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Twitter gets serious

For those people still not sure of the value of Twitter and blogging, I suggest that they read this BBC article.  Twitter was the first to spread the news of the quake and is now being used to help people support each other through this dreadful time.

Written on 18 May 2008 by Philip under Uncategorized with No Comments

Dunstone speaks clearly

In 1989, while working for a large company which sold mobile phones to large companes, Charles Dunstone, founder of Carphone Warehouse realised that “mobiles appealed to people with really small business who didn’t have a big office infrastructure behind them.  Suddenly plumbers and builders could get new work whilst they were working.”

That is clear and simple.  Armed with £6k he started from a friend’s flat, was evicted and set up in a shop.  Initially, sales came from radio adverts and then “we reached a point where the phone kept ringing even though we hadn’t advertised” and the brand was created.

Why Dunstone and not the many other people who were selling phones from flats and shops?  Who knows but even when at school he employed others as sales reps so was used to delegating and monitoring results.  Then he shared the business with a friend who had qualified as an accountant and soon they were selling ooo’s of phones each month.

Once he built up credit lines with suppliers and the customers paid up front, he followed on the steps of other famous retailers and generated cash to fund the growth which explains why he still owns around a third of the business.  A different Equity Fingerprint from the high tech world but perhaps an easier way to build for the big time.

Written on 17 May 2008 by Philip under Uncategorized with No Comments

Facebook payment service

Users of Facebook, the social networking site, will be able to transfer money directly to each other for the first time from Saturday. Moneybookers, a European online payments provider, is launching an application which will allow customers who have registered their bank details with the service to make charity donations, repay loans from friends or pay for services via Facebook, paying a maximum fee of 40p.

More…..

Written on 16 May 2008 by Ibrahim under Uncategorized with No Comments

Monster-Bankers

Readers of the Financial Times will be familiar with the paradox that Germany, probably the biggest winner from globalisation among rich countries, is at the same time a deep well of paranoia about and veritable fount of vituperation against the sources of its riches.

Written on 16 May 2008 by Ibrahim under Business with No Comments

EEDA speak for Business Link!

From the CEN of Friday 9 May 2008; what does this mean? How can people who talk in such tongues deliver or provide good advice?

“Pat Smith, chief executive officer of Business Link in the East of England, said “With the creation of one regional Business Link, our key objective was to strengthen and improve the free service available to small and medium sized enterprises. We changed how we worked by moving from a deliverer of business services to a provider of impartial business information and advice, combined with acting as a broker of third party solution providers…….has put on an array of workshops attracting approaching 14,000 delegates, 54% women.”

So presumably we will now see, at last some would say, a boom in the number of women starting businesses. Let us hope that their sale pitch is clearer - will they be deliverers or providers? Were all the staff re-trained from deliverers to providers?

Written on 16 May 2008 by Philip under Business with No Comments

Ask for the order! Again

Fred Wilson repeats the wise words we all need to remember:

Words of wisdom from Steve Kane (actually Steve’s dad):

btw, the best advice my old man gave, and the advice he drilled most emphatically and repeatedly was, ASK FOR THE ORDER. you’d be amzed how many people talk to customers forever and never actually say ask for the order…

I saw Steve’s comment right after I read a long email from an entrepreneur (way too long, emails should be no more than three paragraphs) that went on and on about his business but never once asked us to consider an investment.

Ask for the order.

Written on 15 May 2008 by Philip under Business, Cambridge with No Comments

Xensource goes missing with $500million!

On 22 October 2007 Centrix announced the $500million acquisition of Xensource for $500million payable in a mixture of cash and Citrix stock. Xen appears to have started in the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratories where one of the founders, Ian Pratt, works. Ian Pratt is named as the founder of Xensource in this bio of Simon Crosby and it states that “Simon was a tenured faculty member at the University of Cambridge, UK, where he led research on network performance and control, and multimedia operating systems”. The press release 15 august 2007 states “for approximately $500 million in a combination of cash and stock, which includes the assumption of approximately $107 million in unvested stock options.”.

Tech Confidential spills some of the beans ” You don’t hear as much about Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Sevin Rosen as you used to. Kleiner Perkins is busy investing in anything but consumer Internet companies while Sevin Rosen decided against raising another fund last year. But, they are still cashing checks. The pair invested $6 million in a first round investment in January 2005 into XenSource, an open source virtualization startup that agreed to be purchased by Citrix Systems for $500 million.That’s a big hit for the duo. Other beneficiaries include Accel Partners, Ignition Partners and New Enterprise Associates”.

Silicon Beats mentioned the investment round and commented “Silicon Valley’s best-known venture firm, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, has teamed up with Sevin Rosen Funds to invest $6 million in XenSource, of Palo Alto.

XenSource offers a so-called open source virtualization technology, which we’ll leave for open source fans to comment on. But as XenSource’s folks put it, virtualization “allows enterprises to realize significant savings from server consolidation running multiple operating systems and mission critical applications on a single server.”

Kleiner’s Kevin Compton and Sevin Rosen’s Nick Sturiale will join the board. Founders include the leader of the Xen project, Ian Pratt of the University of Cambridge, Nick Gault, an enterprise software veteran and formerly founder of Network Physics, and Open Source veteran and openMosix leader Moshe Bar. Pratt and his co-founders at the University of Cambridge will continue todevelop the technology and manage the Xen Open Source community project, the company said.”

Now that is a lot of wonga. Where did it all go? How much stayed in Cambridge? Was Cambridge Enterprise involved? It would have ranked as one of their top investments. If not, why not? Why was such a good deal funded outside of the Cambridge Cluster? Did any of the Cambridge Angels or the other groups invest? There is no trace of Xensource on the Cambridge Evening News website. It would make a great Equity Fingerprint and case study but I guess it was registered in Delaware and so all the details are not available. Hopefully the Cambridge Cluster has a couple or ten of new angels to keep turning the wheels.  Just think what the Cambridge Cluster could have done with $500million……

Written on 14 May 2008 by Philip under Business, entrepreneur with 1 Comment

iPhone goes 3G in June/July?

I want an iPhone and will wait until the next generation is announced.  The Boy Genius reports and other blogs that the sale reps of AT&T have been told that no more leave will be granted from 15 June to 15 July.  This happened last year prior to the launch of the iPhone.  When will it arrive in the UK?  Let us hope we do not have long to wait.  Let us hope that there will soon be a killer ap from the Cambridge Cluster.

Written on 13 May 2008 by Philip under Uncategorized with No Comments

Perfect Pitch at Seedcamp

Seedcamp has a video on the front page to inspire entrepreneurs to join their one week camp.  Rowland of king.com sums up the perfect pitch.  It is three sentences:

- what does your business do?

- why is it special?

- why is it going to be successful?

Say it every day to anyone who listens until you have refined it and refined it and are ready to blast the VCs away!  It is so easy to help someone else and so difficult to do it on your own.

Written on 12 May 2008 by Philip under Business, entrepreneur with No Comments

Blogs from the Mums

A lazy post; these Mums have started blogging from home and some have landed book deals; one for £70k. Of course she is a writer who has ended up living the country life and still asking for a cappuccino in the local cafe. It reminds of going up to Oxford, even though I was going down from the North, and meeting all these townies. They were so excited to see the lovely lawn in the front quad! But needed to return quickly to the smoke and the tube. “You ran up hills at school?”. Strange people these urbanites who rule our world. No wonder these Mums turn to Continue Reading »

Written on 11 May 2008 by Philip under Uncategorized with 1 Comment