A Genius At Work...
I find it fascinating to get a glimpse behind the scenes at the workspace of great people - so enjoyed this blog post with pictures of Albert Einstein's desk from Life magazine in 1955.
It's too easy to fall into the 'revision timetable' problem of very tidy people, where more time is spent on preparing for the activity and clearing up after it than is spent on the activity itself.
Creation is a messy process, and we shouldn't be ashamed of that. So celebrate a messy desk, a sloppy intray - but only if you've doing something great in amongst it all. :)
Three Stories from Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs is held up as an icon of entrepreneurship, and in this video he talks about 3 key events that have shaped his life:
1. Dropping out of college.
He talks about his adoption, and his parents determination to send him to college. But he didn't find college to be worth the fees they were forced to pay - so he left after 6 months. He was very poor, but this gave him the freedom to explore what he wanted to learn and do - and he ended up learning the skills he would later need to create Apple.
2. Getting fired from Apple
He'd hired a manager to run the business with him, but their visions diverged - and the board of directors sided with the manager. So at the age of 30, Steve was fired from the company he founded.
This was when he founded Pixar, and a company called NXT (which eventually was bought by Apple, and its technology formed the basis for Apple's rennaiscance).
He says "Sometimes life is going to hit you in the head with a brick, but don't lose faith. I'm convinced the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to love what you do. The only way to do great work is to love what you do - if you haven't found what you love keep looking and don't settle"
3. Facing Death
Remembering that you are going to die is the best way he knows of focusing on what is really important. Everything else falls away in the face of death. Steve talks about being diognosed with cancer and being told to get his affairs in order and being prepared to die. Against the odds he was cured of the cancer - but the feeling of having limited time, and being determined not to waste it, has stayed with him.
The speech was given to thousands of students on their commencement day at Stanford University, and it's a very inspiring talk from one of the world's most successful entrepreneurs.
Again a hat-tip to GigaOm for another great recommendation.
Solving the 3 problems of online business models
Online business models face new twists on the evergreen challenges that all business face - how to win customers, support customers in using the product or service, and how to keep the customers you've won.
Joshua Porter from Bokardo Social Web Design has prepared the fantastic presentation above, with some ideas on solving the three challenges he identifies:
1. The Signup Problem
Can you imagine if a real-world shop made you signup before letting you buy anything - making you fill out your name, address, email etc? Well online businesses have to put this extra stage in the way of potential customers - and it's one of the biggest drop-out points. How can this be improved?
2. The First Time Use Problem
People are trying out your product or service, but don't know what to do. How can you help them understand it, and get involved with it, before they give up and don't come back?
3. The Ongoing Engagement Problem
How do you keep users involved and active - and how do you build enough traction in a community based site (ie the chicken/egg problem of whoch comes first lots of users, or a valuable site?).
The presentation is mainly aimed at social web services, but applies to all online businesses. It really is well worth viewing the presentation at least twice to soak up all the information and ideas.
Monetising Start-Ups - Optimise your sales funnel
After an extremely busy end to 2009, I've managed to use the first few days of 2010 to catch up on reading - and one of the first articles I've read contained the slideshow above.
Tony Wright is the founder of RescueTime a software business that helps business people track and analyse their use of time for better productivity.
He's clearly learned a lot in his entrepreneurial career, because I think the presentation is absolutely spot on in identifying the important things for a startup to focus on - and explaining why they are important. The presentation is based around software or web businesses, but the principles apply to any business.
You can read his full blog post here, or here are his key points:
You should look at your business as a funnel (which, incidentally, is how every salesguy on the planet looks at their sales pipeline).
What’s at the top of this funnel varies on what type of business you have. Maybe it’s page views from organic SEO and SEM. Maybe it’s warm leads from a bank of cold-calling lead-gen folks. And maybe your conversion event is a software purchase (like ours is). Maybe it’s an ad-click. Maybe it’s an account signup. But trust me, you have a funnel.
So when trying to figure out what the hell to work on as an entrepreneur, go worship at the alter of the funnel. That means:
* Measure the hell out of everything. If you don’t know many many new visitors are coming to your site, what percentage of them do something, what percentage of THOSE people, click signup, what subset of THOSE people actually successfully signup, and what percentage of THOSE people are paying you a month later, the first thing you should do is work on metrics. Don’t go overboard, but know your funnel.
* Work your way UP the funnel, not down (if you have the financial luxury to do so). Most entrepreneurs ask “how do I get people to come to my site so it can grow?” The answer most often is down the funnel: the product isn’t providing enough value, communicating clearly enough, engendering enough passion, or causing people to want to tell their friends.
* Seek the low hanging fruit in the funnel. That means that you should seek out where people are escaping your funnel. If you get tons of visitors but no one clicks on anything (high bounce rate, low time on site), chances are your value prop is confusing or isn’t very compelling. You might need to improve the product, but chances are you just have to improve how you talk about it.
* Seek leverage. The lower you attack the funnel, the more it helps. If you do something to improve your retention that will help you forever. If you do something that gives you a boost in acquisition (like a SuperBowl ad), the value will be short-lived (unless you have a true viral loop).
The full blog is well worth a read, and I urge you to step through the slides above.
Hat tip to GigaOm for recommending the article.
Liveblog: Launch48
Launch48 is taking place this weekend (Fri, Sat, Sun - 9am-9pm each day!).
150 entrepreneurs, web developers, designers and other talented folk have gathered to be mentored by experienced entrepreneurs such as William Reeve (founded LoveFilm) - with the aim of creating 6 great web businesses by the end of the weekend.
I'm taking part and will be liveblogging the experience here.
For more information on the event see: http://www.launch48.com
How to view the Liveblog
If you're viewing this in summary on the front page of my site you need to click the title above - that says 'Liveblog: Launch48' to see the liveblog page in full.
Once on the liveblog page it will update automagically as I post updates.
Getting in Touch
I'm on twitter as @steveparks, or you can comment below.
Early = Wrong
There's been a string of Web 2.0 companies biting the dust in the recession, and as with all business failure it's well worth examining what went wrong to learn some valuable lessons.
In the case of Lookery, which has just announced it's closure, the founder himself has taken that step back to a analyse what happened, and has written up his thoughts in a very open and honest blog post: http://blog.lookery.com/2009/08/21/couldery-shouldery/
The whole thing is worth a read, but it's the last lesson he mentions that leapt out from the page for me:
Coulda-Shoulda #3. Once we sold the ad network, I fell into a bad old habit — persuading my team to build something before the market was ready for it.... This is the fourth blog post that I can find from a Lookery exec in which the primary theme is early = wrong.
It's such a common mistake of entrepreneurs (including me), that I wanted to say a bit more about it.
If you launch a new idea onto the market, it is very very hard work. You have to educate people about why your idea is a good one, how it works, and how it can help them. You have to establish your ideas value in the marketplace. You have to drive demand to something new.
If you launch a business that capitalises on an existing idea, all this work is done for you, and you can focus your resources on harnessing existing demand.
Many people think Google was the first search engine because it's the most successful. It wasn't. It was 7th to launch. Can you name the first? No. It doesn't exist anymore.
Was the Dyson the first vacuum cleaner? Did Richard Branson invent the aeroplane? Did Donald Trump invent buildings?
Even Bill Gates didn't invent the operating system, the word processor, the web browser, etc.
These highly successful billionaires didn't invent anything, and weren't first to market with their idea.
The 'First Mover Advantage' is a myth. It's the 'First Mover Curse' in reality.
If you really really want to launch something brand new - at least make sure your business is extremely well capitalised, because you'll burn through a hell of a lot of money before you make it succeed.
Better to stand on shoulders of giants, and build a successful business by improving what the market has already learned to want.
Simple and Fair Investor Term Sheets
FFI Plain Preferred Term Sheet -
Techcrunch today highlights the publication of the template term sheet (shown above) from The Funded Founder Institute.
The Funded campaigns and spreads information designed to make VC deals fairer for the founders, and there has been growing discussion that the series A term sheet should be standardised. Out of that discussion has actually come some consensus between entrepreneurs and VCs, and you'll find the result here: http://www.docstoc.com/docs/10303638/FFI-Plain-Preferred-Term-Sheet
It's US focused, but the VC deal-structure principles are similar worldwide, so it could be modified for other countries.
Using something like this could save both sides a fortune in professional fees - which'll be a big help in small early stage rounds.
Meanwhile Techcrunch has previously reported that the Y-Combinator incubator has released similar documents suitable for smaller Angel rounds.
The documents are listed here: http://www.ycombinator.com/seriesaa.html
YCombinator StartUp Challenge: The Future of Journalism
How can the media can best evolve for the web? What is going to replace newspapers online? How can content sites make money?
The answers to these questions are highly valued at the moment. Rupert Murdoch believes he can just put content behind a subscription pay wall and people will be happy to pay for it rather than get it free from other sites.
Some sites (like TechCrunch that the link below goes to) make money from advertising and events while giving the content away free.
But many sites make no money at all.
The renowned incubator for startups, YCombinator, has set a challenge to entrepreneurs - come up with the solutions to some of these media challenges and they'll help you get started in business to solve them.
Details of the challenge are reported on TechCrunch here: http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/08/16/y-combinator-starts-seeding-ideas-t....
YCombinator says:
Newspapers and magazines are in trouble. We think they will mostly die, because we think we know what will replace them, and it is too far from their current model for them to reach it in time.
And yet people still need at least some of what they do. You can't have aggregators without content. So what will the content site of the future look like? And how will you make money from it? These questions turn out to be very closely related. Just as they were for print media, initially. The reason newspapers and magazines are dying is that what they do is no longer related to how they make money from it. In fact, most journalists probably don't even realize that the definition of journalism they take for granted was not something that sprang fully-formed from the head of Zeus, but is rather a direct though somewhat atrophied consequence of a very successful 20th century business model.
What would a content site look like if you started from how to make money—as print media once did—instead of taking a particular form of journalism as a given and treating how to make money from it as an afterthought?
(The good news is, we think the writing will actually end up being better.)
Groups applying to work on this idea should include at least one person who can write well and rapidly about any topic, one or more programmers who are good at statistics, data mining, and making sites scale, and someone who's reasonably competent at graphic design. These functions can of course be combined, and in fact it's even better if they are. Ex-Googlers would be particularly well suited to this project.
Find out more details and apply for the challenge here: http://ycombinator.com/rfs1.html
The Social Media Revolution
Here's some food for thought about the power and growth of social media. How can your company use this to its advantage - and avoid the downsides?
Do you know how your company is being talked about on social media sites? What are your competitors doing with social media - and does it give you a competitive advantage.
It's worth watching and then thinking about some of these questions.
Liveblog: Entrepreneur Country Conference
I liveblogged the Entrepreneur Country event yesterday.
The original, as-it-happened liveblog can be found here: http://www.steveparks.co.uk/liveblogging_entrepreneur_country_event
Here's the roundup of the day...
09:11
About to start
We're soon to get underway. The event is the brainchild of Julie Meyer, the woman who made her name running First Tuesday in the late 90's, who now runs Ariadne Capital (and has just become the newest of the BBC's 'Dragons'). The opening remarks are from Jonathan Simnett. He's a senior adviser to Ariadne Capital, but has also been communications director at Spinvox - doing a good job of getting them in the public eye, and getting them talked about.
09:14
The Golden Age of the Entrepreneur
That's the title of this event apparantly. Jonathan says if we said that to the man on the street they'd laugh, but so many great companies get founded in downturns. We're going to look at the central role entrepreneurship is going to play in upturn.
09:18
Julie Meyer, CEO Ariadne Capital
She says she was bringing portfolio companies together on a regular basis, and it felt like a different place - the speed, the ideas etc. So she created entrepreneur country. She starts with premise: 'the entrepreneur is the hero'. They are willing to live frankly abnormal lives to build their business. The money is nothing more than money. Capital follows ideas. Stay focussed and the money will find you. A small group of people can make a disproportionate difference.
09:26
Andrew Main-Wilson, COO, Institute of Directors
He says he was once marketing director of Thomas Cook, wanted to leave and start his own business. needed
Liveblog: CBI Entrepreneurs' Summit
Yesterday I liveblogged the CBI Entrepreneurs' Summit, held in London. The event featured Stelios of Easyjet fame, Mark Dixon of Regus, and Brent Hoberman of Lastminute.com.
The original, as-it-happened liveblog page can be found at http://www.steveparks.co.uk/cbi_entrepreneurs_summit.
Here's the complete blog of the day's events...
10:04
Welcome from CBI
The vice-president of the CBI, Helen Alexander, is welcoming delegates. She mentions what the CBI claims it's doing to help entrepreneurs with the recession - claiming credit for the Regional Venture Funds, simplified legislation and business support etc!
10:07
Reasons for Hope
Ms Alexander continues with some reasons for hope... opportunities for startups (Mike Bloomberg famously launched his company after redundancy), new technologies etc. Recent upturn in stock market may mean people are ready to invest again. But the next year will be tough. Access to credit is still difficult. CBI will do what it can, she promises!
10:10
Chris Rea, MD of AESSEAL - Turni
Has
The Entrepreneur's Guide to SwineFlu
Swine Flu might seem an odd topic for an entrepreneurship blog, but stick with me.
One of my companies is a specialist communications consultancy, and for nearly 3 years we have been working with a group of extremely large global companies to help them share information and best practice to better prepare for a pandemic. A pandemic has long been expected by the World Health Organisation (WHO), and in fact they issued a statement a while back saying it was a case of 'when, not if'. The strain of virus they expected to mutate to be able to spread human-to-human was AH5N1 - a strain of Avian Influenza (commonly known as Bird Flu) - but the lessons learned and the plans put in place are the same as for this AH1N1 swine flu strain.
As well as our continuing best-practice-sharing project, last October my company was part of a simulation exercise testing the main executive team of a very large global company in executing their response plans to a pandemic.
The good news is that governments in developed countries, and the UK government in particular, are extremely well prepared for a pandemic. I've had insight into the plans, and found the level of thought and planning very reassuring. (As an aside, you may be excited to know that among many elements of the plans and supporting legislation, the UK government has given itself the powers to declare emergency bank holidays - not for fun, but to prevent the spread of disease by forcing businesses, schools etc to close)
Major global companies (especially those we've worked with of course!) are also well prepared, and employees of these companies can expect a measured and planned response from their executive teams and HR departments. They are ready with information and in many cases with supplies of anti-viral drugs.
So there really is no need to panic - let alone the fact that so far this virus doesn't seem deadly outside Mexico (for a reason that is not yet clear) - but there is every need for simple preparations to put yourself and your company in the best position.
However, smaller companies aren't at all prepared for this or any other emergency situation (fuel blockades, terrorist attacks in London, major industrial action, environmental emergencies such as floods, etc).
So as an entrepreneur, why not use the current situation as a spur to get proper business continuity plans in place for all sorts of situations - but for a pandemic in particular.
A Business Continuty Plan
The best business continuity plans are relatively generic, so that they can be used in any eventuality. So don't plan specifically for a flood at your building - plan for being generally unable to access your building, and then you'll also be ready for a fire or for the police sealing off the area because they found the bodies your accounts payable manager has been hiding there etc etc.
Work out: what are the crucial elements of your business, and what are your fallback plans for coping without them? Starting points are: Your premises, your key staff, your frontline staff, internet connection, telecoms, transport networks, key suppliers and so on.
In the event of pandemic one of the biggest impacts on business is predicted to be absenteeism. Some of this may be due to actual illness, some may be due to caring for dependents who are ill, and some may be simply through fear of catching the virus. But also it's expected that schools will be closed very early on in any crisis - so parents may have to stay at home to look after children, even if they're not ill. Perhaps 30%-50% of your staff could be absent at the peak of any pandemic. How would this impact your business? How can you mitigate that effect? What HR policies would you have for dealing with unauthorised absenteeism in such a situation?
Maybe a home-working backup plan is a good idea? What kind of internet connections do staff have? How will you keep in contact with each other? How will you manage the team?
The stay at home response will also have a knock-on effect for companies that rely on internet connectivity for themselves, or to actually deliver their service to customers. A concern is that with all the schools being closed, and parents not being keen to let kids out to play, they'll instead be at the computer downloading videos, watching the iPlayer, playing online games and putting a huge strain on the network infrastructure. The US Dept. of Homeland Security has identified this as a serious threat and actually developed a special report on the issue. Many of the questions raised in it have not yet been answered - will ISPs be instructed to ration connectivity for example.
You need a plan for the internet becoming incredibly slow, or unavailable to you or your customers because of the strain on internet service povider's infrastructure. It may be worth looking for business-focused ISPs with low contention ratios, getting a leased line if you can afford one, or otherwise making your internet access more resilient - and having back up plans.
Don't Panic
So, in conclusion, my message is simple. Don't panic, just prepare. Taking some time to think and plan now will help you to respond better in any emergency situation.
Liveblog: Techcrunch Geek n Rolla Event 5
This is the last in my series of blog posts writing up the Techcrunch Geek n Rolla tech-entrepreneurship event...
15:53 Reshma Sohoni, CEO, Seedcamp - Recession Business Models for Tech Startups
Seedcamp is a great organisation helping very early stage companies get some seed funding, some expertise and advice, and share their experiences. She's going to give some of that experience now.
15:56 Business Models for startups
Think through your business model at the start. Don't just build and worry about money later. There are lots of ways to sell valuable services Devil is in the detail - and execution. Talk to other startups, do your homework. Only one of the seedcamp startups has used advertising as their business model. The rest are 'freemium', subscription, simple sale of goods or license models.
15:57
Don't rely on advertising
There's a lot of advertising noise out there. Rates are falling. Effectiveness is falling. Income is falling. Look at affiliate programmes, vertical markets, lead generation and more innovative commercial models.
16:00
Freemium
A subscription business model - but with a bottom rung free option. People can try it easily.
16:02
Virtual Goods
Used a lot in gaming and virtual worlds. Stardoll, HotorNot are good examples.
16:03
Blended business models
Reshma thinks mixing business models is the way to go. Taking a share of some transactions, having affiliate links and having subscription income for example. But she says consulting is not a business model, because it's not your core activity.
The techcrunch writeup of this talk is at: http://uk.techcrunch.com/2009/04/22/more-from-geeknrolla-seedcamps-guide...
16:11 Fred Destin, Atlas Ventures - To VC or not to VC
Fred wants to help entrepreneurs understand Venture Capitalists. First VCs are swamped. Don't just email, don't just give your card straight away at an event. Build a relationship. He may not invest straight away, or at all, but he will help you, he will connect you to others. Don't be shy, talk to him. But the objective at first is not to tell him everything about your business. Raise his interest, raise his pulse and get him to like you. You come in, you pitch, and you're probably one of 30 they're looking at at the time. Within minutes he'll know whether he wants to fund you. It's like falling in love. He'll have an urge to give you money!! If he's a good VC, he'll then rationalise it.
16:13 Making an impression
After the first pitch - one day later he remembers 70%, after 5 days he remembers 10% of what you said - but he has to sell it to partners. So he needs supporting information from you and a clear pitch as to why it's a great opportunity. He needs 4 or 5 talking points to help him.
16:14 Follow up
He says European entrepreneurs are really bad at follow up. They don't call, don't email quickly. They give up to easily and don't come back to discuss knockbacks they get from him. Give him a call, answer his challenges.
16:22 Other points
They don't sign NDA's. They will give you help even if they don't give you money. Ask them for contacts, advice. Pick their brains. Due Diligence is always the same stuff. You can prepare. That'll make it faster. Timing is everything, and you're nowhere until the money is in the bank. When they do fund you they want to be partners. Building a business is long and painful. He lives it with his startups and thinks about them at night. The best entrepreneurs step aside to take a founders role and bring in a pro CEO - they still get the fame.
16:26 Q&A
He's extremely uncomfortable with single-person companies. Before you go to him, attract your core team, even if they work for you part time for free. Bring a talented team - a company is a collective organism - on your own you're nothing.
The techcrunch writeup is here: http://uk.techcrunch.com/2009/04/21/geeknrolla-european-entrepreneurs-ne...
16:29 Pitching Competition
There's now a session where ten start-ups are getting the chance to pitch their business plan to a panel of: Doug Richard, formerly of Dragon's Den Michael Smith, formerly of Firebox.com Alex Hoye, Angel Investor Julie Meyer, VC from Ariadne Capital
16:32 Jennie Lees, Affect Labs
Helping brands monitor brand intelligence online and what is being said about them. Looks into the conversations online using language analysis technology to work out the emotions behind them - positive or negative. How to make money? Freemium - theres a free trial. Looking for
Liveblog: Techcrunch Geek n Rolla Event 4
This is part of a series of blog posts writing up the events on the day at the TechCrunch Geek n Rolla tech entrepreneurship event in London...
14:27 Ian Hogarth, co-founder and CEO, Songkick
Ian founded SongKick, helping music fans to discover live music events. They started with help from YCombinator. He's going to talk about some of the tools web startups can use. The talk is written up on TechCrunch at: http://uk.techcrunch.com/2009/04/21/geeknrolla-the-secret-of-focus-is-to....
14:31 Finding tools
In the development of Songkick they kept finding things they needed that weren't their core focus, but were important. Eg they need to send emails to customers, but emailing isn't their core focus or skill - so they looked around for tools that other people had developed to help them develop them quickly - and avoid them having to re-invent the wheel. He's collected these tools at http://startuptools.pbwiki.com
14:43 Panel Discussion: How to win, excite and keep users
Next up is a panel discussion with Ryan Carson of the Future of Web Apps conference, Nick Brisbourne of DFJ Esprit (a VC), Keiran O'Neil of Playvfire.com, and Wendy White from Moonfruit.com. Ryan Carson is the master of personal branding. He's become known for always wearing a hat - and everyone can see when he arrives and where he is - making him easy to find in networking time.
14:50 Values and Loyalty
The first thought was that its important to have clear values, and a good story to tell about what you stand for. Moonfruit were in the first wave of dot.com businesses, but then faced the tech crash in 2001. They then had to turn a free service into a paid service. They maintained good customer loyalty through openness and honesty.
14:56 Agile process
Moonfruit, and many other companies here use an agile development process, with small regular releases. I'll be blogging more about the Agile Project Management process on this site soon. Ryan says a key thing to understand is that no-one cares about you as a company, just their own needs and how you server them.
14:59 Happy
It's good to focus on what makes users Happy - find out, and deliver it. Ryan said 'How successful would Ryanair be if you actually liked them rather than hated them?'
15:00 Feel the pain
make sure you use your own product - a lot. That way you find out what pain your users are experiencing and you can fix it.
15:07
The panel on listening to customers...
To build a great startup you have to take the world forward - and that means taking people they didn't know existed - so you can't ask customers what they want. If you listen to your users you get incremental change, not earth shattering change. Big ideas from entrepreneurs is what makes people famous.
15:09 Twitter from @AndyBeard
"Additional point, if you give users everything they want, you aren't left with anything to charge them for"
15:10 Twitter from @londontech
"it's an interesting balance between giving the users what they want, and staying focussed as an entrepreneur on your vision."
15:11 Twitter from @edsaint
"if I had asked my customers what they wanted, I would have built a faster horse." Henry T Ford
15:37 Nick Halstead, Favorit
Runs http://fav.or.it and www.tweetmeme.com. Started Oct 07. Raised
Liveblog: Techcrunch Geek n Rolla Event 3
This blog post continues my series of write-ups of the TechCrunch Geek n Rolla event...
William Reeve, Entrepreneur and Investor
William Reeve is one of the founders of Lovefilm and is now an investor.
13:48
Background of Lovefilm
Started as 3 different businesses - Lovefilm, Screen Select and Video Island - all with the same idea. Lovefilm launched first, about a year later the other two launched. Lovefilm had raised
Liveblog: Techcrunch Geek n Rolla Event 2
This is the second post in my series writing up the TechCrunch Geek n Rolla event in London...
Joe Drumgoole, CTO and Founder PutPlace.com
Again, the venues wi-fi was out of action here, but you can see Joe's presentation in the video above, and below.
The TechCrunch write-up of the speech is here: http://uk.techcrunch.com/2009/04/26/geeknrolla-launching-your-startup-in.... And the slides of this presentation are here:
Joe Stepniewski, co-founder, Skimlinks
Joe, known as @digijoe because of his twitter addiction (and, well, it's easier) is from Skimlinks and his talk was on 'Monetising your startup'.
He said the two elements were 'acquisition' and 'conversion'. Acquisition is getting people to use your site or product, and Conversion is turning them into paying customers.
Elements of Acquisition
Marketing and PR via search engine optimiasation, email, social media, events etc. The lower the cost of acquisition, the easier it will be to make a viable business.
Options for making money
When it comes to convert - what are you selling? Subs or advertising? If its ads the best is to deal direct with a few targetted advertisers, and offer monthly tenancy on your site for monthly periods. look for sponsorship opportunities such as themed home pages etc. Choose sponsors you genuinely like. Create interactive promotions where the audience participates, such as contests etc
The TechCrunch writeup of this talk can be found here: http://uk.techcrunch.com/2009/04/21/geeknrolla-mo-money-mo-affiliate-mar...
Jof Arnold, CEO, Gymfu.com
Again, the venues wi-fi didn't hold up well enough for me to liveblog this, but the videos are above and below, and the TechCrunch writeup is here: http://uk.techcrunch.com/2009/04/28/geeknrolla-what%E2%80%99s-the-freque...
Leisa Reichelt, User experience, Disambiguity
Lisa is a specialist in usability for websites. The TechCrunch writeup of this talk is here: http://uk.techcrunch.com/2009/04/21/geeknrolla-designing-good-user-exper.... The slides are above, and the videos are below.
After this there was a panel discussion about women in tech - which produced a controversial discussion, but not with many lessons for start-ups, so I'll skip it here. Head to techcrunch if you want the details.
Meanwhile, my writeup of the day continues in my next post...
Liveblog: Techcrunch Geek n Rolla Event 1
Yesterday's Geek n Rolla was a day-long conference for entrepreneurs building web and IT businesses. It was organised by TechCrunch, and took place between 10:30 and 18:00 on 21st April 2009.
I was there, and liveblogged the event. You can still see the as-it-happened page at http://www.steveparks.co.uk/liveblogging_geek_n_rolla.
In this, and the next few posts, I'll be giving a full overview of the day, including all my liveblog posts, plus links to the slides and videos from the event...
Inma Martinez, Stradbroke Advisors
The wi-fi wasn't yet working for me during this session, so it's not live-blogged.
Inma Martinez has worked in finance, tech and startups, and now runs a consultancy advising tech startups on finance - Stradbroke Advisors
You can read a short summary of the session at: http://uk.techcrunch.com/2009/04/21/geeknrolla-european-startups-need-to...
11:03: Andy McLoughlin, co-founder, Huddle
Speech about hiring a great startup team. He says its key to build a 'team of peers' and make them like a family. The initial team may not make the grade, and you shouldn't be afraid to change them. Being in a startup isn't for everyone - some people really do want to work for a bank! Meeting the perfect candidate is like falling in love.
11:07 How to build a team of peers
Andy continues with how they have built their team: Everyone is involved in hiring everyone else. This fosters a sense of family and buy-in. They have a 3 stage process: (1) A telephone call to screen candidates for about 20 mins. (2) a paired technical test with a huddle team member for about an hour. (3) A general interview for about 30 mins. After this its decision time - and unless everyone agrees, the answer is no.
11:11 Huddle's tips on building a business family
Andy says that Huddle 'bets on openness to build trust'. They keep the team in one building to foster better communications. Publishing regular targets and roadmaps is important - and they have a weekly standup meeting to update on progress. They involve the engineers and product team on sales calls - and involve everyone in product planning. They also allow everyone 10% of their time to 'hack' and create cool stuff.
11:16 How to find great talent?
Andy from Huddle says: they use freinds recommendations, direct applicants, blogging, speaking at events, twitter, networking events, job boards and social networking sites to get the word out and get applications. He says recruitment agents are 'bastards and full of s**t' - and if you use them you should create a preferred supplier list. If they want to be on it they have to agree max fees and other terms. he also says it's worth using interns - but be careful not to fall foul of European law on minimum wage etc
11:20 Twitter from @DigitalAndy
"Here's my recommendation on cheap recruiting, www.gurulite.co.uk I am not affiliated, just highly recommend!"
11:21 Employees leaving
Andy then spoke a little on breaking up with employees. It's heartbreaking if people want to leave, but inevitable. If you love them let them go. When they hand in their notice it's already too late. Try to look for early signs of unhappiness and solve them. Paying below market rate is a false economy. You should have someone go on an HR course and properly manage people leaving the company.
11:24 Create a Place you'd like to work
In order to attract and keep the best people you need to create a place that they really would like to work in - so start by making it a place that you would really like to work in. That means great people and nice surroundings. At Huddle they invested in a really good coffee machine because they found staff were spending a fortune on cappucinos. They run fun and creative games and activities, and have regular outings that involve partners. One I loved - they eat together regularly. It's a great way to break down barriers and build a family atmosphere, with respect and loyalty. Finally, they have made everyone a shareholder - so everyone is working for the success of the company long term.
The TechCrunch writeup of Andy's presentation is here: http://uk.techcrunch.com/2009/04/21/geeknrolla-building-strong-teams-mea...
The writeup of Geek n Rolla continues in my next post.
How to be an Entrepreneur - Summarised and Reviewed by an Entrepreneur
My book 'How to be an Entrepreneur' is being reviewed and summarised by a blogger at Business by Janice, and she's also adding some of her own experiences and ideas - which makes for interesting reading.
Janice Haywood now owns and runs a language school in Madrid after a career in retail management. She's experienced challenges and successes, and is frank about them on her blog. She also does some small business coaching.
In her first blog post mentioning my book she says:
I would like to recommend an excellent book I
Open Source Everything - Including Cars
The Open Source business model is an extremely interesting one - and I think it's going to become a key tool for startups in challenging large, entrenched, competitors.
In short, Open Source means that anyone can participate in the creation of something, and share in the benefit. But the organisation at the core of the project - and often other businesses that grow up through the community - profit by providing supporting services, premium versions and so on.
This website is built entirely on open source software - and you may well be viewing it in an open source web browser such as Firefox. If it weren't for these tools the web wouldn't have developed because it would have stayed too expensive.
The startups behind these technologies - such as MySql, Zend, Mozilla and more - have all been very successful, despite the fact that their main products are available free.
From that statement, you'd be right in thinking that it takes a bit of time to work out exactly how Open Source works, and how it can drive a successful business. To understand more about the ideas, read the essay The Cathedral and the Bazaar by Eric Raymond.
To date it is the software industry in which open source has been mainly used, but that is starting to change. And you know it really is gaining ground when the business model starts to be used in an industry like the automotive industry.
At the moment the car industry is dominated by badly run giants and founded on proprietary technologies. There's little innovation - and in fact innovation is stifled because the main players want to reap the rewards of their years of investment in legacy systems. But now the industry has hit the buffers - and that makes it the perfect time for brave entrepreneurs to enter the fray.
New, Entrepreneurial Car Companies
One of the key new innovators (but not open source) is Tesla Motors, setup by one of the founders of PayPal after selling up to eBay. Their mission is to build really cool, really fast, but environementally friendly, sports cars. That's one of their cars pictured above, and here's a video...
You can find out more about Tesla Motors on Wikipedia.
New, Open Source, Car Companies
Now a new Dutch startup has entered the market - with an Open Source business model. C,mm,n has an absolutely terrible brand name (it's pronounced Common) with those daft commas, but they have a great idea...
c,mm,n is an initiative of the Dutch society for nature and environment and the Dutch technical universities of Delft, Twente and Eindhoven. Together they have created c,mm,n; a sustainable automobility concept targeted at future urbanized western Europe.
c,mm,n is a new way of developing, manufacturing and using cars. By making the blueprint of c,mm,n publicly available under an open-source licence we are able to develop truly sustainable mobility. Just like open-source software, c,mm,n focuses on services around the product. You can use c,mm,n to offer people a lease car, rental car or other mobility services. It is allowed to sell c,mm,n too. Just as long as you make any derived work publicly available again.
Here's how the design has evolved so far...
Until now the community around the project have used a Developer's Wiki for the C,mm,n car where anyone can view the plans and contribute their ideas and designs - or get involved in many other ways. But now this has evolved into a full web platform for devloping the car in the community. You could register on the site now, and be viewing the full technical documents within minutes - and more importantly, contributing your own ideas.
Opportunities for You
The car industry is going to be rebuilt now, and it will be rebuilt by companies like these - some of them with an open source model - and perhaps companies like yours, making use of this open source community.
Just as the first car industry created many opportunities for entrepreneurs to build tyre companies, petrol station networks, in-car entertainment systems and more - the car industry 2.0 will offer similar opportunities for a new generation of entrepreneurs.
Look at the businesses and products that have built up around a closed system like the iPod - and imagine how that effect will be multiplied around an open product.
These cars will be electric - what opportunities are there for innovative charging points? What about better electric storage systems?
Is there a better business model for 'green' car ownership? What about a green car pool for appartment blocks? What about a green car hire company? Businesses all want to be seen to be green - is there a way to adapt this vehicle for the business market? Wouldn't they make better post-vans for teh royal mail than the diesel belchers they have now going very-innefficiently from house to house? Who is going to put together the fleet operation to supply contracts like that?
The opportunities are there. Are you the entrepreneur to take them?
If you're at all interested in being part of the Car Industry 2.0, then go and browse their development web portal to see how your company could become part of the network, and what ideas you could contribute.
To whet your appetite, and spark your imagination, here's a computer simulation of the their first car...
Going to Geek n Rolla, London
Next week I'll be at the TechCrunch Geek n Rolla event in London. It's a get together for web entrepreneurs from across Europe, to share experiences - and have a bit of fun.
Speakers I'm particularly looking forward to are:
- Andy McLoughlin, CEO of Huddle.net, on how to hire a team of peers. I'm guessing he means people on the same level as you, rather than staffing your company with members of the house of lords, which could get expensive :)
- William Reeve, serial entrepreneur and angel investor, on boot-strapping, scaling and cashflow. This guy really knows his stuff and has a fantastic track record.
- Lesley Eccles, of Hubdub, on how they launched their startup in the US - while they were actually in Scotland.
- Reshma Sohoni, from Seedcamp, on recession focused business models for tech startups.
I'll be live-blogging/twittering from the event on the day, with the key points - so watch this space!
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