Digital Pariah

I attended several sessions and spoke with a few people outside of those sessions, although admittedly not that many.

There follows some write ups of some of the talks, pitches and companies I encountered while there.

Fubar Radio

This was a long pitch, 15 minutes or so. Touting the come-back of radio, especially 'adult entertainment' talk and quiz shows. They are basically exploiting a hole in the regulation of online broadcasters to use mobile systems to broadcast their shows. They gave some numbers projecting growth to millions from a couple of months worth of data.

Thong Heng

Elevator pitch. They're a company making a machine to harvest rubber, this is needed because many of the skilled rubber tappers are moving to the city where they can earn more money, leaving behind family rubber farms with no workforce. They make a machine that replaces the tappers. Business model is clear, as is market need.

Don't F with me

Elevator pitch. They're a company making an application for teenage girls, although I wasn't actually very clear on what the app did or why anyone would use it. The aim of the company is a social good of reducing abuse of teenage girls, but quite how the app helped with that I didn't get. It seems like they're in the same kind of space as facebook without the focus to get where they want to go.

Musings from the cliff edge

This was a talk by an angel investor, Rajat Malhotra. He runs Wren Capital, an angel company who invest in seed through to series A funding rounds, investing 50k-300k. He has had two insolvencies and one floatation.

• Don't dabble, if you're going to do it, do it seriously
• Use syndication
• spreads risk
• reduces competition
• gives everyone a better chance
• but *do due-diligence* on co-investors
• often these will be people you've dealt with before, so thats already done
• Two ends of the spectrum
• Simple story is an easy sell
• Complex is a harder sell but bigger reward, watch the funding roadmap, often hiccups along the way
• Valuations are important, more so for those that wind up as walking dead
• Build relationships with the CEOs, they should feel comfortable phoning if they need help

Innovations in ICT

I attended a talk about how to grow innovation in Oxfordshire, there was a panel of six or seven business people who discussed various problems and ways to encourage more companies to the area. A few of the points they raised:

• improved connectivity
• better publicity for available small/short term office space

7 massive mistakes negotiating overseas

This was a talk by a negotiation trainer, and seemed to be as much about general negotiation as overseas. He broke his talk down into 7 parts:

1. Preparation
• positioning - think about what you are negotiating and why
• planning
• culture - get to know about the culture of the people you are negotiating with
• national
• corporate
• their background
• local issues, things going on in the city or country
2. Connecting
• building rapport
• appropriate gifts
• handshakes tell you a lot
• overhand (or turn-to-overhand) - 'I'm in control' - price goes up so theres more room to give a bigger discount to make them feel like they won
3. Ask and Listen
• keep questions short and simple, but open ended, don't back them into a corner
4. Positions
• Best position
• Target position
• Walkaway position
• Alternative position - if you have to walk away, what fills the gap?
5. Reading people and situations
• body language
• voice
• words
• sensory acuity
6. Psychological moves
• good guy/bad guy
• higher authority
• Columbo - dumb is smart
• time
• time-out
• flinching
7. Confidence
• overconfidence

Magellium

I spoke with two people, a guy whos name I didn't catch and Deidre Kelly, a GIS developer. Deidre showed me some demos of their systems:

• empty office space at Harwell
• cluster view of venturefest clusters in Oxfordshire
• annotations

One of the big things they do is geographic information for agriculture, looking for misclaimed subsidies and crop blights, they have sensors that can pick up microclimates in fields and/or on tractors. They are a small wing of a large French company, based in offices at Harwell. They were interested in some of my location systems, and it feels like there could be some opportunity to work together, but I don't know what that looks like - I have Deidres card and intend to mail her.

Robot Car

I spoke with one of the representatives of Robot Car, who explained that their sensor kit costs around 1000, with the aim of bringing that down to around 100. It can be applied to any car, and is approved for street testing but awaiting regulation for commercialisation.

This years Venturefest had a more positive feel than last year, there were at least people talking about financing and things appear to be happening. I'm reassured by seeing the state of the Magellium demos, they are showing off things that are not that dis-similar in state to some of the things I've been working on, leading me to feel more positive about those projects. It still wasn't as vibrant as it has been, with an empty space in the quad where previously there have been marquees. Some of that is caused by dilution, they are trying to set up other venturefests around the country, but I get the feeling that doesn't account for all of it.

It feels like we're at the very early stages of the next rise of the roller coaster, with a number of small companies who have been bootstrapping their small ideas and are looking for angel investors to cover their next 6-12 months. Fever pitch isn't going to happen any time soon, but there's a quiet confidence around.