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This is the story of Dominic Tan and Juancho Del Castillo, who use Iceberg to build up their business. An impactful story that shows that in a fast Web 2.0 world dominated by superfluous applications and services, there are still services that bring value in our lives.

Iceberg - Software Has Evolved.

We read about a new Web service every day, we are familiar with their offers, we follow the buzz on every tech hub, we blog about their every move as if there were nothing else out there to talk about.

Sometimes we forget to ask ourselves: what real values do these popular services bring in our lives? How does twitter really make our life better? Is digg really so valuable, or aren’t we just wasting time and energy trying to reach out to people who don’t really care about what we need anyway? How do we stop the endless “shouts” promoting news we forget in the immediate moment we agree to vote for?

Surprisingly I am offering you today a story that will never make it to the first page at digg, a story that will not inspire a TechCrunch author to write about, because “it doesn’t sell.” It’s the story of a Web 2.0 service that actually brought value in the life of two brothers in law. Dominic Tan and Juancho Del Castillo use Iceberg to build their business.

If you didn’t know it by now, Iceberg is a Web 2.0 platform that enables users to develop without coding dynamic custom applications. Unlike its competitors, Iceberg offers the platform free for up to 5 users and for non-profits. This is quite generous, considering the amount of work the developers invested in creating Iceberg, and believe me, I know what I am talking about. Pamil Visions has been representing Iceberg in a few occasions and we are also using the platform for our time management and invoicing needs. So yes, we endorse Iceberg, because it is as good as Wayne Byrne, the CEO, says it is. Without further delay, this is the story of a Web 2.0 application, really doing something for two young men who needed help to start their business. Please take your time and read till the end and if you like the story, feel free to submit your encouragement comments in the comments box.

Dominic Tan (Nikko)

• Took up IT course in college for 2 years but stopped. Currently without a college degree
• Project manager and information systems manager in a research company. Recently resigned

Juancho Del Castillo (Choy)

• Systems Developer and Database Programmer
• Database specialist in a research company. Recently resigned.

Choy and I are brother in-laws working at the same research company. I’m an IT manager only by title, since I don’t hold any certifications or enough technical experience to be at an IT manager level. Choy has a rare heart disease which does not allow him to work like a normal programmer does in software development companies. Travelling, pollution, elevators, and varying temperatures are too taxing for him, so his status is usually work-from-home.

When Iceberg launched public beta, I found out about it through Techcrunch and Mashable. I immediately downloaded it and looked through it. I’m not a database programmer, nor do I have any system development background. Iceberg really appealed to me in the sense that it was easy to use and it had a lot of potential.
Shortly after that, Wayne contacted me via email for a little demo of what Iceberg could do. At the end of the demo I was convinced of its potential.

I shared this with Choy, who at the time wasn’t accepting system development projects for the following reasons:

• Client visits : he can’t go to the province to visit the client
• Project timeline : developing a system usually takes 6 months at least
• No partner technically capable to program a system with him

He took a look at Iceberg and saw the same promising potential I saw: development timeline. With Iceberg system development time can be cut in half, and possibly even more once we become accustomed to it. It isn’t hard to learn.

Choy’s mom is an accountant with many clients, varying from hotels to trading and manufacturing companies. We took the chance. We also realized that we needed to put all our efforts into this so we planned our resignation and eventually resigned from the research company.

We spent one day discussing the work flow of a small hospital. By the following day, we were putting together the proposal for the system which we would develop using Iceberg. The proposal has been sent and awaiting availability of funds for the project.

Knowing it would take some time for the hospital project to come, we went on to the trading companies. Again we spent a day discussing the possible workflow and put together a proposal for a small pharmaceutical trading company.

They asked for a demo of the system which we still didn’t have. So we went on to develop a demo.
In the course of 1 week, we were able to develop an inventory system which could handle purchase orders, receiving reports, inventory updates and delivery batches, and sales invoicing. In the second week, we were able to add an accounting module with the various accounting reports (i.e. financial statement), cash receipts, disbursements, agents, suppliers with payment terms, customers with payment terms, and regions.

In 2 weeks time, we were able to develop a system for demo that was basically complete save for some customizations for the client. In those 2 weeks, we had no practical experience with Iceberg. We were full of questions and I am really glad Wayne was very accommodating all this time.

The first trading company played us a bad hand so we didn’t get any deal from them after our demo. But as for the second trading company, we are going to be signing a contract with them tomorrow (Aug 20).

The trading system we have so far still has flaws since we still lack technical experience with Iceberg, but considering what we achieved in 2 weeks, Iceberg has already surpassed the norms in system development from our point of view.

We are set to come up with a demo for the Hospital System by September. That may take a few months but we expect it to still be faster than any hospital system development timeline.

We’d like to thank Wayne Byrne, Iceberg CEO, for sending us this story.