rhythmaning (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rhythmaning) wrote2007-10-06 09:37 pm
rhythmaning) wrote2007-10-06 09:37 pm
Entry tags:
- eums,
- lectures,
- talks,
- technology,
- work
Dragons' Lecture Theatre
A couple weeks ago, I went to an event at the management school where budding entrepreneurs were pitching their ideas. It was a bit like “Dragons’ Den”, but they weren’t (overtly) after money. And it wasn’t multi-millionaires who were listening to them: it was people like me.
In retrospect, one of the things I find most interesting is how this event has stuck in my mind – I have spoken to many people about it.
I found it a really interesting evening. I didn’t hang around to find out more about any of the pitches, but a couple of them – just a couple – I thought were really worthwhile.
There were seven people pitching, and it was really interesting to hear what their ideas were. That was why I went along – I don’t have any pretensions to entrepreneurship myself, but I do like new ideas, and I am interested in small businesses – and they don’t really get much smaller than this.
Their business proposals were in different stages of development: some were just ideas which they wanted to bounce around, others were in prototype, and a couple were actually trading. They wanted people to talk to, to help hone their thinking, and they wanted customers and partners, and maybe investors.
First up was an internet startup, groopit.com. This was a social-networking-add-on website. You could decide to do something, and it would text and email all your friends; it would then keep track of their responses. You could even book tickets through the site, so if you decided to go to the movies with a group of people, the site would enable to do that.
But – well, it sounds a good idea, but it doesn’t seem (to me) to do anything that Facebook doesn’t do, other than connect you to sites so you can buy tickets. Facebook might even do that. Even if Facebook doesn’t now, it might do tomorrow: there was nothing here that was patentable. And I am sure what goes for Facebook is also true of Bebo, MySpace, and innumerable other websites.
Still, if you are curious, go and have a look at their website. I will be happy to be proved wrong!
Next up was a crazy guy who wanted to fly. That, basically, was his main idea. He was an extreme sports freak, and an engineer. A rather scary combination. Essentially, he had a prototype of some wings that you could use instead of a snowboard, surf board, waterskis or [insert some dangerous, wet piece of sports equipment here]. These wings – a Wingboard, he called it – would provide lift when one went airborne in the course of going downhill excessively fast.
He was plainly crazy. I hope he has a lot of insurance. He’ll probably make a mint. I have no idea.
Number three was a real “me-too” idea, and I felt dismissive from the start. This guy – and six out of the seven were men – wanted to set up an online grocery delivery service, starting in London. He thought he could undercut Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Waitrose and god knows how many other supermarket chains. His view was that the online services were cross-subsidising the real-life supermarkets (or maybe the other way around). By not having a bricks-and-mortar offering, he could succeed on price. He would target people without a strong brand loyalty – new immigrants, in particular.
The idea that a start-up could beat the established players in a market that they have been for a while seemed pretty foolish to me. Plus – and this isn’t such a nice thought – that they wouldn’t let him win, anyway. Tesco, Sainsbury’s and the like have much deeper pockets than a small start up.
The only woman in the group wanted to set up a brand of drop-off childcare-cum-youth clubs, where parents could leave their children for whatever reason they wanted. She envisaged a huge infrastructure – this was a big drive-thru operation (she was American…) – with custom-designed buildings featuring all sorts of activity rooms. I don’t have kids. But I couldn’t help thinking “why?” – isn’t this why people have babysitters? And parents? And friends? The buildings would cost millions; it would be much easier to deliver babysitters to the children, rather than the other way around. Just like happens now.
(Writing this now, I can’t help feeling I was being rather negative and critical. But they still don’t feel like good ideas. And I am surprised that clearly intelligent people thought they would be good ideas.)
Next up was a Ghanaian who had set up a business supplying (I think) rice, and who wanted to establish a brand of supermarkets. He was also trumpeting Ghana as a place in which to invest. He wanted to set up shops – supermarkets – in rural Ghana that were very much part of the community – although someone pointed out that if the supermarkets were successful, they would be taking away from the community commerce that was there already. What I didn’t get was that if it was such a good idea, why hadn’t someone done it before: there didn’t seem to be anything special about his idea, or about Ghana. So why hadn’t WalMart, or Tesco, or a South African – or Ghanaian – firm set up shop already? He was very enthusiastic, though, and I reckon he’ll do well.
Another internet offering followed – and this one struck me as being a pretty good idea. Not maybe for the market they intended, but I think they were onto something nevertheless. zamsana.com provides business services for small businesses via their mobile phones – most phones actually having a lot of unused computing capabilities. You download their patented software onto your phone and use it to keep track of your orders, invoices and customers. This seemed to make a lot of sense. I think they were aiming too low – their view of small business was very small, one-man band operations and a little bigger. But it did seem to be a pretty good idea. Their site is in beta just now – they were looking for people to try it out. (Email them!) They were also looking for investors, and I really couldn’t work out why: it wasn’t clear what they would do with more money. (“Buy some more servers”, the guy said when I asked; it seemed a bit like what any computer-based firm would say.)
The last guy up was, frankly, brilliant. He had a totally different business; and he had a great story. Perhaps he was just a good storyteller, but he seemed to hook most of the crowd. He walked, put his mobile phone in a plastic back, and stuck it in a large bottle of water. Because he was selling waterproof, sealable plastic bags to keep electronic equipment dry.
His story was that he was caught up in a hurricane in the Caribbean a few years ago (he was from Grand Cayman), and all his equipment got trashed. He set about looking for a solution for his problem – how to keep his computer dry in similar circumstances. This wasn’t just a question of wrapping the gear up in plastic bags (which I do when I go hillwalking) – he wanted to keep things completely dry.
In comparison to the other pitches, it felt like he had a real problem he had decided to solve – rather than thinking up a different kind of website. The seal on these bags had been patented. And it clearly worked. He had a video of a computer working in a plastic bag in a bath. At the end of his pitch – after the question – he got someone to ring his phone, and it rang. Well, he sold it to me.
(Details of all the pitches can be found here!. Well, not quite: at least one of the links doesn’t work.)
In retrospect, one of the things I find most interesting is how this event has stuck in my mind – I have spoken to many people about it.
I found it a really interesting evening. I didn’t hang around to find out more about any of the pitches, but a couple of them – just a couple – I thought were really worthwhile.
There were seven people pitching, and it was really interesting to hear what their ideas were. That was why I went along – I don’t have any pretensions to entrepreneurship myself, but I do like new ideas, and I am interested in small businesses – and they don’t really get much smaller than this.
Their business proposals were in different stages of development: some were just ideas which they wanted to bounce around, others were in prototype, and a couple were actually trading. They wanted people to talk to, to help hone their thinking, and they wanted customers and partners, and maybe investors.
First up was an internet startup, groopit.com. This was a social-networking-add-on website. You could decide to do something, and it would text and email all your friends; it would then keep track of their responses. You could even book tickets through the site, so if you decided to go to the movies with a group of people, the site would enable to do that.
But – well, it sounds a good idea, but it doesn’t seem (to me) to do anything that Facebook doesn’t do, other than connect you to sites so you can buy tickets. Facebook might even do that. Even if Facebook doesn’t now, it might do tomorrow: there was nothing here that was patentable. And I am sure what goes for Facebook is also true of Bebo, MySpace, and innumerable other websites.
Still, if you are curious, go and have a look at their website. I will be happy to be proved wrong!
Next up was a crazy guy who wanted to fly. That, basically, was his main idea. He was an extreme sports freak, and an engineer. A rather scary combination. Essentially, he had a prototype of some wings that you could use instead of a snowboard, surf board, waterskis or [insert some dangerous, wet piece of sports equipment here]. These wings – a Wingboard, he called it – would provide lift when one went airborne in the course of going downhill excessively fast.
He was plainly crazy. I hope he has a lot of insurance. He’ll probably make a mint. I have no idea.
Number three was a real “me-too” idea, and I felt dismissive from the start. This guy – and six out of the seven were men – wanted to set up an online grocery delivery service, starting in London. He thought he could undercut Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Waitrose and god knows how many other supermarket chains. His view was that the online services were cross-subsidising the real-life supermarkets (or maybe the other way around). By not having a bricks-and-mortar offering, he could succeed on price. He would target people without a strong brand loyalty – new immigrants, in particular.
The idea that a start-up could beat the established players in a market that they have been for a while seemed pretty foolish to me. Plus – and this isn’t such a nice thought – that they wouldn’t let him win, anyway. Tesco, Sainsbury’s and the like have much deeper pockets than a small start up.
The only woman in the group wanted to set up a brand of drop-off childcare-cum-youth clubs, where parents could leave their children for whatever reason they wanted. She envisaged a huge infrastructure – this was a big drive-thru operation (she was American…) – with custom-designed buildings featuring all sorts of activity rooms. I don’t have kids. But I couldn’t help thinking “why?” – isn’t this why people have babysitters? And parents? And friends? The buildings would cost millions; it would be much easier to deliver babysitters to the children, rather than the other way around. Just like happens now.
(Writing this now, I can’t help feeling I was being rather negative and critical. But they still don’t feel like good ideas. And I am surprised that clearly intelligent people thought they would be good ideas.)
Next up was a Ghanaian who had set up a business supplying (I think) rice, and who wanted to establish a brand of supermarkets. He was also trumpeting Ghana as a place in which to invest. He wanted to set up shops – supermarkets – in rural Ghana that were very much part of the community – although someone pointed out that if the supermarkets were successful, they would be taking away from the community commerce that was there already. What I didn’t get was that if it was such a good idea, why hadn’t someone done it before: there didn’t seem to be anything special about his idea, or about Ghana. So why hadn’t WalMart, or Tesco, or a South African – or Ghanaian – firm set up shop already? He was very enthusiastic, though, and I reckon he’ll do well.
Another internet offering followed – and this one struck me as being a pretty good idea. Not maybe for the market they intended, but I think they were onto something nevertheless. zamsana.com provides business services for small businesses via their mobile phones – most phones actually having a lot of unused computing capabilities. You download their patented software onto your phone and use it to keep track of your orders, invoices and customers. This seemed to make a lot of sense. I think they were aiming too low – their view of small business was very small, one-man band operations and a little bigger. But it did seem to be a pretty good idea. Their site is in beta just now – they were looking for people to try it out. (Email them!) They were also looking for investors, and I really couldn’t work out why: it wasn’t clear what they would do with more money. (“Buy some more servers”, the guy said when I asked; it seemed a bit like what any computer-based firm would say.)
The last guy up was, frankly, brilliant. He had a totally different business; and he had a great story. Perhaps he was just a good storyteller, but he seemed to hook most of the crowd. He walked, put his mobile phone in a plastic back, and stuck it in a large bottle of water. Because he was selling waterproof, sealable plastic bags to keep electronic equipment dry.
His story was that he was caught up in a hurricane in the Caribbean a few years ago (he was from Grand Cayman), and all his equipment got trashed. He set about looking for a solution for his problem – how to keep his computer dry in similar circumstances. This wasn’t just a question of wrapping the gear up in plastic bags (which I do when I go hillwalking) – he wanted to keep things completely dry.
In comparison to the other pitches, it felt like he had a real problem he had decided to solve – rather than thinking up a different kind of website. The seal on these bags had been patented. And it clearly worked. He had a video of a computer working in a plastic bag in a bath. At the end of his pitch – after the question – he got someone to ring his phone, and it rang. Well, he sold it to me.
(Details of all the pitches can be found here!. Well, not quite: at least one of the links doesn’t work.)