James Barnes writes about technology and culture while working as a Product Manager in consumer internet.
He has spent 25 years building things on the web and in wireless across New Zealand, the UK, China and Malaysia.
In 2006, he co-founded Morodo, a mobile VoIP company that let people choose which carrier handled their calls. In 2010 he took a break to catch up on his reading and writing and figure out where to put the next 10,000 hours.
In 2012, he co-founded RinggitPlus, a service helping Malaysians navigate banking and insurance products so they get more for their money.
Making A Start
Born in the South of England, James emigrated to New Zealand in spring 1994. He joined Telecom NZ and spent five years learning networks and product development from the ground up.
In 1999, James moved back to London and joined switchless reseller LCR Telecom. A few months later, LCR was acquired by Primus Telecommunications Inc, which turned out to be perfect timing.
Product Management
As a Product Manager at Primus, James helped develop the company’s European mobile strategy and prepaid VoIP products.
While selling co-branded services from Vodafone and BT Cellnet, he worked on teams that acquired Telstra Mobile UK’s corporate customers, designed a proprietary billing system, created a multi-tiered voice service, and built the UK’s first Mobile VoIP gateway.
Making Mobiles
In January 2003, James became a founding member of Primus Mobile, created to capture wireless international call traffic through a hardware approach.
James managed the design and development of GSM mobile phones with Chinese state-owned enterprises. By January 2004, he was General Manager of Primus Mobiles, based in Beijing, China.
Over two years, he launched six mobile phones. Each device delivered calls and SMS to the Primus network regardless of which SIM card was installed. James created a patent for this function, which you can read at WIPO. It has since lapsed.
Working with a Bangalore design house, he also built a dual-SIM mobile to pre-production stage. The related patent is on this WIPO page. In December 2005, Primus closed the European mobile business unit.
Morodo
The most common question James heard while pitching Primus Mobile’s alternative network calling was “This is brilliant, when can you make it work on my Nokia?”
That gave him the idea to build mobile software that let customers choose which company handled their phone calls.
With angel investment secured, Beijing Morodo Technology Development Co., Ltd. launched in January 2006. James’ team built a minimum viable product and ran a live market trial in Beijing.
Morodo Group Limited was incorporated in October 2006 to take the service worldwide.
RinggitPlus
After Morodo, James took a year off before returning to project work. In 2012 he was invited to Malaysia to start RinggitPlus.
What began as two people at a desk wondering how to build a Moneysupermarket.com for Southeast Asia became a successful business with millions of customers.
Why Affenstunde?
Affenstunde is the name of a pioneering album released by German band Popul Vuh in 1970. It’s a towering achievement in electronica, every home should have a copy, really. You can stream it now.
Affenstunde is also a great nonsense word for a domain if you wanted to teach yourself SEO twenty years ago.