Daniel. To quote Tom:

“I met with Mr Mattes earlier this the year and I was impressed by what I heard — if he can deliver on his presentation then this will become one of the hottest startups of 2011.”

Find the thouroughly readable interview in its entirety here.

This was followed by a piece on Jumio, published by none other than TechCrunch on no other night than Christmas Eve. The lead of the story is, what else could it be, the Jumio version of silent night we posted last week. The text remains on a sersious note, however, and also quotes Foremski’s interview. See the TechCrunch article here.

Thanks for that, and here’s to a great 2011!

Daniel was invited to speak at a distinctively funky and fresh event last week.

Why funky? Why fresh?

Because it was an unpretentious gathering of young entrepreneurs, that gave the whole evening a fresh and ambitious feeling. Successful business people shared their tips and tricks of the trade with the audience.

So last Thursday, Daniel planted himself on the stage and answered a bunch of questions. A few of those questions were built around previous statements Daniel has made, for instance liking the development of another Facebook to winning – and he means really winning – the lottery. On that note the tip of the day was to not just go for sheer user numbers, but to keep a very strong focus on the issues that surface repeatedly when you are an entrepreneur.

How exactly am I going to make money with this? Is there a chance to expand my product over the years? If that is of importance: Is someone eventually going to buy my company? The chances are higher to sell a few enterprises for 100 Mio than one for 2 Billion. Keep that in mind.

Here’s another topic Daniel spread his thoughts on: Communications. How many channels do we really communicate through? Are all of these channels really necessary, or does it become increasingly difficult to prioritize in the flood of information. The idea of social networking is not purely quantity, but also quality, and not just one platform/social network but also the vast realm of bloggers, friends, colleagues, journalists etcetera.

Like it has been said in the opening statement, the evening was extremely motivating and highly refreshing, with a lot of entrepreneurial talent present.

The get-together was organized by Junge Wirtschaft – a division of the Austrian Chamber of Commerce. Thanks for the invite, and see you again soon!

Co-founder of VoIP platform Jajah.com, Daniel Mattes, has unveiled a new start-up for online payments called Jumio.com, a universal transaction solution for both individuals and businesses.

Details are yet undisclosed, except “it will be a revolutionary, quick and easy service that fulfills our high security criteria”, explains Mattes. Jumio is currently in stealth mode, the official presentation of the service is planned for later this year.

Jumio is headquartered in Mountain View, California, while the development centre is currently being set up in Linz, Austria. For Thomas Kastenhofer, COO at Jumio, this particular region is a definite first choice. “Both the Technical University of Linz and the Software Park Hagenberg are close by and produce an elite of developers every year.” Jumio expects to offer up to 100 jobs for developers in their offices in Linz, applications can be mailed to jobs@jumio.com