Paul Wallbank – Brilliant Communications

Tag: startups

  • Tuxedos and cocktail dresses — the real cost of being an entrepreneur

    Tuxedos and cocktail dresses — the real cost of being an entrepreneur

    venture capital investor and blogger Mark Suster said at the Dreamforce 2013 conference yesterday.

    Suster’s mission is based upon having seen the process of building business up close having been involved in two successful startups and trade sales before joining Salesforce as head of product development then branching out to the investor side of the business.

    There’s also a personal reason for Suster wanting to tell the truth about starting your own venture, “the reason I’m on a personal mission to explain this is because a friend committed suicide.”

    “His company had raised four million dollars but, by his standards, it wasn’t succeeding.”

    Suster’s story resonates with anyone who has founded a business — it’s not something everyone is suited to and it’s a tough, demanding lifestyle.

    Tuxedos and cocktail dresses

    Part of the problem is public perceptions, Suster describes a conflict between “public persona and cognitive dissonance”; while an individual startup is struggling with their own flaws and failings, it appears that everyone else is doing well from their carefully crafted and placed publicity stories.

    “Everyone else’s PR is their tuxedos and cocktail dresses,” Suster points out. “You on the other hand are seeing yourself naked in the mirror every morning.”

    On being a marriage councilor

    It’s often said that a business partnership is like a marriage and Suster finds much of his work as a venture capital investor involves counseling founders over their relationship.

    “Sometimes one has to go,” Suster says. “It doesn’t matter what your preference is — and we all have our favourites — but the business cannot survive with the two of them.”

    When two founders split, there is also the problem of equity, should both have equal shares then it becomes difficult to split the business; “should one partner leaves, it’s often easier to shut down the company and start again.”

    Buy in your skills

    A similar problem happens when there’s more than one partner and Suster cautions it’s better to employ people with the skills you need rather than offer equity in a new business.

    “Having too many founders is the greatest dilution you’ll ever face,” Suster warns and his advice is to hire the skills required by the business rather than give away equity in your business.

    Another benefit of hiring people is having a good team on the payroll is the validation good investors are looking for. “Having a good team proves you’re able to hire good people which is the most important skill an entrepreneur needs,” Suster explains.

    Ultimately, Mark Suster sees the journey of building a business as a decade long process, the billion dollar startups are the exception rather than the rule.

    The biggest advice Suster has is to understand your goals, “if you don’t define what success is, you’ll never achieve it.”

    Building a business is tough, and not everybody is suited to doing it. Mark Suster’s advice isn’t just appropriate for technology startups, it’s also valid for anyone starting any type of business.

    Similar posts:

  • A tour of Google’s London Campus workspace

    A tour of Google’s London Campus workspace

    Google’s London campus is credited by many in the City’s Silicon Roundabout district as being one of the catalysts for the explosion in the local tech centre.

    One of the features of the London facility is the free co-working space the company offers which has become an important landmark for the city’s startup and small business community.

    Getting into the basement co-working space requires pre-registration and, in theory, you’ll be able to pick up an access card when you first arrive.

    In practice the cards are long out of stock, so just showing your registration confirmation with it’s code to the rather rude and brusque receptionists will get you buzzed in.

    The coworking space takes up the entire basement with four distinct coworking spaces – a courtyard, an array of tables, a lounge area and a shared bench.

      Google-campus-london-workbench

    Immediately inside the door is the communal bench that seats around twenty people. These are probably the best if you’re happy to socialise while you work. Even if you don’t it’s worthwhile grabbing a spot here if you see one available during busy times.

    Google-campus-london-device-lab

    Directly beside the workbench area is the Android demonstration station. This is a clever initiative by Google to showcase their mobile platform and encourage their developer community.

    Across from the Android test bench is the lounge area, this will be your best bet to find a place should you arrive when the coworking space is busy. It isn’t the most comfortable and quiet place in the room though as it gets lots of foot traffic and is across from the café.

    Google-campus-london-cafe

    The café serves a standard range of sandwiches, coffees and drinks with specials on certain days. Prices aren’t dissimilar from most of the coffee shops in the neighbourhood although you might find better range and a quieter spot eating elsewhere.

    One of the missed opportunities in the cafes is the opportunity to sell computer accessories like chargers and cables, during each visit this reviewer noticed how there was always someone asking to borrow other users’ accessories to charge their phones or synch their devices.

    Google-campus-london-outdoor-working-area

    Alongside the coffee shop is the courtyard; on nice day this would be a good place to work or to enjoy a beer and a chat with fellow geeks in the afternoon. During this visit in November, the weather was dark and dank with the outdoor area only being used by people making phone calls.

    Google-campus-london-working-area

    Beside the courtyard is the desk area where the serious workers hunker down. These spaces tend to get taken early and some people seem to arrive shortly after opening at 9am and don’t leave until the room closes at 6pm. Get there before ten if you want a spot.

    Google-campus-london-powerboard

    One of the problems in the room is the fight for power sockets. By mid-morning it’s almost impossible to find a spare plug so if you’re looking to recharge a device you may want to consider a local café.

    Another problem with the coworking space is it gets very crowded and some of the regulars have a habit of spreading out or hogging power sockets. It may be necessary to be quite pushy to get a seat or power socket when someone is taking up too much space.

    Overall, Google’s London Campus is a good facility that many other cities could use. However with its congestion mobile workers may find it easier to set up in one of the many geek friendly cafes in the neighbourhood like the nearby Ozone or Shoreditch Grind right on the Silicon Roundabout itself.

    Similar posts:

  • A swarm of electronic dragonflies

    A swarm of electronic dragonflies

    A Spanish startup shows how the internet of machines is changing the business world having installed their sensors into everything from space ships to koala bears.

    “Libelium comes from Libelula which means dragonfly,” says Alicia Asin, of the sensor company she co-founded with David Gascón. “The company was named after a swarming insect.”

    “We try to solve the problem of dealing with a lot of different sensors and a lot of different protocols and different information systems so we created a hardware platform that sends any information using any communication protocol to any computer system.”

    Bootstrapping a global business

    Particularly impressive about Libelium is the business has grown to a global brand employing 40 people since 2007 when Alicia and David founded their business on their meagre savings.

    “We started with literally wïth nothing, just 3,000 euros which is all you have when you are twenty-four” says Alicia.

    After raising funds through some grants and investors, the company got on with selling their products.

    “We never wanted to be a company where it’s comfortable for three years without making money so we shipped a product in seven months.”

    “We realise now how smart that was.”

    Agriculture and smart cities

    Connected cites and agriculture are the sectors Alicia sees as being the greatest opportunities for the company.

    “I think that cities are very interesting, not because of the technology but what it really means,” says Alicia. “If you are able to have a dashboard of the city’s performance and governments are willing to apply open data then you are really promoting transparency.

    “That’s the best legacy of the Internet of Things.”

    In Agriculture Alicia sees opportunities in high value crops like vineyards, “we can reduce the amount of fertilisers, we can prevent illnesses in vines and you can even design the type of wine as you can control the amount of sugar in the grapes.”

    For Spain, companies like Libelium represent the future of the nation’s industry. “We really need to re-invent the country,” says Alicia.

    “I’m always saying that Spain is becoming the Silicon Valley of Europe when it comes to smart cities. Not only in Barcelona but you also have Santander, you have Malaga, Madrid and Zarazoga.”

    So it may be that along with a swarm of Libelium sensors, Spain also has a swarm of smart cities. It may be enough to re-invent the country along with the agriculture industry and local governments.

    With more bootstrapped startups like Libelium, Spain may even build its own version of Silicon Valley.

    Similar posts:

    • No Related Posts
  • Validating your market

    Validating your market

    Last week I interviewed Anthony Foy, CEO of Workshare about his business and the growth in the online sharing and collaboration markets.

    When researching Workshare the obvious message is the business can be best described as a Dropbox for enterprises.

    It always pays to be cautious when comparing a business to a competitor as often the managers or founders don’t like mentioning marketplace rivals.

    Frequently, it turns out the rival in the market helps you define what your service delivers.

    A good example of this was a gay and lesbian dating service run by a pair of acquaintances.

    Naturally the obvious comparison was with the Grindr app but the two founders – who we’ll call George and John – had completely different views about this.

    George’s view was “don’t mention the G word” as Grindr was the feared rival while John’s view was that their opposition validated their market and actually made it easier for them to explain their business.

    John’s view turns out to be that of Anthony Foy’s – that Dropbox actually makes it easier for Workshare to articulate its business.

    Investors, customers and staff understand what Dropbox does so there’s no need to for Workshare to convince people there’s a demand for what they do or to explain exactly what their service does.

    This has proved true for many successful businesses. Facebook needed Friendster and Myspace to prove the market for social media existed while Google had Yahoo! and Altavista to show there was a need for an online search engine.

    Just because you aren’t first to the market doesn’t mean you won’t be successful. Sometimes your competitors are your greatest asset in helping the rest of the industry understand exactly what you do.

    Similar posts:

    • No Related Posts
  • Lessons in crowdfunding from an unsuccessful Kickstarter campaign

    Lessons in crowdfunding from an unsuccessful Kickstarter campaign

    “I’d rather eat a bullet than do a Kickstarter campaign again,” says Moore’s Cloud founder Mark Pesce in the latest Decoding The New Economy video when asked about crowdfunding his project.

    Moore’s cloud is an internet of things company that focuses on lighting, “we think it’s interesting and something that expresses emotion” Mark says.

    With their first project, Moore’s Cloud looked to raise $700,000 to build their first project but fell well short of their target.

    Falling short lead to Mark and his team executing a classic business pivot from a static lights to Holiday, a system of intelligent fairy lights.

    “We took exactly the same technology and put it into a different form factor,” said Mark. “It’s as if we took the light and unwound it.”

    The failure of the Kickstarter campaign gave the Moore’s Cloud founders an education on how crowdfunding works.

    Customer focused from day one

    An important aspect of crowdfunding is it’s very customer focused. From day one of the campaign, the venture has to devote resources on relations with those who’ve pledged a contribution.

    Most startups don’t have those resources, or the time and skills, to deal with those relations.

    “People say it’s a better way of getting investors. I would have to say ‘it’s not better, it’s different.’” Mark says about crowdfunding.

    The psychology of investors

    One of the differences is the psychology of investors. Mark was urged by the CEO of Indiegogo, Slava Rubin, to set a low target as participants like to back successful campaigns.

    “There’s a whole bunch of psychology I didn’t understand going in,” says Mark. “If we’d had a goal of $200,000 we probably would have filled it in the first two weeks.”

    “Once a campaign is fully funded, it tends to get overfunded.”

    A truism of business is that banks will only lend to you when you don’t need the money and it strangely appears the same thing applies to crowdfunding.

    We’re in the early days of crowdfunding and there’s more to be learned about the way it works and for which ventures the fund raising technique works best.

    The experience of campaigns like Moore’s Cloud are part of how we’ll discover the nuances of crowdfunding and the psychology of the crowds that contribute.

    Similar posts: