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Speed pitching - Angels Den at its best

Posted by superuser on Wednesday 5th of August 2009 | 0 Comment(s)

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Celebrity Entrepreneurs - What it takes to succeed

Posted by superuser on Wednesday 5th of August 2009 | 0 Comment(s)

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Tech StartUps and Digital Advocates - Post event Chatter

Posted by superuser on Monday 27th of July 2009 | 2 Comment(s)

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Experts consider their verdicts

From Sarah Hartley - Manchester entrepreneurs display their wares, at here and here

Show Me The Money! Smart Investments and Exit Stategies - Glasshouse Event

Posted by superuser on Saturday 25th of July 2009 | 0 Comment(s)

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Huddle.net - Perhaps the most popular UK enterprise tech startup - Alistair Mitchell and Andy McLoughlin

Posted by superuser on Saturday 25th of July 2009 | 0 Comment(s)

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CEO of Monitise Group - We were belly-laughed out of meetings

Posted by superuser on Saturday 25th of July 2009 | 1 Comment(s)

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Here is what Monitise does:

Monitise

Can the North West Seize the Opportunity to Lead on Digital & Creative Media?

Posted by Steve Livingston on Thursday 23rd of July 2009 | 2 Comment(s)

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I don't know what it is about these Dragon's Lair style NS 2.0 events but you can't help but get sucked into the sense of anticipation wafting in the air and find yourself willing the pitching companies to do well - last night they needed little encouragement as the tech businesses that presented were simply that good!

Judging by the encouraging comments, the panel - made up of Richard Gregory (COO Latitude Group), Mike Perls (CEO MC2), Tom Cheesewright (Strategy Director, And Digital) and Kevin McKay (Director McCann Erickson) - left mightily impressed with what they had seen.

After our host, Manoj Ranaweera, welcomed all and thanked the NS 2.0 sponsors, Imran Hakim said a few words about the strength of networks when times are tough and how small businesses should seize the opportunity to innovate and adapt to change. All good stuff - shame he couldn't hang around to see more good stuff after edocr.com.

Manoj was first up to pitch edocr.com. Armed with a screenshot of the new edocr front page that shouts about getting your business noticed, those already familiar with edocr started to 'get it' more although there were still some question marks over the approach to market and charging v 'freemium' model.

My own view is that edocr could be a great tool for businesses to reach out and leverage their intellectual property, however, the prize lies in building the critical mass to make it "the go to" site for business documents. Freemium for now may hold the key - leverage to the hilt later, perhaps?

Next up was Georgia Brown with phonefromhere.com. Met with a rapturous response from the panel, phonefromhere.com stole the evening. It stands out as one of those "obvious" (yet clever) tools that you think the big boys (ala Skype) would be busy developing and rolling out yet right now there is only tumble-weed. Nada. And therefore a gaping opportunity for this promising business.

My slight concern was the repeated reference to it being "early" technology. Phonefromhere.com has been active on the Manchester tech scene for at least a year (I think) and we all know how fast things develop in the tech world. Strike now would be the resounding advice I reckon.

PostureMinder presented a useful piece of software technology that could help mitigate backpain suffered working in front of a pc or (worse) laptop and perhaps aid those on the road to recovery. Having come close to securing some deals with businesses, the panel agreed that the larger corporates probably held the key to the product's success given the investment required. Mention was made of a joint venture and I can see some mileage in this. I can also see it working in the larger blue chip professional organisations who (once they have their budgets back) will no doubt soon be paranoid about future employee claims along these lines.

Finally, (just 4 months in) was vmweb.co.uk and its new UK protected FLIMP package, essentially for businesses of all sizes (particularly SMEs) to create, distribute and track corporate videos. The panel agreed that the age of video is now truly dawning and that with the advent of Google PPC for video this service is timely. There were murmurs of concern over the SME masses producing garish DIY video nasties that could shatter any remnants of value in their brand, although the opportunity to get something out there rather than nothing and the current high conversion rates for video messages left the panel impressed.

That rounded off another successful NS20 evening with the panel summing up with words of encouragement for NW tech businesses to show more self belief and confidence in their entrepreneurial businesses and talents.

And so we headed home with the rallying battle-cry ringing in our ears that there is an opportunity for the North West to lead on Digital, Technology & Creative Media - we just need to take that chance...

edocr.com - Improving the message: Strap line

Posted by superuser on Saturday 18th of July 2009 | 0 Comment(s)

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We, at edocr.com are constantly looking at ways to improve our message, and lately have received many comments and suggestions both through e-mail and Twitter helping us to further simplify what is obvious to us, but may not necessarily be obvious to visitors to edocr.com.

Over this week, we changed our strap line twice. When we first soft launched edocr.com, our strap line was "upload | convert | share", which reflected the thinking at the time, as the market was just taking shape. After we re-started developing edocr.com at the end of 2008, we unveiled the improved design in 2009 with a new strap line, "unleashing the power of business documents", which reflected our desire to concentrate more on business user, and un-trapping of the potential of pdf files. Whilst some understood what this meant, it was never too clear, how and what the "unleashing" was all about.

This week, we came out with a new strap line "sweat your document inventory" - "sweat" and "inventory" ought to be two terms well understood by business users. Then one of our regular twitters @katrina_D, aka, CEO of North West tech entreprenur, Katrina Delargy of Tiyga, came with a much improved version "make your documents work harder for you". This is exactly what edocr.com is about. Spot on Katrina and thank you for all those who contributed to improving our message. Do let us know your thoughts on our slogan and whether you can improve it event further.

Response to Sarah Lacy on TechCrunch

Posted by ManojRanaweera on Saturday 18th of July 2009 | 2 Comment(s)

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This is my response to Sarah Lacy's recent article on TechCrunch

We have never met Sarah, but have heard a lot about you.

I run http://www.edocr.com, which I have bootstrapped for well over 2 years and we are perhaps the first to come up with a commercial model in our market segment, if you ignore Scribd’s commercial entry to Amzon.com’s territory. We will continue to bootstrap until we are ready to raise funding on our terms. This is not a reflection of the market, but our own attitude regarding taking external finance.

Secondly, I run http://www.nwstartup20.co.uk - (NS20) my attempt at building an ecosystem for tech entrepreneurs primarily in the North of UK. The site is currently being improved with the idea of opening up the blog for tech entrepreneurs. We run monthly events in the North and invaded London on 8th June with Michael Birch spending over 8 hours with us. What Michael and Brent Hoberman are attempting to do in London is very refreshing.

In terms of VC market, I can only talk about the North, and specifically NW. Two to three small VC funds closed over the last two years due to running out of cash. NWDA will make £13.5 million available over the next few months for investment up to mid 2010, when they will launch a £140m fund for the next 6 years. This is public sector funding. Other VCs continue to raise small funds in the range of £10 to £15 million from HNW individuals. Two of London based angels network are considering launching their franchises in the NW/North. We at NS20 may also stretch our model or team up with one the networks coming to the North.

Just to conclude, the market is not as bad as you say it is. Yes, selection process is more stringent than ever, and in this game, credibility and contacts are important as ever.

If you do return to UK, and want to wonder up north, we are happy to consider running an event to coincide with your visit. Just give us couple of weeks notice.

All the best
Manoj

North West's greatest tech entrepreneur speaking at Smarta

Posted by superuser on Wednesday 15th of July 2009 | 0 Comment(s)

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It is no doubt that Simon Nixon, co-founder of Moneysupermarket.com is one of the greatest tech entrepreneurs to come out of the North West. Here is Simon speaking about his new startup SimonSeeks and MoneySupermaket, courtesy of Smarta. Enjoy

As you probably figured out, my challenge is to introduce StartUp 2.0 to Simon, and make sure his talent and experience is available to our startups. Wish me luck boys!