Just discovered g2i – gateway2investment, which is an investment readiness programme for London based companies looking for equity investment, to assist with rapid growth.

As an entrepreneur, with a company in London, looking for investment, if you’re innovative, and looking to grow the company with an equity investment, then g2i might be able to help.  I happened to discover it when reading the comments in an article that talked about Huddle, and how they were a part of a group who went out to Silicon Valley, called Web Mission 08.  The g2i appears to offer training, advice, support and mentoring, aimed at helping companies develop their pitches, their propositions, and their teams, in order to become “investor ready”.  They only target specific sectors, so before you go off all chirpy, make sure that you’re at least in one of the following industries:

• Design & Creative
• Life Sciences
• Emerging Technologies
• Energy & Environment
• ICT
• Food & Drink
• Value Added Manufacturing
• Retail

It actually looks like a pretty broad range, so hopefully you’ll be able to find a way to fit into one of those categories.  I guess, aside from getting you ready for investors, the real benefit with g2i, is their network of investors, VC’s and business angels, which means they’ll be able to help you brush up on your pitch, and then help you walk through the door to the folks with money most suited to what you’re offering.

Seems like a win win situation to me!  They have a great summary of the g2i journey, graphically depicting the different stages, and what’s on offer..

You can also read more about the g2i team, which is comprised of Grant Thornton UK LLP, Library House, E-Synergy, The Innovatory, Quotec, and Pembrige Partners LLP.

Altogether, g2i looks like a great outfit to go through, to help shape up the business, and get things rolling, especially if you’re during the growth phase of your company, and need the equity injection to help grow the business.

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So I attended the SeedCamp Interview Day yesterday, and I have to say it was a real eye-opener…

I managed to arrive at the right building, in time, and found that the interviews were running a little late.  That bought me a bit of extra time to get to know some of the folks that were there before me, and also to find out a bit about Michael Orland, one of the hosts of SeedCamp.

Calm, mentally prepared, and ready to pitch BillionInAYear.com I stepped into the room full of all the Investors from the SeedCamp Selection Panel, and got thrown a little by the fact that my presentation hadn’t been received.. Though I was sure I had sent it, and I’d gotten an acknowledgement from one of the Seedcamp folks, I’d foolishly not put the presentation on a memory stick, and was invited to start, whilst Reshma frantically tried to find the presentation slides, and get them onto the screen.  Ironic really, that the start to my presentation was a perfect example of how BillionInAYear.com was a solution to the problem that had just occurred.  Of an email, being sent, and received, and not being readily visible, in the information streams, of the intended recipient.  How often do you get an email from someone, that’s important to your work at that moment, and it gets lost in the stream of email flows coming at you?

Well, fortunately, I recovered from the start, communicated the essence of the idea, answered all the questions that came at me, and before I knew it, the ten minutes were over, and I was invited to step outside..   I guess sometimes, time really does fly when you’re having fun. I just hope all the Selection Panel enjoyed themselves as much as I did.  The body language in the room seemed very closed, and dis-interested to begin with, though that might have been as much to do with trying to hide their true interest, or just a ploy to feign dis-interest.  By contrast, by the time I left the room, I could see some visible indications from some of the audience, of a real interest, and I think I had managed to get some people’s curiosity a little further aroused, but then that could have just been my own imagination!!  I guess once the results of the SeedCamp Interview Day are published, with the finalists for SeedCamp week being announced, then I’ll know just how much interest there really was.  Fortunately, the whole experience got me thinking a little more pro-actively about how I might go about raising funding, and actually taking the time to review the websites of some of the investment companies, that are involved with SeedCamp.   I guess now I really have to keep pushing outwards, and pursuing potential avenues, and sources of funding, to see if I can finally secure a proper seed development budget to build a prototype of BillionInAYear.com – since I really don’t want to be the one to have to write the code for the system myself (mainly since programming is not my real passion, or strength).  There’s been plenty of people who have made offers of support along the way, perhaps now I need to start bringing those people together, and raising some seed funding through those sources, if I don’t get funding through SeedCamp this year.

Well, after the ten minute interview, I had a real eye-opener, when chatting with fellow attendees at the Interview.  One team, who had applied to SeedCamp, weren’t even on Facebook – another preferred to use Xing instead of Facebook, and I slowly started to realise, how the entire web 2.0 world doesn’t revolve around facebook, and twitter, and blogging, as much as I thought it might have done.  In fact, trying to find an online presence for each of the members of the selection panel made me realise how people use these online tools in diversely different ways.  So much so, that to presume that all of the people in SeedCamp are all in Facebook, or LinkedIn, or Twitter would be a huge mistake.. In fact some of the members of the SeedCamp Selection panel, don’t even have a website, like Mark Esiri, and Venrex.  (At least they don’t have any website that I’ve been able to find as yet.. though I’m still looking!)

I’ve come to realise that whilst there are certain tools and services out there that are more popular in certain countries, and less popular in others, Web technologies, and web2.0 startups can exist completely under the radar, Investment Funds can exist without any visible online presence, and the whole world of Technology Startups, is at a significantly different state of play, compared to the bleeding edge technologies, and early adopters.  The fact that colleagues at each of the last two companies I’ve worked with are all on Facebook, illustrate the widespread mainstream adoption of certain technologies by specific demographics, or cross sections of society.  Why, even my dad has joined Facebook, to stay up-to date with photos, and family happenings, seeing as both my sisters live abroad, and our family is distributed across three continents. But even as tech savvy as he is, he’s still only a small percentage of the people in my family who use Facebook.  Some would argue that Facebook is the way forward, but I would have to argue otherwise.  I think inherently we should only ever see online social networks, for the publishing and storing mediums that they are, allowing, us as individuals to express what we want to through the net, or get our message out, to the people that we want to communicate with.  But to see it as a way of staying in touch with others, or staying informed as to what’s happening in other people’s lives is an assumption.  The assumption being, that others are using the same tools to publish information about their lives.  Except when they’re not.  Then we have to create a new login, start a new profile, and succumb to another login, and another URL. Until such a time comes as we can go to one place, find everything we need, and be able to not be overwhelmed by all the information.  FriendFeed does a great job of helping bring people and their content together, but unfortunately, if you’re friend hasn’t signed up, or is a member, you might not be able to see everything they’re publishing.  And when you find a friend writing a blog and being published elsewhere, you won’t be able to use FriendFeed’s service to add it to your friends profile… I don’t think anyone’s yet that forward thinking apart from BillionInAYear.com  But then I could be mistaken.  I’d love to be proven wrong, if you know otherwise, just let me know through the comments!

So, lesson of the day, most people have email, but not all.  Most people are online, and use a social network, but not all. And Web 2.0 is about using the technology, not necessarily being on all the social networks!!

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Have you ever wanted to share something with a certain group of people you know??

Well, it seems, since my travels around Peru, in 2005, I’ve yet to find a perfect solution for this dilemma…  Back then, I was travelling around Peru, and wanted to share some of the more personal stories, with select groups of family and friends, whilst the more general updates were meant for everyone.. But it seems, that there wasn’t an easy solution to the challenge, and so I ended up just not sharing some of the more intimate and personal stories, of my adventures, with the ones I wanted to share my stories with.  3 years on, and we don’t appear to be much closer to solving that challenge.. I suppose if I was only staying in touch with 4 or 5 people, this wouldn’t be a problem.. But being an active member in a number of different communities, and wanting to share stories, pictures and adventures with friends and family, being able to choose who gets to see what, seems to be a complex challenge, with no real practical solution.

I tried using Facebook recently, to share photos from my wedding, with some of the more personal, family moments, to be shared just with close immediate family, and it seems that Facebooks privacy settings, are far from perfect…  Short of excluding everyone, and then only including certain family members, you can’t just choose who to share photos with..

This challenge is one I’ve been grappling with for more than 3 years, and whilst I know the solution lies in starting with the social graph, and then managing access to information based on the relationships between people, it seems there’s very few if any services, that truly are able to execute this infrastructure, based on the needs of the person, with a real community in real life.  Facebook is trying as hard as it can, but being event driven, and advertising focussed, it can only ever truly be a glorified advertising platform, that lets people see what is happening in the most coarsest, and heavy handed manner.  For online tools to be able to come close to allowing the average person, with a multi-faceted life, to safely share the content that matters, with the people that matter to them, and to be able to keep work, family, and personal lives seperate, as we have them in our daily lives, in real life, will require a different order of thinking.  Something which Billioninayear.com has managed to do.   Once we have our development budget in place, then we’ll be able to see in a more direct manner, just how a tool, designed to keep you connected to the people you want to stay connected with, can really be a blessing, and save time, instead of becoming a curse, and adding to the information stream you have to stay on top of.

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So I’ve entered a contest called SeedCamp, and I need your support.  What’s the contest about?  Well, it’s a competition, run by some of the big venture capitalists in Europe (read – people with lots of money, who made it big in the dot.com boom!), including founders of skype, bebo, and some bigwigs from google, microsoft, mozilla, and cisco, amongst others.. (yeah, there’s plenty more people – you can find out about them all at the Seedcamp Team page).

The aim of the competition, is to be selected as one of the top 20 companies, who get to spend a week with Seedcamp, at UCL, in September, networking, making connections with all the movers and shakers in the Tech Startup industry, and then at the end of the week, pitching for €50k seed funding, which will be awarded to 5 startups for a 10% stake in the respective companies.

The aim of this funding, is to provide enough capital to fund the startup for 3 months, and along with enough funds to grow the business, and develop the software.  The lucky winners get to benefit from ongoing support from the ecosystem of startup funders, and mentors,  which includes other successful technology entrepreneurs, and with weekly dinners that provide ongoing mentorship and support, the aim is to be ready to pitch to potential investors, by week 10, when the startups get a chance to receive further funding.

So as a way of differentiating my entry, and in the hopes of getting into the contest with a bit of community support, I created a two minute elevator pitch (well it lasts about 2:50),  which describes the project that I’ve been working on for four years…  In essence it’s a bunch of technology that will make things like facebook, and email so much easier to use, making it easy to find the people you want to find, the information from those people that you want to retrieve, and automatically organising everything in a neat and tidy way.  Think of how easy it is to work in a neat and tidy office, where everything is filed away neatly, and how difficult it is to work when you have a bunch of mess everywhere?  Well the software I’ve been working on automatically takes the messy world of the internet, including all of your email, and logins for social networks like facebook, or linkedin, and by you answering a few simple questions, and filling in the gaps, in your social network, the system can automatically organise all of your contacts, and emails for you.  What this means, is that it gets easier to see what people have been upto – and for you to stay informed when it comes to the people that actually matter in your life.  It’s not to say your other emails and social networking sites are no longer useful, it’s just we believe there’s an easier and better way to do things, and we want to help people get online, find what they’re looking for, and then get off again… With some time, plenty of feedback, and hopefully the right approach, our aim is to reduce your online time checking and reading emails, being on social networking sites, reading blogs, and status updates, and generally being online, for social reasons, down to a quarter of what you currently have to spend, to be on top of it all..

It’s an ambitious goal, and it won’t be quick and easy (necessarily), but it will be something that get’s accomplished, eventually, by hook or by crook!!

The project is called Billion In A Year, and refers to roughly how many people are currently using the internet each year.  The idea being that this number of people are having to waste some time, each year, unnecessarily having to organise, and categorise their information.  I say unnecessarily, because we believe we can automate the process with the right technology, which we’ve already designed, and now need funding to help secure a development budget, and get a prototype started straight away.

So I managed to get a video recorded, as part of the contest, and the person with the most votes automatically gets through the first part of the selection process… (We still have to then attend an interview day, from which the final 20 will be selected, so it’s certainly no easy sailing, even if I do win this video contest).  However, I believe enough people are wasting away their lives on technology, and instead of being enabling and supporting the development of community and connections, social online technologies are looking for ways of being sticky, looking to keep you in their clutches for longer, which I think is completely wrong, and so I will be developing the first technology company, who’s aim is to have you use our technology for as little time as possible.  Some might call me foolish, but worry not, since I’ve not completely lost my marbles.. I do have monetisation models, etc.. but rest assured they don’t involve floating a whole bunch of advertising links on the website, from google.  I think it can be profitable to be able to get people away from their computers as quickly as possible, and let them live their lives, all that remains now, is to find the funding, and get the ball rolling… Trust me, I’ve got more than just one hair brained idea wrapped into this, and between all of them, I will find a model that works, to get the project off the ground, in a financially viable manner…

You can catch my pitch for BillionInaYear.com, along with all the other competition entries and of course, I’d be more than grateful for your support, if you feel like offering it. (Though the competition deadline is Sunday the 10th of August, at 23:59pm so that doesn’t leave much time! as of posting this..)

I know that the pitch is a little unclear, the audio is terrible, and the lighting is really bad, but unforutnately, given that I was scrambling at 10pm, the night before the deadline, to get the entry in, and ended up having to borrow a laptop, use my old headset, and use a webcam, I figured, at least I made it into the contest… I’ll shortly be updating the billioninayear.com website so that you can read the transcript, and also learn more about the project there… But for now, if you’re interested in learning more, drop me an email (if you know it), find me on twitter, and send me a comment (twitter username: magitam), or leave a message in the comments, and I’ll get back to you.

Wish me luck, in this crazy quest, to build this missing piece of technology in the world!

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So, I managed to scramble together this evening, and pull together a webcam, and a set of headphones, and get a computer that could work with them both plugged in, and record a short video for the SeedCamp contest, on their blog.  Apparently the most popular video get’s to attend the one day event, which forms the second part of the application process, prior to selecting the top 20 who will make it to Seedcamp week.  Well, I think this year, I’m going to enjoy entering the Seedcamp process.. It’s interesting to see of the choices they made last year, and where are those startups today… I was surprised to see how little funding they had secured so far, and that in the grand scheme of things, they were still trundling along.. Shocking to see one, where the boss had to fire 5 staff, live off of €2,000 for 6 months, and then finally had to get some consulting work to make ends meet… I’m pretty sure I could do a hell of a lot better than that, once I get the ball rolling…

Therein lies one of the biggest challenges.. and I guess, scrambling as far as Tesco, at 11:30pm, just to get a webcam, to show your face, on a Seesmic.com comment, via disqus with crackly audio, is one test of an Entrepreneurs mettle.  The fact that it’s a 2 minute elevator pitch ( that I did in almost 3), and that I probably had the worst picture quality, probably won’t help… but then again, I did use a metaphor, that might just drive home to people what this is all about… I’ll be interested to see what kind of a reaction this generates…. Of course, I’ll be using all the friends and family I know, to help support me in getting the winning vote, but that goes without saying!!

At least I managed to upload the Mehndi photos online, tonight.. (Mehndi/Dholki being a night of celebration, where the girls sing, and sometimes the guys have the nerve to join in…)  They’re on my facebook profile for now.. Was going to add them to smugmug too, but I guess that’ll have to wait.. For now,  just a little at a time, that way I can slowly get them all up there… Yes, I’m sorry, I know they’re a little slow in coming… but like they say, better late than never… eh??

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SeedCamp Season is now upon us again!  The applications officially opened on 30th June ‘08, and the official deadline is 23:59 10th August.. I wonder if that’s GMT or BST?? Well, it sure seems like only yesterday, when fuelled by the possibility of launching through SeedCamp that I seized my idea, and started desperately looking for the right team of developers, and programmers to work with.. And it looks like a year later, I’ve yet to find the right combination…  I went to South Africa for a few months at the end of last year, in the hopes of meeting some developers interested in creating technology that would lead to collaborative knowledge sharing, but left there disappointed, with nothing solid to work with.  Since then, I’ve worked in two full time jobs (not at the same time!), met a great developer, who just can’t afford to work for free, and have started refining the idea a little more, in terms of breaking it down into smaller and smaller pieces.  And yet, I guess it’s become an obsession of mine, to find someone who I can work with, and having gotten married a few months ago, I’ve lost the ability to take a gamble, and work on my project, without a job anymore… Now that I’m looking after my wife too, I’m going to have to make sure I keep paying the bills, and clearing off some of that debt I accrued, whilst travelling, or volunteering…

Well, I guess the good news is, I’ve found a new form of dating that might provide the answer.. and no, before you all start thinking that perhaps, I’m being unfaithful, it’s not that kind of dating!! No, SeedCamp Tech-Dating is for potential Entrepreneurs/Business Minded individuals with ideas, techies, and Graphics Designers/UI designers to come together, and work the floor, in a sort of speed-dating kinda manner, pitching your idea, your needs, and searching for the right partners to come together with, and create a founding team with, that you can apply to SeedCamp with…

I think the idea’s legendary, and can’t wait to see who else comes along.. in the meantime, to help promote the event, I’ll be sure to spread the word across my networks, and see who might come crawling out of the woodworks, to come and join in…

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To be honest, I don’t really have a clue… But what I do know, is that I’ve spent two years, refining my ideas, and concepts, desperately waiting to get started, and just watching, waiting patiently, as life took me from London, to San Francisco, thinking perhaps there I’ll be able to realise the technical solution, I envision.. 8 months later, on the plane back from the US, I’ve come to realise, that perhaps that was more “market research” for something that is now finally ready to come to market… I’ve started to learn how important it is to know the right people, have the right connections, and be able to levarage my own knowledge and experience, as well as being in the right place at the right time. Fortunately, I’ve got at least two serial entreprenueurs taking an active interest in cultivating me, and my startup, and as I share the ideas over and over, and the steps that need to be taken, I realise that actually, everyone’s really sold on the ideas, on the potentials, but no-one has a clue as to how to do it, in the way that I see it… Sometimes I really don’t see my own strengths, and I guess my combination of business acumen, street smarts, tech know-how, and connections really have primed me for starting this startup now…

I just wonder if I’ll becoming a slave to a “job”, or if I’ll finally be able to passionately embrace being at the helm of what I’m working on, directing the team, and bringing something useful, and productive into creation??

Ricardo Semler, and his books, Maverick!, and the 7-day weekend, both give numerous examples of transforming an established working environment, into one with greater individual autonomy, greater flexibility, and greater transparency between everyone… In fact, he takes the perspective of work and life, and argues that if work can impose on your social life, then there’s nothing wrong with taking the time out of work, to have a life, to balance things the other way… Though having said that, I can’t imagine not wanting to spend all my time on things related to my startup, and getting it off the ground for the first six months, just out of a sheer passion to keep the momentum of it all going!! I’m sure with everything that will be made available in the first few months, it’ll be best to take full advantage of all the connections, opportunities, and learning that’ll be available through Seedcamp…

I’m sure it’ll be perfectly possible to start imagining shorter work weeks, as we start to leverage technology to do more for us, as we do less… Just lets not pin our hopes on ideals like they did at the start of the computer revolution – but lets instead look at what we’re doing, and start focussing on just that 20% that’s the difference that makes the difference, and leave the remaining 80% to get delegated out to people who can do it, at a cheaper cost per hour… Your Man in India Zindabad!! (translates from hindi as “long live your man in india!”)

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I believe that the future of the web lies not in the indexes of information, but in the indexes of the relationships, which will lead to being able to find relevant information, at arms length, in anything, anywhere, at any time…

That well used phrase comes to mind, when talking about success, “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know…” which for me, is completely what the internet is about to become… Watch this space for more information, as we start to take the internet and launch it into the mechanism for collaboration whose potential is sorely lacking at present…

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I just came aross a post, that recently talked about how the “Internet is Out of Date“. It’s an article that talks about the cumulative effect of increasing numbers of links to an article in google raising the listing on the search results, but ironically the article can be very out of date already, by now…

That just adds even more ammunition to the arguments, and business model that I’m working on right now, creating a whole new platform from which to be able to find information and content on the internet… based on relationships… Won’t go into too much detail right now – but suffice it to say, it seems everything is coming together timing wise, just perfectly, for my idea to start “popping”, into fruition… Like they say, when the synchronicities start to roll, that’s when you know you’re onto a winner!!

Here’s to the universe manifesting with me, in perfect harmony, for the greatest good of all, one of the best possible solutions on the internet for managing, and organising knowledge and information!! Bottoms up!!

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