Just read an article in BusinessFirst magazine where Mike Herd, Director of SINC speaks about Innovation. You can read the whole article here (Page 65).

FirstBusiness very kindly mentioned Kwiqq:

Article on Kwiqq:

Tags: BusinessFirst, Kwiqq, SINC, Mike Herd, Raj Anand

This might be more relevant to young entrepreneurs looking to raise finance. So a question asked often at young entrepreneur seminars is: “How can I raise finance?”

I thought I’ll try and answer this question here. So if you are looking to raise finance through traditional investment routes like VC (Venture Capitalists) or institutional investors it takes a long time. 4-6 months before you will see a penny from any investor. If this didn’t discourage you yet, read this: most VCs look for your track record in running businesses. Excellent A levels or university degree is not enough
But there is a solution. There is another category of investors = established businesses and entrepreneurs. Many successful businesses have pre-existing relationships with clients and a decent cash flow to invest in young startups. For them its an opportunity to:

1. Reinvent their business and add an extra arm
2. Bring in young talent to take their business/group/empire forward

From memory I remember the first internship I ever did with Dazdaq Ltd as programmer was a similar arrangement. Kwiqq was also funded by another business the E3 Group.

The advantages of choosing a business/entrepreneur over institutional investment :

1. Human touch: Having a company investing in you as a entrepreneur/business implies there is direct correspondence with the entrepreneur/executive team.
2. Contacts: They obviously have years of experience and contacts which can add value to your business. Things like setting up bank accounts, legal/accounts etc help is then easier to find
3. Office space: Some companies have a spare room for hire. This not only saves you pennies but also look big right from the word go.
4. Access to VCs: When you have a company with pre-existing relationships and financial records backing you, suddenly VCs and Angel networks look at your business favorably.

So how do I find such companies ?

• Networking especially in your own industry. Companies who understand your business and industry are more likely to invest in you and your business.
• Don’t feel shy in following up all contacts you make whilst at the networking events. You never know who is thinking about helping you out

Tips

• Make sure your marketing material especially your website is upto date. It should look professional
• Inspire people around you about your passion and belief in the product
• Ideas which are new age and at times a little wacky are good. What I mean is don’t expect someone to back you with an idea which has been implemented a million times before.
• Keep developing your product, don’t make the mistake of spending (full) 6 months writing a business plan. People like to touch and feel stuff as oppose to detail business plans.

If you have tips feel free to share with other budding entrepreneurs by leaving a comment

Tags: youngentrepreneurs, institutional investors, Venture Capitalist

Make Your Mark is the national campaign to create an enterprise culture among young people in the UK. The organisation releases monthly newsletter, this month’s topic is importance of networking.  I was delighted to contribute to the newsletter as a guest writter:

Download the PDF:  Make your mark Connect newsletter

My inspiration for this blog comes from two sources:

1. Boohoo: Book written by the founder of a company called Boo, which raised $135 million over 18 months and then went bust
   • 
2. James Eder: Founder of Studentbeans.com who I met at LSE

The reason why I think Boo.com went bust was, lack of financial management and no focus on product (the actual website which sold sports gear). Looking at some of the successful applications (and/or websites), there approach was bottom up. Eg: Skype, YouTube etc.

Bottom-up approach the individual base elements of the system are first specified in great detail. These elements are then linked together to form larger subsystems, which then in turn are linked, sometimes in many levels, until a complete top-level system is formed. This strategy often resembles a “seed” model, whereby the beginnings are small but eventually grow in complexity and completeness. However, “organic strategies” may result in a tangle of elements and subsystems, developed in isolation and subject to local optimization as opposed to meeting a global purpose.

These sites spent years working on their application, getting real users to their site, building their product from the feedback they received from their users. Once the product is right and you have the users, raising finance is almost trivial. Yes you need to get the critical mass but that will not happen solely on the basis of Marketing and Sales. This brings me to James from Student Beans. Whilst answering questions after his talk, James mentioned “Get your product right and you won’t need any marketing”. I’m aware these were not his exact words but that’s the gist of it.

I agree with James but also feel marketing and sales are very important. If you have your product right then it will generate enquiries.

This is relevant to people who are building a social network, sometimes the notion is to heavily market it: Pay per click, press releases blah blah and forget that the focus was the social network. Another factor is the design, Boo.com spent a lot of emphasis on design (or rather forgot the actual user):

The designers had forgotten that getting people to use the website and purchase items outweighed the “sexiness” of the design

If entrepreneurs and companies should keep the design rich but at the same time not too complicated, so its not multi-browser compatible. Users generally like simple looking websites which work! What impresses them is the functionality not just the design alone. Eg: Facebook, Myspace etc

Blogged with Flock

Tags: boo.com, studentbeabs.com, bottom-up, design

I’m speaking tomorrow (15th Jan 2008) at the Entrepreneur Panel, LSE (London School of Economics and Political Science). The panel will consist of James Eder from Student beans, Saj Jetha from The Smarty Train and me.

The talk will focus on Entrepreneurship after university. If you are a LSE student you are welcome to join us: Room U1 (Tower 1) at 6.30pm.

I will cover the following topics:

• Introduction to me and the company
• Where is Kwiqq now
• Before I started Kwiqq
• Entrepreneurism and Entrepreneurs
• My proudest accomplishment
• Most difficult challenge
• Should a student start a company after university ?
• Who supported me through out my Kwiqq journey
• Inside tips for budding entrepreneur

After the event the entrepreneur panel will be available for questions over dinner.

Blogged with Flock

Tags: LSE, Raj Anand, James Eder, Saj Jetha, Kwiqq

IMantri is a social network based in in US which connects Mentors with Mentees. Nice concept I think Mentors are a very important part of the business community and this should really help people starting out. The social network overall focuses on goals and competencies.

Techcrunch today released an invitation codes ‘impact178′, register here. The site has some CSS bugs but I’m sure they can be sorted out.

The site has nice way to find potential mentors based on competency and goal. The website already has around 20 mentors and I’m sure the number will rise. Good for business all around!

Blogged with Flock

Tags: Mentor, mentees, business, match

If you have been following kwiqq you might know that we began on 15th Jan 2007. In just a year we have seen some amazing results. We met some fantastic people in the community: Brighton (BNM), London, California, European etc.

I would like to thank everyone for being supportive and accepting funny accent multicultural (Raj) and skinny blond haired (Jack) :). Your advice and references are much appreciated! This year our achievements were:

• Kwiqq grew from 1 man band to a team of 11 people.
• Raj won BusinessWeek’s Europe’s Young entrepreneur 2007
• Jack spoke about Social Networking at several conferences like Ad-tech (Europe’s Biggest interactive marketing conference), Internet marketing conference (Sweden), 02 sponsored New Product Network, Mashup* Event and SEMN IP-Pitching organised by Wired Sussex
• Raj spoke on Entrepreneurship at Make Your Mark (YES Network), £5 App, Ethnic Minority Entrepreneurs at the British Council (with The Minister of State for Competitiveness, Stephen Timms MP)
• We are working with some fabulous clients like First Choice (2wentys), Highams PLC, Sussex Innovation Centre and SEEDA.
• We were covered in some major publications (online and offline) like BusinessWeek, Techcrunch, Hindustan Times, TTG, The Argus, Intruders.tv, Hobsons, Wired Sussex, Blognation etc.

Our ambitions for 2008:

I always think of ourselves as a very ambitious company. As you would suspect we have some targets for next year:

• Physical presence outside the UK. I will announce this once deals and our vision is finalised
• Officially launch version 2 of Kwiqq’s software with major upgrades in the server and front end of the software.
• Serve more customers this year, strategy includes increasing our sales force and development team.
• Concentrate on our product. Improve functionality and explore other undiscovered areas of social networking in areas like privacy, usability etc

Personal Objectives for 2008:

• Do more dance videos, one wasn’t enough
• Eating healthy food and no snacking (good bye junk food). I’ll try and join a gym, not sure if I’ll get the time though (atleast I’m honest about it)
  
• Continue my mission to get more young people into entrepreneurship. Its a wonderful thing which would help them in various spheres of life.
  
• Not wear suit and tie unless I really have to.
  

Blogged with Flock

Tags: Kwiqq, achievements, 2007, 2008, Jack Farihall, Raj Anand

Looking at the university enterprise societies  at Oxford, LSE and Cambridge I feel that University of Sussex has a special place, because of its emphasis on both business and social Entrepreneurship.

Social entrepreneurship is the work of a social entrepreneur. A social entrepreneur is someone who recognizes a social problem and uses entrepreneurial principles to organize, create, and manage a venture to make social change. Whereas business entrepreneurs typically measure performance in profit and return, social entrepreneurs assess their success in terms of the impact they have on society.

I think Sussex has a long way to go to truly showcase its entrepreneurial talent. US has shown its entrepreneurial flavour at several occasions: top spot at the MAD Ideas competition, actively supporting Shell Technology Enterprise programme, forming a students Enterprise society: Ilumus and Enterprise Thursday. To spread the word around, Jon Markwell Sussex University Alumni Entrepreneur is organising an event : Enterprising Engineers. You don’t have to be technical just curious about starting a business.

Venue: Medical School Lecture Theatre, University of Sussex
Date: 21st Feb 2008
Time: At 5.30pm
Fee: £0.00

[Sign Up: http://www.sussex.ac.uk/business/1-3-1-1-3.html ]

What do I get: Free Beer/Food + opportunity to learn how to make Billions

Speakers:

Ian Ozsvald - ShowMeDo.com - Online Video Tutotials
Lincoln Smith - www.iolab.co.uk - Response Time Measurement Devices
Raj Anand - www.kwiqq.com - Social Networking Software
Neil Purssey - www.firecoltd.com - Fire Safety Equipment

My Thoughts on Entrepreneurship at Sussex

I think we are not actively informing students about entrepreneurship at our uni. As a result many, including myself, whilst at university never felt that was/is a feasible option. Graduates are bombarded with corporates trying to employee them, tempting students with attractive salaries. Here is my list of advantages of being in a Job and own business (entrepreneurship)

Advantages of working for others

1. Brilliant salaries, nice way to pay off those student debts
2. 9am - 5pm limited and defined working hours

Advantages of being an Entrepreneur

1. Salaries are not very high initially but you are guaranteed satisfaction. In a year or two when you look back you are truly proud of your achievement
2. As an entrepreneur you don’t fear redundancies. There is nothing like a stable job (yes no 9-5 job is stable..one day you will be sacked ), as an entrepreneur you control your salary and ambitions.
3. Life is exciting. You’ll never feel that you are repeating a task, everyday is a learning experience.
4. Within a year or two you will learn several skills. I heard an entrepreneur say once “I feel like 1/4th Lawyer, 1/3rd designer, 1/5th Business Development expert, 1/3 Marketer after working for myself for a year”

Blogged with Flock

Tags: YoungGraduates, Sussex University, Enterprising Engineers, beer