Wednesday is Karma Day

I guess my buddy at the Founders' Club, Andrew Romans set me off on this idea...

Here it is. In order to 'feed the soul of the entrepreneurs World', we should all give up 10% of our week to helping others - Not for money or gain of any kind. Just for the Karma Credits (thanks Andrew).

Sometimes I have a hectic week and I forget to do it  - this means I need to catch-up' the following week.

Help others because you can not because you hope to gain something directly from it.

The economy in the west is little better than dead in the water at the moment. We can actually make a difference at a micro level as well you know.

So go on, start getting those karma credits.

Women, clean tech and Venture Capital

I recently was a panelist for a women's cleantech forum. I was invited along as the "entrepreneur that has successfully raised money in this sector". I really liked the format -it was just a well managed Q and A. It made me think that:

1. VC's get a bad wrap at the moment.
2. We need them. Without VC our great ideas will remain just that, great ideas.
3 Seed investment is harder than ever to find !

I've probably said it before but VC allows entrepreneurs to take risks that they would otherwise be unable to take. It also allows you to break the 'prime directive' and change the space-time continuum by doing things much faster than be possible any other way.

So what are the downsides ?

My perspective is very EU centric here but... investors look for reference points in order to gauge risk. If those reference points are in the form of milestones which are aligned with the company's business strategy then that's fine. If they're not then you might end up deviating from your strategy in order to satisfy the need an investor has for reference points. let me rephrase that: No matter whom you investor, is you will be very lucky if you don't have to tweak your strategy in order to satisfy investment milestones!

What companies need to become winners

A company needs 2 things to become a success:

Scale and governance

Governance you can get by putting skilled non-execs on your Board and by putting in proper reporting processes. Financial governance should be straightforward in an early stage business - there will probably be insufficient transactions to make an audit complex...but there still maybe skeletons to pull out !

Scale is hard to assess and harder to improve. The ability to scale is determined by a number of factors:

Size of the market opportunity

Quality of the management team

Clear and well defined (make that well understood as well!) strategy

Shared vision

Sales pipeline

Product quality

Customer satisfaction (happy reference customers - ideally flagships)

IP

Innovation

Culture

Competitive advantage

Funding (and quality of funding)

Some of these things are easy to change, some are hard to change and some are impossible to change...

Are zero gravity strategists just space cadets?

The whole idea (I think) is that you strategise without constraint. That you allow the most ideal circumstances to exist which promote creativity  - great stuff.

The trouble is that we live in the real world where profit and loss exists. Where lead times and resource constraints are part of daily life. Where existing tactical commitments cannot be 'walked away' from in an instant. Where money changes hands in exchange for goods and services.

I think it's bad to make strategic sacrifices for tactical reasons...BUT

Gravity exists for a reason. It keeps our feet on the ground.

What ever clever ideas we come up with - someone will have deploy them...

Must not forget that.

How long does an idea take - start to finish

I was speaking to Pilgrim Beart the other day - he is one of the founders of AlertMe.com

When people talk about serial entrepreneurs, I think it's Pilgrim they are talking about ! Boy, does he have ideas. He has created more products, businesses and entities that I could have believed.

We discussed how long it takes...from the time that you have a good idea, to the day the company (which you build to commercialise the idea) is sold. We agreed that from a cold start you're looking at about 10 years. Yep - it really is that long. So if you want to be a founder CEO and exploit your ideas one after the other, then you're looking at 2-3 good ideas in your working life...tops.

So next time you have a great idea and start thinking about all the Ferraris you're going to buy with the proceeds, think on a 10 year turnaround for the investment of your time and effort...

Now you can see why some founders hand the company to someone else to run while they work on another idea !

Been engrossed for a few months

Sorry I haven't posted much for a while.

My excuse is that I have been busy with life !

Oh - I am starting a management consultancy. I know I am a techy entrepreneur in my heart but I also really enjoy helping folks getting their companies 'across the chasm'.

I will sort out a mission statement when I have a moment of clarity.

CEO Tales

I went to a Business Leaders Network event in Cambridge yesterday. I have to say it was fascinating. The speaker was Joel Spolsky. What a smart guy...

What really struck me was:
1. He is uber clever
2. He is really clear about the vision for his company
3. He listens to the user base but is not their servant
4. He's nothing like the sort of CEO that some traditional UK VCs like