A video on the creators of M-Pesa, the mobile cash of Kenya.
When will it come to the UK? Not yet it seems.…
As promised by the Mayor of London…… The Jubilee, the Olympics and so much more.
Come to the UK for party time but book your tickets as the parks will fill up. The UK will be a great happy Cluster!
Hat tip: Dan from London
The parties must have gone on late into the night in Silicon Valley as the thousands who had vested their shares enjoyed their first day of well deserved new wealth. How many will go on to start their own businesses?
Much quieter in the Scilly Isles twenty miles south west of Lands End, UK, and on one of the five inhabited islands, Bryher, all was quiet. No passing of wealth down the generations as all the property is owned on leases from the Duchy of Cornwall. However there is the opportunity to pass life-style business opportunities down the family. We have Zoe running the shop (#bryhershop) and Issy running a new Eco Bed and Breakfast (#samson_hill) and Dan running the boatyard (#bennettboatyard). There is also Richard Pearce, famous for painting the blue sea and white beaches with a lone boat on the sands.
No technology clusters here but a very strong community with rules, written and unwritten, for harmony among all. I guess it is almost Utopian!
So come all you Facebook Vesters, the optical cable will be here “next year” promising great broadband, and the chance for a new life connected to the real world!
Another great interview by Robert Scoble with the founder of Angel Pad. What they look for in entrepreneurs and how they fit them with great angels and VCs.
Makes IdeaSpace in Cambridge, UK, look fast asleep. But then Angel Pad and Y Combinator are run by entrepreneurs with skin in the game. When will IdeaSpace and Cambridge Enterprise learn? And Imperial Ventures and every other public funded group trying to start businesses.
No skin -no pain – no gain!
Fred Wilson started his talk on employee equity with a quote from Jeff Minsch (JLM) “If anyone goes to the pay window, everyone goes to the pay window”.
So everyone in a high-growth technology company started in a Cluster – Silicon Valley, Cambridge, UK – should have founder shares, founder employee shares or employee options. It is a key difference between these companies and the 99% of companies started which are owned by one or two people.
I remember asking such rich Indian kids (they could have been from any country but they would have to be rich) how do you feel that your family is so rich and yet the people who joined the company just after it was founded have no share in the capital wealth? That is they do not have rich kids… Guess no one had asked them the question. It is an interesting moral and economic question.
How many rich kids will Facebook produce and how many will be so rich that the wealth will be great even after a few generations? Will that be good for the inheritors twice or more removed from the founders? Guess that many great philanthropists come from these families.
Another link from www.avc.com.
This time all about Twitter from the CEO.
Fred Wilson of www.avc.com gives a great presentation about equity on his first Livestream show. He divides equity up between founders, founder employees (who receive %ages) and employees (who receive value or number of shares). Always make the shares of founders vest so if they leave early, the company can retain some of their shares to attract good people.
So many points:
- in awarding equity to employees, the sooner you can stop talking about percentage and start talking about value ($,£) the more equity you will retain
- (47:04) award options as soon as possible so price is a as low as possible – larger gain to employees
- (48:00) remember you are competing with other start-ups for great people
- (50:24) award retention grants (without cliff) so that employees keep receiving options
The link to the talk:
http://new.livestream.com/Skillsharelive/MBAMondays/videos/490550