Startup – Page 11

Looking East Across the Irish Sea….

One of the opportunities for 38minutes and the whole ‘ning-based’ network is the shortening of these distances – isn’t that what the internet is all about (apparently it’s not just about porn and advertising). When I look at a map, I like to draw a line circle from where I am to around 75 miles… … Continue reading “Looking East Across the Irish Sea….”

When I look at a map, I like to draw a line circle from where I am to around 75 miles…

and I find myself wondering what is across the Irish Sea, what new counties and towns exist over here and is it simply the cost of the ferry which stops us working together more? I’m looking to look and learn, eastwards over towards Glasgow – what are my cousins over there doing?

Over the last twelve months I have been in Scotland twice – both times passing through – past the towns which, to me are simply legends of my heritage (apparently my family is from Annan) and having no real concept of the life and people who toil and live there. Even Glasgow, not much further from me than Dublin, is seemingly distant due to the tyranny of around 26 miles of sea.

So where should I ask? Here? What’s going on in Lochaber and Skye, in the Western Isles, Ayrshire, Dumfries and Galloway?

Research and Development? What it is.

I wrote a post on digitalcircle.org today about the new Grant for R&D from InvestNI. Much like the stuff I’ve written about R&D Tax Relief and R&D Tax Credits (both of which are available), there’s some clearing up around the term “R&D” that needs to be done. During a conversation last week with Marty from … Continue reading “Research and Development? What it is.”

During a conversation last week with Marty from NoMoreArt in the Black Box CafÃ©, I said “Every line of code is…” and we both finished the sentence in entirely contradictory ways.

He said “Derived”. I said “Novel”.

Thing is, we’re both right.

Research and Development in these terms is difficult to define for software development and it galls me that R&D in these terms does not include the creation of digital content in any way despite the amount of time, technology and expertise that might be required to create that content.

In these terms, it means either “industrial research” or “experimental development”.

Industrial Research is defined as “Planned research to acquire new knowledge and skills to develop new (or significantly improved existing) products, processes or services (including prototypes).

Experimental Development is defined as “Existing knowledge/ skills used to plan/design new or improved products, processes or services.”

When writing a new application, you’re likely to be using “existing knowledge / skills” until you hit the wall where you have to do something new.

i.e. writing an image viewer is no big deal. Writing an image viewer that also handles audio, video, layers, multiple languages and internet content is “hard”. Especially when no-one else has done it.

To a degree I think software development gets a raw deal here. The work is as technical, as challenging as material science (for example) but the definitions don’t assist in the availability of grant aid. The province is looking forwards towards becoming a knowledge economy as we witness the manufacturing bastions of our past fall away.

We have to show our value here and while I think it’s a little harder to demonstrate real innovation in software in Northern Ireland (due as much to the lack of innate, home-grown talent capable of judging it for it’s real value), I think the possibilities for product-based, forward-thinking companies is immense.

WiFi Shakeup in Norn Iron needed

Another day another small WiFi company – all of them scrabbling for pennies with hotspots measured in the ‘tens’ as opposed to the ‘hundreds’ and the value they bring? Access WiFi in hotels for a few quid an hour. There has to be a better way. Related posts: I honestly can’t remember the last time … Continue reading “WiFi Shakeup in Norn Iron needed”

Make Corporate Butts Pucker

I wrote: A year ago Rich Segal wrote an article on how to make a corporate butt pucker. As we inch closer to opening the CoWorking site in Belfast, I find myself having loftier dreams regarding it. I envisage a place where we can assist startups and if necessary turn a couple of dreamers into … Continue reading “Make Corporate Butts Pucker”

I wrote:

A year ago Rich Segal wrote an article on how to make a corporate butt pucker.

As we inch closer to opening the CoWorking site in Belfast, I find myself having loftier dreams regarding it. I envisage a place where we can assist startups and if necessary turn a couple of dreamers into new entrepreneurs.

The level of support required for this would, of course, be minimal.

What does ‘Code4Pizza’ get out of it?

Well, the aim is kudos and ten percent. Ten percent? Yes, ten percent of the company created. Which means the directors of code4pizza are motivated to make it a success. It will be the only way that code4pizza can become self-sustainable.

What do students get out of it?

A real placement? How about a placement where they’re not washing the VP’s car (as happened in Nortel). Or making tea for line managers in manufacturing (again, Nortel). They’ll get real experience, real mentoring from real business people who are highly motivated to turn them into a success. And at the end they’ll hold 90% of a company they helped build.

So…

I’ve not yet tested the viability in terms of putting it in practise. I’ve spoken to lecturers and they think it’s a great idea. I’ve spoken to entrepreneurs and they love it too. I’ve even spoken to a few students about it and they’re convinced it would take off. So everyone loves it, now what.

CoWorking Belfast
Collaborative Contracts
Initial Funding
Programme Development

Okay….

…why will this make corporate butts pucker?

The idea is that a simple, lean company with three founders and one good mentor can kick butt.

Crazy? I don’t think so.

It’s not a bad time to be a Tech startup.

Mike Butcher of TechCrunch describes the pitchfest that went on at Web2Expo Europe. But back in Pitchamp, the startups were ranked by judges. The winner ended up being Wuala, which weâ€™ve written about extensively. In second place was Youcalc. And – can you believe it – there was a three-way tie for third place which … Continue reading “It’s not a bad time to be a Tech startup.”

Mike Butcher of TechCrunch describes the pitchfest that went on at Web2Expo Europe.

But back in Pitchamp, the startups were ranked by judges. The winner ended up being Wuala, which weâ€™ve written about extensively. In second place was Youcalc. And – can you believe it – there was a three-way tie for third place which went to Amazee, Plista and SofaTutor.

As the article continues, we don’t get much opportunity to pitch ideas to investors due to a weak investor/angel environment in the UK (and especially Northern Ireland). And this is a shame because there’s a lot of good ideas coming out of the region and the reason they fail is more to do with the environment – the same idea pitched in Silicon Valley might garner funding and allow expansion.

The idea of venture capital is also poorly understood in the province. At this month’s Belfast Open Coffee Club I had the unenviable position of explaining the role of VCs, their need for some sort of control in decisions and the purpose of organisations like Invest Northern Ireland, InterTradeIreland and Enterprise Ireland. The fact is – very few bright young things with good ideas know the first thing about running a business especially when it comes to actually having employees. And that’s no bad thing – I’d rather have a genius working on ‘hard problems’ than wasting time trying to work out tax and national insurance contributions. And, let’s face it, a Venture Capitalist or Business Angel is going to want to have some oversight about how their money is spent – rather than trusting a coder whizzkid not to blow half the money on a classic Porsche which he’ll plant into a tree the next day. While you might not do something like that – you can understand why they might want someone on your board or want a substantial percentage of the company in return for the money.

Last week in the Irish Times, John Collins wrote that although the tech industry in Ireland seems to be vibrant, funding is an issue for startups.

ON THE face of it, Ireland has a vibrant technology industry. Speaking at a recent event in London, TÃ¡naiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Mary Coughlan said that software now accounts for almost â‚¬12 billion in Irish exports which are generated by 800 Irish and international firms. Strip out the multinationals and the indigenous contribution is still â‚¬2 billion, a massive improvement on 10 years ago when the figure was less than â‚¬100 million.
…
The most recent figures from the Irish Venture Capital Association suggest that Irish start-ups received â‚¬225.94 million in funding last year, 17 per cent up on 2006 and the most since 2002.
…
Just as Irish firms are having to look overseas for investment, there are signs that Irish VCs are travelling further afield for investments.

Back in July, Ireland’s VC environment was described to me (by an entrepreneur) as weak and the phrase “Voyeur Capitalist” was coined which gave us some mirth (though in truth it’s gallows humour). The perception from this entrepreneur was that there were too many people involved in the VC industry locally who wanted to be seen to be VCs because of implied prestige rather than because of any real desire to take a chance on anything new in technology. A considerable number of VCs do exist in Ireland though they may be focussed on their own areas due to their personal expertise – perhaps polymers and plastics, manufacturing or life sciences.

In the current market with every newspaper reporting the doom and gloom of economic downturn, it’s harder to recall that unemployment is still down, other industries are doing okay and it’s only the property market (and the mortgage lenders and estate agents who propped it up far beyond it’s actual value) who are suffering. It’s just a shame that our banks – who hold our money – are also some of these lenders.

Contrast’s App School (more on…)

This may not have been clear in my last post but….those awful clever buggers at Contrast.ie have decided to take a week off from surfing and take one lucky idea and turn it into an Application. Contrast are taking one lucky idea to App School. Weâ€™ll pick an idea submitted by an Irish startup, charity, … Continue reading “Contrast’s App School (more on…)”

This may not have been clear in my last post but….those awful clever buggers at Contrast.ie have decided to take a week off from surfing and take one lucky idea and turn it into an Application.

Contrast are taking one lucky idea to App School. Weâ€™ll pick an idea submitted by an Irish startup, charity, non-profit or individual and teach it how to be a fully-grown app. Weâ€™ll build it in one week and weâ€™ll show everyone how we do it. And, weâ€™ll cover 95% of the cost.

Anyone with an interesting idea for an app, based in (the island of) Ireland and matching any of these criteria:

small startup,

charity,

individual with startup ambitions or

non-profit.

Weâ€™re not likely to pick you if we know you could afford to pay for it yourself; we want to give everyone else a chance. Also, if we know youâ€™re in a position to promote the app and make it work after weâ€™re done, weâ€™ll be more attracted to working with you.

They’re asking people to fund a small percentage of it which might leave a lot of people out in the cold as â‚¬800-odd is not maybe the easiest thing to find in the current credit crunch (and for more on that, wait for a future blog post based on that concept and conversations with Darryl and Chris regarding “The First 50%”.)

The closing date for Contrast’s App School is Thursday the 16th of October. So get thinking.

So if you have a FABULOUS idea and the Contrast guys think it’s worthwhile, you’d have to wonder if that â‚¬800-odd would stand in the way? I think not.

25K Awards

Last night I was lucky enough to attend the NISP CONNECT 25K Awards. The overall winner of the awards was Affyon Networks, a company which produces a chip which performs Deep Packet Inspection at wire speed in order to eliminate SPAM and Viruses at the router. End users don’t need to worry about this stuff … Continue reading “25K Awards”

Last night I was lucky enough to attend the NISP CONNECT 25K Awards.

The overall winner of the awards was Affyon Networks, a company which produces a chip which performs Deep Packet Inspection at wire speed in order to eliminate SPAM and Viruses at the router. End users don’t need to worry about this stuff – it’s aimed at Intel, Cisco and similar companies. I do wonder, however, how it works when email traffic is SSL encrypted. At the moment not everyone uses SSL for email but nearly all good ISPs support it (which says a lot if your ISP doesn’t support it).

Other notables included the solar-powered water purifiers from Clean Tech Global and the Disability Heroes, devised by Kyle Boyd – the latter of which was one of the “Digital Media” category entries and therefore has particular interest to me.

Infurious plans to help Kyle promote Disability Heroes by getting his content onto the iPhone using the Infurious Comic Reader application as well as getting him talking to similar organisations and help him secure funding for bringing his ideas to the next level. It’s my intention to bring this in to also cover not just physical disabilities.

Apple Store Belfast opens….

Tomorrow morning the Apple Store has it’s grand opening in Belfast and there’s already a herd of MacMacs heading down to queue outside. Murderdrome, the “comic that was banned” will also be there for viewing as well as some T-Shirts being given out to the people at the front of the queue and a resulting … Continue reading “Apple Store Belfast opens….”

I’m in two minds whether to go down early. I have a Hall Pass for the morning to attend so it seems it might be a good idea to go down and have a chat with the poor sods who’ll be sitting out overnight. Five years ago I would have been one of them but for now I want to just watch from the sidelines and then have a poke around once the hubbub has died down. That said, I queued for the iPhone for 2 hours before opening the first time around and for an hour before opening the second time around. This seems different though.

Anyway – if you want to get TWO free T-shirts tomorrow, get into the queue at the Apple Store in the Victoria Centre in Belfast and be near the front.

Venture Altruists

I first read the term in Charles Stross’ Accelerando ( which is quite good though horribly dated now ) and it reminded me of one of the first group activities we had on board the ship; the emergency drill. In theory you move without fuss or panic to the muster stations and don your life-jacket. … Continue reading “Venture Altruists”

In theory you move without fuss or panic to the muster stations and don your life-jacket. The person behind you is meant to check you’ve put the damn thing on correctly (because if not you’ll vanish beneath the waves when you hit the water leaving an otherwise perfectly functional life-jacket bobbing about up top. You then do it for them. The network of trust this created means you get a benefit from helping others.

In my TA days, this was called the Buddy-Buddy system. Keeping your squad alive meant they’d be around to save your neck later (and presumably not just by drawing fire as an additional target).

There’s a lot to be said for the concept of the venture altruist ( or the altrupreneur ) especially when you consider the enthusiasm shown at the local Open Coffee Club meetings in Belfast. BOCC is still in the state of talking about stuff and not yet really at the state of doing stuff. I’d like to change that by encouraging everyone to consider being a venture altruist fir a while.

Altrupreneurs share. It’s not about being there first, it’s not about NDAs, it’s not even about waiting until you are ready. It’s about throwing something interesting into the melting pot.

Ideas are almost worthless without implementation – I don’t recall where I got this from but a ideas and implementations can be ranked from $1 to $1000. Take the values and multiply them. A $1000 idea if given a $1 implementation doesn’t make anyone happy. A $1 idea can also disappoint even if given a $1000 implementation. You really need to give a $1000 idea a $1000 implementation to see real results ( though this leaves plenty if room for $100 ideas and $100 implementations).

Altrupreneurs, the people you might find at any Open Coffee meeting, will be willing to do more than just listen and give opinions. Their contacts and expertise is worth a lot more than a cheque from a venture capitalist They’re the people to ask about hosting space for your startup, the people who’ll loan you a desk while you bootstrap your company, who aren’t afraid to pick up the tab or who will work to find sponsorship for a crazy pitch they just heard.

Treat the crazy pitch like your buddy and help him check his lifejacket so he can keep his head above water.