How Do I Know If An Investor Has Money To Invest?

So I’ll be honest– I was reading my fellow entrepenuer Doug Richard’s blog and posted a reply (which in my typical verbose fashion turned out almost being an entire post in itself). Being a frugal chap, I thought I’d update my neglected blog AND point you back in the direction of Dougs blog and his School for Startups (not to be confused with Startup School in the U.S, run by Paul & his wife who also founded Y-Combinator)

This is an important question for entreprenuers raising their first round of Angel or VC funding:

Does the white-winged messenger from the gods you’re courting for investment with your fabulous new Google-killing start-up, actually have any money to invest?

“Fallen Angel” (Photo Credit: Raquel Giffard)

After reading Dougs post, I felt one thing had been overlooked: Ask the Angel.

I’d recommend the entrepreneur look the angel in the eye, preferably during the first 10 minutes of a meeting and simply as the question “Do you have the money available to invest at the moment?” Any entrepreneur who is going to last the distance in business is going to need to be able to follow their gut as to when someone is telling the truth or telling porky pies.

I’ve found it is surprising how few people ask direct questions, out right, in person, to their face. It often reveals either a more candid answer that you might expect, or atleast you garner the answer indirectly from their reaction.

Few angels like to be seen as “not investing”. They want to keep their finger on the pulse- and there is often that sense of not ‘wanting to miss the next big thing’. Many I know will justify this by arguing that they could always make another asset liquid if they really had to, to take advantage of an opportunity (i.e. for those newbie’s reading- by selling a house, land, stock from another company to have cash available to invest) but I’d argue that this rarely happens in order to invest in a start-up.

So called “Angel Networks” are notorious for being full of timewasters, who use them as much as a club and enjoy the notion of being an investor, while rarely investing or indeed not having the capital to do so. That is not to say ALL Angel Networks are bad; some are OK but approach with serious caution. Personally, I’d also avoid any which charge upfront fees.

In summary, IMHO it is best to ask direct question up front, at the start. It is not rude. It’s demonstrating practical business sense – and an ability to be candid and pull no punches.

Lastly, all this applies in spades and more to VCs. For the uninitiated, make sure you ask them a boat load of questions. What is their fund size? When did it close? How much do they have left? What was the last investment they did? What size was it? When was the last time they did an investment the size of yours and in a comparable sector? So, Angels are not the only investors who like to appear to have money to invest, when they dont…

Quickfire overview:

• Whether VC or Angel, ask out right if they are investing
• Ask about specific last investment – inc. size and type of deal
• Have conversations face to face and follow your gut instinct as to whether they are wasting your time
• Ask to speak to the last entreprenuer they invested in
• Don’t be afraid to ask other VCs or investors – the Angel or VC may found out, but it just means you’re doing your due diligence
• Check www.thefunded.com for feedback about VCs. Some of it is just bitter talk from rejected applications- but mostly its good stuff.
• Don’t take any money at any cost – the devil is usually in the detail

Lastly, re-read Dougs post as everything he says is bang on: there is nothing better than to get free advice from a seasoned Angel investor, but be clear about your own goals and beliefs- no one wants to invest their money in a CEO who is a push over. Equally, not a CEO who won’t listen or cant change position given good reason. Make sure you’ve got that balance right.

Peer Recommendation Is In Fashion, But There’s A Problem

With another article in last weekends Telegraph, with the Head of Bebo saying that peer recommendation is the way forward and the future no less of Social Networks, I can afford to feel very slightly smug that I’ve been barking up the right tree for the last 3 years, or more. Ms Burns says “I know and understand the power of search. However, social recommendations are the future…”

Kate Burns, Bebo Chief says peer recommendations are the future of social networking

My smugness should be short-lived however, as there are still two problems:

Firstly, institutional investors in Europe as yet seem unconvinced that now is the right time to invest in trust network technology or indeed associated consumer facing recommendation service optmised for mobile (Rummble has had lots of interest from VCs but thus far they’re yet to invest).  Business Angels have been very receptive, but the European VCs, in summary feel it is too early. We may yet move across the pond, to the sunny climbs of Silicon Valley, as a consequence.

Secondly and far more importantly, people (even the mainstream media, as the Telegraph article attests) are all talking about “peer recommendation” but forgetting a very important, indeed vital, factor: Trust.

There are a few problems with recommendations from your friends (i.e. your peers). Firstly, I have some fantastic friends whom I love dearly but with whom I do not share the same taste or opinions. That’s not a problem if I want to know from their newsfeed that they’ve gone on holiday, but it’s not so useful if I am recommended the Reiters Supreme Hotel they chose, in Austria, when I don’t golf and hate package holidays.  Secondly, even if ALL my 417 friends on Facebook, the 1400 contacts in my address book and the 500+ contacts on LinkedIn, ALL rated/recommended every place they went, there would still be 100’s of places in the world with no recommendations from them (and that is before you consider that they’d need to all use the same service or services between which recommendations were shared or collated).

While this does unquestionably serve to promote Rummbles trust platform technology as the answer to these problems, it is also the genuine flaw of peer recommendation services such as Geodilic and Whrrl, and of those services that blindly aggregate all data from your streams (e.g. FreindFeed).

Rummble Trust Network technology is not simply a social network, because it connects & infers trust (or lack of) between you and friends but also you and strangers

I am not saying the mentioned services are bad, I am saying simply that the focus needs to shift toward filtering information in a more intelligent way – reducing the noise.

Two of the Rummble team took 10 days out to build an experiment as a tentative step to help make sense of the burgeoning stream of data produced from Twitter; in reality the stream could have been from any social software. Tremors attempts to match Tweets with the venues they are from or referring to, to create a realtime feed of activity in venues across four major cities: London, New York and Austin Texas, with San Francisco to follow shortly.

Tremors is an experiment powered by Rummble

In this very basic first version, you can see what is going on at different venues in the city and it attempts to recognise some basic sentiment about the text. The next step, if we were to invest time in improving the accuracy, is that we could interpret the content as a recommendation (or otherwise) and ally this with content within the Rummble recommendation service.

Ultimately, we’ll be able to construct a trust network between users on Twitter whom may not even know each other, but share similar tastes or opinons, based upon an existing user behaviour. For now, it remains a fun experiment until we can resource improvements. You can read more about Tremors in the Tremors launch blog post.

Kate Burns of Bebo is probably right. Unsurprisingly, technology will evolve to build on and exaggerate existing human behaviour. We cherish personal recommendations because we usually have a basis on which to embrace or reject that recommendation. With social networks, I don’t always know how or whether to trust an acquaintance or a friend who may be outside of my core circle of trust, or whom I may respect but whom I may not know well enough to know if we share the same taste in restaurants or music.

In 2006 I presented a slide deck about “trust networking” and nobody seemed to understand what I was waffling on about; in 2009 I’ve presented a very similar a decks including trust networking and I often get nods of agreement and sometimes even yelps of excitement (see what I did there?

Our lives are built on trust and understanding (or lack thereof). Lets hope the Internet of the future is built on the trust and understanding part, not blind recommendations and lack of understanding.

Remember, “its about the data, stupid!”

Latitude: Googles Trojan Horse (or Why “Who’s Nearby?” Is Not A Business)

This post was published on Friday 6th February 2009 as a guest post on Mobile Industry Review

For the last 3 years now I’ve been crowing at conferences that “Who’s nearby” is not a business. I drew this conclusion from running playtxt, Europes first location-based mobile social network.

It started in 2002 and we had an Alpha launch in 2003. It was ridiculously early to market. Back in 2002 most normal people (i.e. those for whom a “tweet” today is still something only birds do) did not know what a social network was, let alone a mobile location-based social network. Thanks to MySpace, Facebook and the inevitable march of technology, even my own mother is now aware of social networking, SMS and GPS.

By 2005 Google had bought our main competitor Dodgeball and although the mobile operators were still charging for Cell ID lookups (ludicrously, they are STILL trying to!) I already believed it was only a matter of time before location became a commodity. It would too easy to do for start-ups to do and even easier for others such as Facebook, which was on its ascent.

I decided that “who’s nearby?” was never going to create a multi-million pound business and I made three predictions, some which are still relevant today:

• GPS will be in every phone as cameras were then becoming. (GPS chipsets are extremely cheap, power consumption is becoming lower, processing power higher and Galileo is on the horizon -literally, haha).
• One of the gorillas (Google, Yahoo et al) will release a free Cell ID/Location API. (Google have and its excellent).
• “Who’s nearby” will also become a commodity

For the last 2 years I’ve been telling any start-up which is building its own Cell ID database, that it must be mad. I see no business model. Google about as likely to charge for Cell ID lookup as it is for its maps API; and that likelihood is slim.

There was (and is) money to be made with tracking and Cell ID technology, but both industries begin with “S” and neither spell the world “Social”. Instead, it is Security (child tracking, staff tracking) and of course Sex (proximity dating, adult services); infact any vertical where a premium can be demanded – we know that fear and shagging both command strong emotions which can result in a buying decision. Wondering “Where are my friends?” does not; unless of course you’re intensely paranoid or have VERY accommodating friends.

There is no mobile internet: there is only the internet.

This has been my other crusade for the last 2 years; and this is probably what Google believes too. What I mean is, that fix-line world-wide-web access is the black & white TV of the internet. Amazing in itself, but without the full functionality of what we recognise as “television” today.

Location, portability and the need for personalisation (a mobile being such a small, personal device) are the three missing dwarfs which give us our Seven Dwarfs of the modern internet. (The first four were IMHO: the web browser as user interface, freedom to publish without government or minority corporate control, always-on fixed cost access, and broadband bandwidth; Snow White being the internet itself).

So in the near future (3-5years?) no one will talk of the “mobile” internet but simply, the internet. You will have an iphonesque device (in size & looks if not in O/S which you take home and plug into your 24 inch screen and keyboard …we’ve still a decade to go before we type goodbye to Mr Qwerty and say hello to HAL.

Be under no delusion, Latitude is Googles Trojan horse into the social networking space.

After Googles purchase of Dodgeball it was clear they had every intention to roll out a service such as Latitude and they are perfectly positioned to do so.

Almost by-passing online social networking entirely (aside from Orkut which only took hold in Brazil) I believe Google will pursue a wide-reaching mobile social play. Google will build up a critical mass of users on Latitude; and they will join because:

• It is Google (so its trustworthy; yes still)
• Its easy to use – simple UI and simple privacy model: Automatic, Manual or Hide your location (or as I prefer: Honest, Lie or Paranoia)
• It has reach (27 countries at launch, lots of handsets, no GPS required)
• Its free

They will then likely launch an API (in the process solving some of the standardisation and interconnectivity problems – possibly using the new OAuth hybrid or equivalent) but also roll out other functionality enhancements. Although the latter may take longer than you think.

Latitude has lots wrong with it too e.g. Gmail import only (where is XFN Social Graph import or device address book comparison?) status update is crying out for Twitter integration and a hook into FireEagle (with which Latitude does not compete, yet) would all be very welcome (the last two are unlikely for political reasons but would be a fantastic nod to the open ecosystem) and dont forget part of Latitudes beauty is its simplicity; and Google have time on their side.

Many of us have been waiting for location-based services to come of age for YEARS! but in reality we’re still in the early adopter curve. Infact, I’d go even further than that. At BeingDigital in 2008 I stated on stage to a deluge of ridicule, that Social Networking wasn’t yet main stream. The laughing continued until I asked how many parents AND siblings of delegates had email? The answer was predictable: virtually everyone. Then I asked how many parents and siblings were also on a social network; over 75% of the hands dropped.

150 million people on Facebook is a lot, but 3.2 billion people have mobile phones: that’s a lot more. Email is mainstream, social networking is still maturing. Eventually it will of course become part of everything we do “online” rather than be a destination, with your social graph becoming portable and also actually owned by you, not FaceSpace.

So what does this all mean?

1) Location is already commodity AND your friends location will become a commodity.

Any service will be able to plug in and use this data (with the right permissions). Its already happening – checkout Yahoo’s FireEagle which is an aggregator of location between services.

2) If you’re a start-up building LBS, Cell ID, friends nearby services, or anything else which is being commoditised as we speak, see above.

Loopt; west coast startup run by a bright 24 year old entrepreneur – nice guy, flawed business plan. $13million+ in funding, nudging just 1 million users after 3 years with low engagement metrics. Differentiator? There isn’t one. Case closed, game over.

3) If you’re running anything with the words “mobile social network” in the title, lock yourself in a room with your team and work out how you’re going to save your business.

That means innovate. Mobile is not a differentiator, its an inevitability.

At Le Web 07 I met with Christian Wiklund, Founder of Skout. He had built a cool location based mobile social network (LoMoSoSo anyone?). By Q1 2008 when I met him in San Francisco, he’d already realised that competition was fierce and the concept was flawed — and that was before the gorillas had waded in. I implored him to change strategy (something which infact he’d already started doing). He chose dating. It’s a smart move. Dating generates money—and lots of it. Proximity dating, or infact “mobile dating” in general has never been done really well (even Mr Arrington agrees).

As a LBS start-up, you need to think about adding distinctive value for users; differentiating on location is an oxymoron. I know some of you are making money, some of the pure play mobile social networks are even profitable – great. But there’s an iceberg ahead and it may be bigger than it looks: just ask Captain Edward John Smith.

The future is relevance; the context of not only where I am but what I’m doing, who I am, where I will be. In summary: It’s about the data, stupid.

..and that will be what I write about in my next post; if they’ll have me back!

The Mobile Web existed without the iphone …and still does

This is an extended article, to an original shorter response I made to Roberts post here.

The iphone is without question, a game changer for mobile internet. It has woken up not only VCs to the mobile internet, but given the often arrogant and lacklustre stakeholders of the entrenched mobile industry a serious kick up the arse. I think the iphone is great; but you cannot get away from the fact it will remain a tiny percentage of the mobile market for many years to come.

Should VCs invest in iphone-only startups?

What I took away from the Mobile Web Wars last Friday, before the August Capital party, was that VCs might not invest in an iphone-ONLY startup. Im not surprised. They estimate 10 million units by early next year? Thats very small numbers if you’re going to ONLY serve those customers. It’s less than 10% of Facebooks user base. Infact, name one company which has sold for big bucks which has only 10 million users? That would mean a startup would have to reach 100% user takeup for their app to be highly valuable.

I have been frustrated, as many before me, that VCs have the particulars they do about investing in certain types of businesses and have the expectations they do for success – which in turn demand a big market and big ideas which can make big money; but I understand, because that is the game they are in. If you have to make your money back on your fund from only 5% of your portfolio, you have to make sure that probably 100% of your portfolio has atleast the probable chance of making it big – i.e. a 20, 50 or 100 times return.

We [my company, Rummble] are developing an iphone app for Rummble. Why? because we know we can deliver a compelling user experience, that it will work when users install it and that iphone users are typically early adopters or gadget lovers who embrace new technology. They are IT literate and are heavy web users. With an iphone, they take that mobile.

However, we’re also launching a Java app, to serve a vast block of the mobile user base out there, who have phones which will run Java apps.

Startups must consider carefully what I call the three R’s of mobile development: Reach, Resources, Return.

1. What reach does the platform youve chosen to develop on, give you?
2. What of your precious resources will it take to develop and support that platform? How does that Reach/Resources calculation look?
3. What return does your target platform represent? i.e. how will you realise a return, where is the platform most popular, will stakeholders of that platform prevent you from (or take commission from) you realizing a return?

Consequently, bloggers – especially those with the ear of the startup community – should encourage startups to invest their development resources VERY carefully; for example, Google Gears will be supporting many platforms – I guess including iphone – and if they deliver on their promise, provide standardised hooks into the hardware, from the browsers, to access location api, camera, filesystem, etc, from the phone web browser.

The Valley cant afford to be so introspective with mobile, as it has been able to with the traditional Internet

Lastly, as a European, the valley – and many of its bloggers – are notoriously U.S. or atleast Western centric. The iphone IS FANTASTIC! I agree it is! But look outside your own back yard – Japan has been doing amazing stuff on mobile, without Apple, for a long time. India is skipping fixed line internet and doing all sorts of stuff from their non-Apple mobile phones. I’ve been using the mobile web on my Blackberry and before that on my other phones, for years.

The point is that people talk as is the mobile internet didnt exist before the iphone; and maybe for those people as individuals it didnt. But for millions of people it has – and although without question the iphone provides a fantastic user experience (its main reason for its success IMHO), it is expensive, proprietary and has a small install base. That said, I’m waiting for my upgrade to the 3G version

The mobile internet IS the internet of the future

The mobile internet will, in the future, dwarf the fixed line internet and become the norm. It will make the fixed line internet (and I believe, most laptops) seem like the quaint anomalies of history – where the internet began. You’ll come home, plug in your 1 terabyte iphone-equivalent to a large screen and keyboard and simply unplug it and leave the house or office when you go. I believe I’ll be doing this within 5-7 years.

Those startups keen on building a global – or even U.S. – dominating consumer brand for their service, would be wise to look at what is going on in the rest of the world, where in some places the mobile internet is already ahead of both the U.S. and Europe.

London Events I’m Speaking At This Week

Busy week for me coming up on the events front, speaking at 3 conferences in the smoke; if you’re at any of these events, please drop me a line by phone, email, facebook or twitter – the usuals!

On Monday 8th June I’ll be on the Content panel at EDM 08, with Tommy Ahlers, CEO, Founder, Member of the Board, ZYB, Steve Ives, CEO, Taptu and Annie Mullins, Global Head of Content Standards, Vodafone. This year EDM is all about “Search in the Mobile Era”. With some good speakers it should be a good event.

On Tuesday 9th June I’m at Simon Grice’s BEING-DIGITAL conference at BAFTA. I’ll be speaking in the “Social” theme, alongside Loïc Le Meur (Founder, Seesmic), Chris Seth (Managing Director Pizco Europe), and Jerome Touze (Co Founder & Co CEO of WAYN.com) amongst many others!

On Friday 13th June (unlucky for some!) I’ll be speaking about API’s at Carsonified’s FUEL conference. After seeing Cal Hendersons superb talk at FOWA Miami earlier this year, I attend with trepidation as I’m unconvinced I’ll be able to combine as many laughs AND technical information as he succeeded in doing. I think the Carsonified gang are yet to put up his video, but when they do it’s definitely worth a watch. Anyway, if you’re going to FUEL, I’ll do my best to amuse and inform!

Hope to see you there!

Termsheet Shenanigans for Beginners

Rummble is once again engaged in discussions with new investors; the meetings can be fun, interesting, engaging … or they can be stressful, frustrating and painful.

A simple rule can be applied here- If it’s the latter, walk away. That is not to say that meetings with your potential new bed partners will always be easy or not challenging. The best thing to be gained from any investment meeting is the potential to improve your business – regardless of whether that investor invests, or not.

Most angel investors and certainly VCs, see hundreds if not thousands of companies and startups. They have a unique insight and view on your business which should not be ignored.

Some VCs I have met with in the past have demonstrated a surprising lack of understanding of the world (in my case, internet and mobile). It is important that your investors have a clear vision of the future of their own. How else can they fairly judge your take on the world? Moreover, you end up pitching an entire industry sector, rather than your product and your team. Even if they do invest but they dont have a beleif set aligned to your own, it will cause major problems further down the line. You are choosing them too; consider your contact essentially joining your team – if you wouldn’t want to work with them in your team, why are you going to attempt to work with them on your board? Don’t.

In general you need to feel the meetings are “right”, that you see eye to eye at least on the basic: your product and the future of the market.

Ultimately, they are of course, looking to maximize their profits and that of their fund; so sometimes taking a dogmatic position for something you believe is right (be it price, your people or your product) is required – or at worst, some serious brinkmanship.

With haggling and termsheets in mind, the often excellent blog at Found and Read has a great Termsheet glossary outlining the most common terms. Also, check out www.thefunded.com which now has termsheet details uploaded too; its an excellent resource about VCs.

Don’t feel bad now about not knowing these terms as well as the VC – they do it every day, you dont – but do feel bad if you dont make some effort to gen up before discussions begin.

If you don’t know, just say so – you’ll look more foolish pretending to know but not, than simply saying “Liquidation multiple, remind me which one that is?”. After all, if you’re not a seasoned deal-sheet negotiator, they’re going to know that already.

So, it has been said 100 times before, but follow your gut. If you’re going to be a succesful entrepreneur, your gut is probably right.

(update: Found and Read has recently joined forces with Gigaom)

Pangea Day Cambridge is GO! Now we need help!

So, only 3 hours before I’m due to leave for Heathrow airport for www.webmission08.com I’ve managed to get the bones of the Pangea Day Cambridge event website up; largely courtesy of the people at Vancouvers Pangea Day website, who very kindly sent me their CSS template for WordPress! Thank you so much!

So, I now need help. If you’re in Cambridge on May 10th 2008, PLEASE drop me a line and lets make this a fantastic event. There is so much to do before then – its now just 25 days away.

More about Pangea Day can be learn here; and the Cambridge Pangea Day site will soon be buzzing here.

Lets make this a great event and share the experience with the rest of the world!

Virgins go to Mars with Google

Thee Page/Brin and Branson empires have announced a joint initiative to go and colonize Mars.

Were it true it would be truly incredible; it would be audacious, ambitious and to be applauded in every way. Full details here. I’m completely digging the graphic they used on the homepage. Maybe I should even apply. Except of course, I’m too busy building Rummble. I wonder how much of the CTIA audience in Las Vegas were fooled as it they seemed to take it hook, line and sinker!

The big fat UK investment “equity-gap-elephant-in-the-living-room” that nobody wants to mention

In reply to a post that someone replied to on Robert Scobles blog, saying that there was no issue with VC tech funding in Europe and that there was plenty money for startups and suggesting that it was just as easy to fund a company to build a multi-billion dollar business in Europe as the U.S. (the persons comments in italics), I recently wrote this response…

“There’s really no shortage of venture capital in Europe.”

Not true. There is no shortage of growth capital. There is no shortage of seed capital. There is a major shortage of Venture Capital for Series A with early stage companies. I dont know if you have raised capital for an early stage company in Europe, but if you have tried you’ll know there are literally only a handful of VCs who understand the tech ecosystem fully AND are prepared to invest early stage.

“If you want to build a billion dollar software tech company in Europe by using European VC money, it’s perfectly possible to do it”

I’d challenge you to give me 5 companies in this category who have grown to a billion dollar company, purely on European VC money (let alone UK), other than rolling out the usual suspects such as Skype et al. In contrast, I can probably name you 20 U.S. in the consumer internet sector, without breaking a sweat.

There is problem in Europe – its the equity gap. And its big. There are of course always exceptions to the rule, but in general U.S. seed investment is larger, and VC investment is earlier. In contrast, seed investment in the UK/Europe is smaller and VCs invest much later. That leaves a gaping hole between around £250,000 and £2m ($500k and $4m U.S.)

Everyone knows this, everyone will discuss it private, but nobody wants to spoil the party at European conferences by saying it. Which is a pity, as it needs to be said; because there is so much good stuff going on in Europe in the startup scene, thats its a disgrace that more support and more risk capital is not made available early enough.

Europeans (of which I am one) sometimes ask why there is no Yahoo, Google, Flickr, YouTube, MySpace etc etc of Europe; I believe the reason is what I have just described. Sadly, the same fate awaits us again in 4 years time when the consumer mobile internet services mature, and the same conversation will be had again.

The U.S. is now heavily investing in mobile startups and I believe has every chance to over take Europe in mobile services and take up, within 18 to 24 months. You read it here first.

The European tech sector needs to wake up to this reality and do something about it; until it does the U.S. will continue to dominate North American and European markets with web and mobile consumer brands, because they invest earlier and more aggressively, in more companies.

That was the gospel according to St. Andrew.

The Innovation and Growth Awards 2008

Our neighbors in Cambridge, Library House have taken over the running of the Price Waterhouse Coopers sponsored and lengthily named Innovation and Growth Awards this year. Speaking to John Owen (CEO Library House) he explained to me that they were keeping the format similar this year as the previous year before making changes based upon feedback and experiences.

Held at the Hilton Metropole, the food was good and the venue OK. The major disgrace was -as with so many UK conferences- there was no ubiquitous free Wifi. Talking to an unnamed source it was apparently because The Hilton Hotel wanted £10,000 ($20,000!) to provide wifi access to all conference attendees. That is truly insane in this day and age.

Moving on from that, I didn’t get to attend much of the conference as I had too many other meetings; there was a company Showcase that I caught some of – which included Mark’s Flirtomatic which is going well by all accounts. Outside of that I was invited by the very good legal chaps at Winston & Strawn to the Awards dinner (and they even treated us to an ipod Shuffle!) . After utilising a Hilton toilet to change in to my penguin outfit, the awards were certainly focused on growth -i.e. there were no startups in evidence (not in my idea of the word anyway).

However, I was on a table with some startups – Huddle and my friends at Trusted Places. I had to get a train at stupid-oclock in the morning to get to Brussels for Plugg, so I had to leave the fun early. Not too bad as I’ll be seeing the gang soon enough at their Drinktank later this month which I’m very much looking forward to! Sounds like the type of thing I would organise! [stoppress: that gives me an idea!]

The highlight of the evening was not the over-enthusiastic Lucy Alexander of Sky News who was MC, but rather the 72 years old Trevor Baylis (the inventor of the wind-up clock radio) who echoed my own frustration at Britains appalling treating of its inventors and general disregard or apparent allergy to fantastic innovation … You know, nothing significant – things like the jet engine for example, which the UK government ignored for the first 10 years of development.

Some pics of the event below, including Trevor in action. Maybe see you at Drinktank!

080318 Innovation and Growth Conference