I’m speaking on How to make Social Networking work for you at the British Library on Tuesday 29th. Its an open event and free to attend. To register click here.

This talk will cover topics:

“If you want to take advantage of using social networking for your business this will be a great place to start. With a presentation on how to create a network for your community and then plenty of time to meet others and business experts – this is a fantastic opportunity to get started.”

Tags: BritishLibrary, Raj, Social Network

This by no means is a go at anyone, region, demographic etc. These are just my thoughts on the current brain drain situation of entrepreneurial talent in the Technology UK scene.

Before I go any further it would be best to explain what I mean by brain drain.

Wikipedia: “A brain drain or human capital flight is an emigration of trained and talented individuals (”human capital”) to other nations or jurisdictions, due to conflicts, lack of opportunity, health hazards where they are living or other reasons.”

The Pain

Day in day out you hear about news from the valley about investment, merger and acquisitions, entrepreneurs/companies evaluated at crazy sums of money and much more. For a second as an entrepreneur you think.. hang on I have a similar ideas but I didn’t get nearly as much traction as the companies in the Valley. Another proof is check out the M&A news on Techcrunch V/S Techcrunch UK. I know Mike Butcher is working hard blogging regularly about the industry investments and acquisitions in UK/Europe, but there just isn’t enough activity.

The Pain Continues

Then you have the classic examples of people exported from UK to the valley. I don’t want to give specific examples but can’t resist mentioning Y-Combinator startup Auctomatic doing so well. I’m happy for Kul and Harj and what they have achieved in under a year of being in the valley. You start thinking damn my suspicions were right UK has some top talent, give them the opportunity and things will happen. Organisations like Y-Combinator add fuel to the fire (let me clarify its not a bad thing) by regularly exporting UK talent to Cali. Lack of high risk taking, seed funding investors in the UK means that entrepreneurs can’t resist the move.

Cure

So how can we prevent this and I think the answers are almost trivial:

1. More seed and early stage funding available to some crazy ideas. Investors need to think about the fact that 50 small crazy investments could mean a lot of work, but potentially could be more lucrative. My thoughts are that it could be as profitable as investing large sums in 10 companies (only 2 of which are cash cows - as the assumption goes)
2. Government should actively do something about it (not that they aren’t). Its almost the case now that anyone who proves their talent in the UK moves to California (a bit exaggerated) . I was once interviewed by a reporter who asked me when I’m going to Valley. I said I’m not. You should see the expression on his face - seemed like he saw a ghost ! And that was the end of the conversation
3. University’s should look at starting a venture fund like Stanford Student Enterprise Venture ( SSE Ventures).  This would have to be cash and advice, a lot of graduate know nothing about entrepreneurship although they can tell you what graduate scheme’s exist at an investment bank. You see investment bank spend a lot of money in organising campus tours.
4. Similarly we should have Startup campus tours where entrepreneurs come and speak about how budding entrepreneurs can learn
5. Last I won’t spare us, the entrepreneurs. I think we have to weigh up our social responsibility to create jobs, train budding entrepreneurs in UK/Europe to financial benefits.

I think there is a lot of work to be done here before this becomes a major worry. Although there are some signs of improvement. Recently I came across this on Intruders.tv, the London Technology Fund Competition:

“It is focused on the funding gap for new, high growth technology companies based in Greater London. It bridges the funding gap by leading and building a syndicate of investors or by completing the gap in an existing syndicate.”

Its open to all technology startup. The coolest thing in my opinion is that the decision of funding is made within 2 weeks of the application. Round one meeting takes place in literally 1 week.

Tags: UKStartups, Silicon Valley, Brain Drain

It all starts with the launch of The Funded, give you insight into VCs and how they reacted to entrepreneurs. You can find VCs based on your Geography, Funding level, age etc.

The site gives insight into the VC culture, how they treat entrepreneurs. There are some positive and not so pleasant comments. It is without a shadow of doubt a useful directory of VCs in your area. With some of the major VC funds like Sequoia Capital, 3i etc ,there so many partners and associates that its almost impossible to generalise the fund. Saying that users have commented with names of specific partners.

Some VCs are annoyed with it as it doesn’t allow them to explain their complete story. Hence TheUnfunded.com :

I didn’t like the text above: “by kids born after you graduated from college”

What’s that suppose to mean ? So young entrepreneurs don’t have valid feedback ?

Interesting what TheFunded.com said about TheUnfunded.com:

Lets forget this debate for a moment. Do you reckon VC’s would share tips about a startup they might be funding ? Obviously not!

Each comment on TheUnFunded.com is manually approved says TheFunded.com: “Update at 5:00 PM PST: A VC just wrote in to us that his fund was able to apply, get approved, and make a post on TheUnFunded.“

Won’t pre-moderation stifle the development of the community ?

If I was a Venture Capitalist: So far from the information I have, I wouldn’t fund TheUnFunded.com. Let it remain unfunded

Tags: TheFunded.com, TheunFunded.com, VCs, Entrepreneurs, funding

Dopplr is a social network aimed at business travelers. By just this defination the creativity and effort put behind the project is not very clear.

Although once you get the chance to signup to it, you will understand the pain and effort which has gone into preparing this network. For starters the usability is spot on. Some examples:

• Add a trip: It allows you to type a location and once you finish typing it suggests possible locations.

• Focus on Travel: In my opinion a niche social network should do what its there for example: Flixster deal with movie, Flickr - Pictures. Dopplr does exactly what it says on the tin and shows you the places you are about to travel.

• Suggests Coincidences: You can see who might be at the same location as you at a given time.

• Recommendations: But I think Dopplr really hits the spot is with its recommendation engine. Dopplr suggests what you should do in the city you are about to visit, based on others recommendation.

There are also other features which are very attractive. Example: Inviting through other networks like Gmail, Twitter, Flickr and Microformats.

An excellent team and good quality investors has indeed helped to create the buzz:

Tags: Dopplr, Business, Social Network

PepsiCo is launching a social network around European football. The site is available on pepsiyouniverse.com

Obviously site has excellent potential with football fanatics. Although I’m not sure how they are looking to market it. You can already build your profile on the site. Apart from profiles you can take part in a quiz:

Brands are obviously entering social networking in a big way. Pepsi is cleverly levering consumer’s interest in Football as oppose to the drink itself. So what are the potential benefits for Pepsi. Some really obvious ones:

• Brand promotion, appeal to younger adopters
• Showcase its ties with one of the worlds most played sport.

Less obvious benefits:

• Market research of its product and brand
• Increase customer loyalty and
• Acquisition of (potential) customer details

Blogged with Flock

Tags: Pepsi, Social Network

I stumbled upon Project Brighton last month. An initiative by Rosie Sherry to provide Brighton technology companies with a platform. It allows Geeks to meet with other non-technical/technical people who might need help with their website, software, hardware…..

Rosie is solidly blogging on the site and actively adding conferences, events, jobs etc. I think the idea has legs plus Rosie is dedicated to make it work. She has reduced her other commitment and is passionate to make Brighton the place for technology.

Also there is a plan to add ProjectBrighton badges for the community to add to their website, blog, app etc. Looking forward to it Rosie!

Blogged with Flock

Tags: ProjectBrighton, Rosie Sherry

I blogged about it earlier and now the moment of truth RESULT TIME ! I’m glad Kwiqq is one of the companies going to San Francisco with the delegation.

Overall the judge’s feedback was very positive:

 Some of the companies I’m looking forward to meet:

Coull - Interactive video platform

Byteplay (dotHomes) - Real estate search engine

Hubdub - News prediction social network

WAYN - travel and lifestyle social networking community

TrustedPlaces - Venue recommendation network

Mydeo - Mainstream application for storing and sharing video

Silobreaker - Contextual and graphic search results

edocr - Making business documents interactive

Companies who made it

Blogged with Flock

Tags: WebMission08, San Francisco, TCUK

A talk with Micheal Arrington at his home office. He talks about TC’s investment round and their evaluation.

White Paper - How to Blog for Business (using Wordpress)

I initially wrote a draft on how to Blog, a common sense way to get you into the blogosphere, using Wordpress. Now with the help of some experts in the field: Leif Kendall (at Kendall copywriting) and wonderful guys at Dharmafly: Madhava and Premsagar we have come up with part 2.

The text is re-written for people who are looking to dip their toe into blogging. You don’t have to be technical, just curious to learn more about blogging. Towards the end, we try and cover some Next Steps in Web 2.0 for people looking to take blogging to the next level.

Topics covered:

Preparation 6
Branding 6
About You 7
Geeky Bits – Explained for All 8
Setting up your Blog 8
URL structure 9
Widgets 9
Track Your Success 12
Let’s Write! 15
Relationships 15
Writing Style 15
Live and Direct 16
Moderation 17
Next step in Web 2.0 18
About Us 20

LinkedIn has released a mobile version, to access it go here: m.linkedin.com.
   

I remember trying to access linkedin from my mobile here: www.linkedinwap.com It never worked. Was it a hoax ?

Tags: linkedIn, Mobile