Today, I decided to resign from CRMthis.com, another startup idea by me. We had a team. We built the API and the back-end very quickly for the Minimum Viable Product (MVP), but the front-end never arrived. We were targeting to beat Buffer's 7-week product to revenue milestone. And we could have done it! We had two partners on board. But it only takes one team member in a startup team to kill it. And this is the second time it happened to me. First time, I managed to keep it going for 18 months before I found a way forward. I was not prepared to do the same this time round.

StartUp Team Dynamics

A startup needs a driver. At early stage, its about driving, rather than leading. And I was that person. You also need a team of one or more who could build the product, initially the MVP, but have the capability to continue developing. We had two developers (in fact 3!). The back-end developer was a well seasoned tech entrepreneur with two successful exits. He knew his stuff! He brought one of his employees and together they built the API and back-end using latest technologies in record time. Yeap, we have node.js, backbone.js, Riak (NoSQL) and all the other sexy technologies.

We had a Rookie for the front-end, who struggled to keep up. Weeks went by without progress, and then turned into months. We had great team dialogue at the beginning. Things started to really slow down, where team members stopped responding to emails, and time was not spent on developing. Signs of a dead startup started to appear many months ago!

I could have fired the Rookie and found a replacement. But the whole idea of trying to find another front-end developer became too daunting. So I finally decided enough is enough and resigned today.

Startup Equity

This is a very controversial subject. We agreed not to discuss equity split until the product was launched, and we understood how much time each of us would commit to continue. We trusted each other. Trust is a real vital component for the startup team. Just to give some idea about team backgrounds:

1. Me - already had two companies running, but was fully capable of taking the third one on, as it complemented edocr.com
2. Back-end Developer - He also ran a very early stage techstartup
3. Front-end Developer - Was employed full time

There were no salaries involved and we did not need any funding. Backend Developer paid the bills for AWS services, which was kept at a bare minimum.

What was the idea behind CRMthis.com?

We were trying to address few issues, mainly:

1. edocr.com captures document leads. We have integrated with salesforce.com to export leads, but was not keen to integrate with every CRM on the planet.
2. CRMthis.com would have integrated with edocr.com and CRMs, so that leads from edocr.com could be exported to any CRM via CRMthis.com
3. It will also integrate with other social networks from the famous four (facebook, linkedin, twitter and google plus) to minor ones, so that contacts can be exported to CRM seamlessly.
4. It will allow your contacts to be sorted before exporting to CRMs. It gave you the ability to segregate personal and business contacts, so that business contacts can be exported.
5. It would also integrate with Non CRMs such as Zendesk.
6. It would integrate with your address books, and sync your contacts across all your apps.

In a nutshell, we were developing Plaxo 2.0. The main focus being, "manage your lists once and for all, and stay in sync". It had the opportunity to grow fast as a SaaS product, and would have been very attractive to investors.

So what now?

In my email of resignation, I gave unconditional rights to my team members to continue, except with holding the rights to the domain name. Whilst I have not heard from them, I doubt they will continue. Remember, you need a driver. My team members were not as passionate as me with CRMthis. Whilst they saw it as a good opportunity to be involved and did not want to miss the opportunity, they were never going to take part without a driver.

edocr.com would be keen to develop a less functionality rich CRMthis some point in time.

I was fortune enough to meet Martin and Shaf yesterday and discuss about their new startup. I saw the passion in them. We never had that level of passion in CRMthis. I knew we will continue to struggle, even if I manage to get to MVP. It was something I knew for a long time, but refused to acknowledge, until yesterday. So it was time to say sayonara!

I was privileged to be asked to join a brainstorming meeting held by the founders of a new techstartup called Twocial.

What's in a name?

Whilst I am not into original thinking (nothing against you Manchester Business School!), not having an original name for your startup is inexcusable. Most people, even branding experts get this wrong (e.g. Mike Perls' MC2 with mcmc.co.uk). I believe my own startup got a great name, but it is misspelled most of the time (eDocr, eDOCr, etc) by those who are cleverer than me!.

Who are the Nutters behind Twosocial?

In my book, there are three types of people who setup startups, these being

+ Commercially minded - these are the guys with significant capital behind them, who go after a well researched commercial opportunity with precision.
+ Nutters - these are the guys who want to change the world. In my case, it has been about liberating business documents from file servers. Not a very sexy subject like sharing your pictures with few buddies (yeah, I am talking about you, Mr. Instagr.am). By the way, our unwritten motto these days is "upload once make it available anywhere"
+ Fun lovers - these guys build products because they can. Some just give up and others become successful tech companies

Ok, so who are the nutters behind Twosocial? The techie in the team is "fun lover" turned "nutter" Martin Rue. The newbie behind the team is a chap called Shaf Choudry (he is alright except little bit too tall for my liking! - let's make shorties rule!).

I got an issue with Martin, as he did not finish Tweetdoc. But I managed to convince him to integrate with edocr.com to produce brand reports. Being a "Fun lover", Martin developed many products, but never spent enough time on one product to make it a success. So I am counting on Shaf to make sure the team deliver this time!

What's it all about?

Mmh! Something to do with brands..As we had the meeting at Tech Centre Manchester, I made sure they took notice of my thoughts. Here is what I think it ought to be:

- We all know about the growth of price comparison sites. People are no longer content with price. They value better service, and are prepared to pay a small premium for it. The next evolution of comparisons will be on sentiments. Take Klout and Peerindex for example. These startups give a rank people based on level of engagement and number of other criteria unique to them. Whilst I think its all crazy, people are taking them seriously (I'm gutted as my scores have dropped recently from highs of sixties to below fifties - no wonder no one listens to me!). I like to see Twocial build a highly visual product that focus on sentiment of brands.
- It ought to focus on large businesses. You need lot of tweets to understand the sentiment of brands. The team wants to focus on SMEs. I think this is a mistake.

What's the approach?

Twocial wants to share how they develop the product publicly. I think this is a great strategy. The founders of edocr.com also had the same idea, but we never managed to achieve it due to many reasons.

Take it or leave it advice

Here are my key suggestions:

1. Please complete it - you have no excuse. You have jobs to keep the money coming in. You are young and there is nothing to loose. Just go for it!
2. You already know about leanstartup methodology and all those who practice them - so keep engaging.
3. Listen to suggestions from everyone. Execute what you think is right! Don't try to satisfy everyone including me!
4. Release daily if you can. Maintain a status log on tumbler like us
5. List your startup on Angel.co, and let the investors follow you.

As you engage openly, you will build a fan club naturally. Happy to be of some help! Now go! Make it happen.

If you have not watched this before, you should!

Adzuna (http://www.adzuna.co.uk), the next-generation job search engine, has today announced it has raised £500k investment financing from Index Ventures, The Accelerator Group and existing investors including Passion Capital. The latest funding follows a seed round last year.

Launched in July 2011, Adzuna aims to become the world’s leading search engine for classifieds, by bringing together all the ads and connecting users with them in new ways.

Adzuna collates almost every job ad in the UK in real time from hundreds of websites, including all of the major job boards as well as sources like the London 2012 Olympics, Williams Formula 1 and the Royal Household. In addition to listing around 500,000 vacancies, the unique Adzuna Connect feature helps users “get hired with a little help from their friends” by connecting them to jobs where they have first or second-degree connections on LinkedIn or Facebook.

The site also offers a wealth of data about the jobs and companies recruiting, from average salary data to employee reviews, interview questions and “CEO Approval ratings”.

Since launch in July, Adzuna has rapidly grown to hundreds of thousands of visitors per month, and was named a Top 20 Startup of 2011 by Startups.co.uk, a finalist in the Website of the Year awards, and shortlisted for the Europas.

This latest round of funding will be used to drive further product innovation around social and data, and expand into other verticals as well as international markets.

Robin Klein, Venture Partner at Index, said, “We’re delighted to be working with Andrew and Doug, experienced entrepreneurs whom we know well from their track records at Gumtree, Qype and Zoopla. The Adzuna team has achieved a great deal in a short period of time, and we believe the innovations they continue to bring to the market will change the way people search for classified ads.”

Doug Monro, Co-Founder of Adzuna, said: “We’re really excited to have top-class investors like Index, The Accelerator Group and Passion involved. We are passionate about making the classifieds search experience fundamentally better for users in the UK and beyond. This will help us towards that vision.”

About Adzuna

Adzuna.co.uk is a search engine for classified ads which makes it easier for you to find the right job locally - and soon properties and cars too. We search thousands of sites so you don't have to, bring together millions of ads so you can find them all in one place, and organize them with useful features so that you can easily find what you need.

Adzuna founders Andrew Hunter and Doug Monro met working at Gumtree in 2005. They stayed in the local internet space for the next 5 years and finally hatched the Adzuna plan in 2010 on the back of an envelope in a central London pub. The site was launched in July 2011.

Doug Monro was most recently COO of property portal Zoopla, leading the growth of the team from 5 to 75 people and the site to number 2 in UK property with 5M visitors a month. Previously he was MD of Gumtree.com, the UK's largest classified ads site, and has worked for eBay UK, Bain & Co and Unilever. He has a BA in English from Cambridge and an MBA with distinction from Kellogg.

Andrew Hunter was mostly recently VP Marketing and General Manager of local review site Qype, where he grew the site from 0-17m monthly unique visitors in 2 years. Before Qype, Andrew was Head of Marketing at Gumtree.com and ran Search Marketing for the Thomas Cook Group. Andrew has a BSc in Business & Economics from Oxford BrookesUniversity.

For more information please contact Andrew Hunter at andrew@adzuna.com +44 7957324720 or Doug Monro at doug@adzuna.com +44 7971224604.

About Index Ventures

Index Ventures is a leading venture capital firm specializing in investments in information technology and life sciences companies. The firm invests in seed, early and growth stage start-ups across US and Europe. Since its inception in 1996, Index Ventures has backed visionary entrepreneurs who have taken on incumbents and built seminal companies in a number of growth sectors including: open source software companies such as MySQL, Trolltech, Zend and Pentaho; broadband and VOIP companies such as Virata, Skype, FON and Rebtel; Internet service companies such as Dropbox, Path, Betfair, Oanda, Last.fm, SpotRunner, Lovefilm, Stardoll and Netvibes; and life science companies such as Genmab, ParAllele Biosciences, BioXell, 7TM Pharma, Addex Pharmaceutical and PanGenetics.

About Passion Capital

Passion Capital (http://passioncapital.com) was established in March 2011 by Stefan Glaenzer, Eileen Burbidge and Robert Dighero with the aim of becoming the premier early stage digital media and technology investment firm in the UK. The partners have more than 50 years’ collective experience in entrepreneurial, founding and executive operational roles in technology firms.

About The Accelerator Group (TAG)

Based in London, The Accelerator Group (TAG) has been an investor in early stage and start-up companies since 1995. They focus on the Internet services, eCommerce and multi-channel retail sectors, investing primarily in the US and Europe. TAG's current investments include: Moo, Wonga, Moshi Monsters, Graze, Zoopla, Skimlinks and previously: LoveFilm, Fizzback, Tweetdeck and Dopplr.

Founder's Club

+ 10 lessons from my startup journey by @JoelGascoigne

+ CEO of Ooga Labs

+ Sergey Brin’s talk on how Google started off

Various Topics

+ 13 ways to crush your competition

+ Value selling vs. nuts and bolts selling

+ Why You Ought to Throw Away Your Vanity Metrics for These 5 Customer Metrics

+ The importance of strategic business development

+ Why Marketing and BD Professionals Should Learn to Code

+ Active User Retention: I keep forgetting to use your app

LONDON, UK – 16 December, 2011 – Springboard, the 13-week accelerator boot-camp programme, today announced an early Christmas present for start-ups who apply to the Springboard London programme - a virtual goodie bag.

With support from Microsoft, SendGrid, Twilio, Google, FreeAgent and Pivotal Tracker, Springboard has created a virtual goodie bag worth over £350 for any start-up who makes an application for the Springboard London programme, which starts in early 2012.

In addition, start-ups selected to participate in the Springboard programmes both in London and Cambridge will get additional services from a number of these companies. Microsoft, for example, has generously offered £40,000 of free cloud hosting over two years to each Springboard team.

“Springboard regularly receives offers from supportive technology businesses to help the teams who participate in the Springboard programmes,” said Jon Bradford, MD for Springboard. “However, there are many start-ups who could benefit from support from these businesses and we’re grateful for their generous offers to help any team that applies to Springboard.”

"Entrepreneurship is a critical driver of economic growth, at Microsoft we support entrepreneurs around the world in every way we can," said Cliff Reeves, a General Manager in Microsoft's Emerging Business team. "That includes working with proven startup accelerators like Springboard to ensure that their high-potential startups get friction-free access to our best technology as well as our ecosystem of partners worldwide."

The deadline for entrepreneurs to compete for one of ten places on the programme in 29 January, 2012. To apply for a place on Springboard London visit Springboard