funderrated

Funded/Serial Entrepreneurs: What one action helped the most in getting your venture going?

 

Starting a new business is tough, but with the advice and wisdom of those who have been through the process already, us young'uns can hopefully get better and more efficient at changing the world through our innovation. On top of founding my own tech startup, I am currently lending some brainpower and time to a couple of other bootstrapped startups who are looking to launch some great initiatives and products over the coming months. 

If you have 2 seconds, and in the past have successfully launched something, we'd love to know your response to the following question...

http://www.polleverywhere.com/multiple_choice_polls/NzUzOTEzMzA2

 

Thanks for answering, I'll do a follow up post if the feedback is interesting...

Emerging Mobile Trends for 2020

For anybody working with the web, it is becoming increasingly impossible to avoid having a mobile strategy. Over the next decade, mobile devices are widely tipped to overtake desktop devices as the primary means for accessing the internet - an exciting but disruptive prospect. Check out this fascinating slideshow of what some of the top mobile thinkers believe will happen to the mobile internet in the next decade (I'm super-excited by some of the ideas here as they cross over with my new venture)....

 

Mobile Trends 2020View more documents from rudydw.

Thanks so much to Rudy de Waele at http://m-trends.org and http://dotopen.com for putting this together

 

Putting together a 'Minimal Viable Product'

I just came across a good discussion of the merits of building a Minimal Viable Product (a skeleton product with the absolute bare minimum of functionality). The idea is that your MVP can give you good feedback as to whether you should invest time and money into building a full feature, or should can development because nobody cares. Have a read...

http://venturehacks.com/articles/minimum-viable-product

Should I start up in Barcelona?

10 months ago I moved from London to Barcelona as part of a restructuring in the start up I was working on at the time, Amuso.com. Since arriving, I have fallen in love with the city, and it is undoubtably one of the most amazing places to live in on the planet, with year round sun, beaches a-plenty, food to die for and world famous sights. But is it a good base for a tech Start up? I recently did a SWOT analysis with @robbiehudson of Barcelona's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats to help us answer this question with regards to our own startup we are working on.

Our thoughts are below...

Strengths

Great weather
Amazing food
Living costs are lower
Beach
Tech scene is expanding
Government funding for startups
Creativity

Weaknesses

Language barrier
Underdeveloped entrepreneurial scene (well, compared to London anyway)
Isolation from UK
Smaller pool of technical talent
Working culture is more 'relaxed'
Cost of keeping touch with friends, family and network in UK

  Opportunities

Learn Spanish and/or Catalan
More relaxed working culture improves perspective
Access to Spanish speaking markets
Isolation from rest of tech scene may improve focus, originality
A British startup based in Barcelona is (almost) unique, would help us to stand out
Help lead the growth of the Barcelona tech scene by founding events, bringing community together

Threats

Great weather + beach can be a distraction!
Missing out on networking opportunities
Environmental cost of having to visit UK often


Bear in mind these ideas are pretty raw and I'm sure we overlooked some big positives and negatives, but the process certainly helped my thinking with regards to setting up shop in Barcelona. The main negative points with such a move seem to focus around being left out of the vibrant and ever-expanding tech scene in London. There really seems to be something happening with startups in the UK right now, and being left behind is a scary thought.

Except that being left behind is not really something to be worried about. London is just under 2 hours by air from the most central airport in Barcelona; Skype and Twitter enable relationships to be nurtured and improved over time in spite of great distances (heck, I've been going out with a girl who lives in Poland for 3 years now), and let's face it, there are usually only two or three events worth attending each month - a good excuse to fly over for some meetings..

Space and time are no longer the barriers they used to be, and if we now have wonderful, affordable tools and services that help us take control of where and when we interact with other people, then why not take the opportunity to live where you want?

 Well, I love going to the beach, so that's settled then.....


Further reading
http://thebln.com/2009/06/where-you-live-matters-a-lot-you-also-get-to-choose/