July 14th, 2010 — Mark Littlewood
To facilitate effective networking and meeting, here is a list of registered attendees as of Monday 12th July.
Join the conversation using the Twitter hashtag #BLN10
- 2e2 Group, Terry Burt, Chief Executive Officer
- ACIS, Dan Sandhu, CEO
- Adaffix, Claudia Poepperl, CEO
- Admob Europe, Russell Buckley, VP Alliances
- Advent Ventures, Stephan Gueorguiev, Associate
- AlertMe, Pilgrim Beart, Executive Director & Co-Founder
- All-In Group, David Peto, CEO
- AlpinaSearch, Gary Reeman, CEO
- Amadeus Capital, Laurence John, CEO, Amadeus Mobile Seed Fund
- Amadeus Capital Partners, Dr Hermann Hauser, Director
- Amino Telecommunications plc, Stuart Darling, CFO
- Angel Investor, John Taysom, Chairman
- Angel Investor, Mark Zaleski, Chairman
- ARM, Tudor Brown, Founder and President
- AskPeopleYouKnow, David Gilbey, Co Founder
- Astley Clarke, Bec Astley Clarke, CEO
- Atlantic Healthcare Ltd, Clare Twemlow, Director of Finance
- Audioboo, Karen Barber, Director
- AVEVA Group plc, Richard Longdon, CEO
- AVG Technologies, Santiago Matheus, VP Corporate Development (more…)
July 9th, 2010 — Mark Littlewood
Some people swear by Facebook as a tool for business. I am much less sold on the value of Facebook and far more impressed by Linked In. Both networks seem to incorporate ridiculously unintuitive UIs but our recent experience with the BLN Growth Forum has given us some interesting insights into how the business community that we operate with views the two. Linked In seems to be far more popular for senior figures in the entrepreneurial business community.
When people register for the BLN Growth Forum, we drop them an email and amongst other things ask them to show they are coming:
- Facebook and LinkedIn Groups. Please let your network know you will be attending by clicking on the event pages in LI and FB.
As of today we have 165 people registered for the event and have closed registration and are now operating a waiting list. (more…)
July 6th, 2010 — Mark Littlewood
A wordle of the burning questions from BLN Growth Forum attendees. Good to see so many preoccupied with ‘growth’.
Here are the anonymised questions from some of the participants. There doesn’t seem to be too much preoccupation with the ‘Recession’ word from that sample.
- What are the key skills that a CEO must possess to lead their company from start-up to significant growth?
- How to manage rapid structural change in fast growing business, including the transition from lumpy angel investment to venture capital.
- a better view of how to maximise chances of growth in continuing turbulent financial markets
- No particular burning question, just looking to learn, network and contribute.
- Early stage user acquisition and PMF
- How are other companies in the digital space approaching growth?
- Other than availability of finance, has anything changed in 25 years about building companies? (more…)
July 6th, 2010 — Mark Littlewood
Good news for us as we will have to close registration for our first BLN Growth Forum, a week early due to popular demand. If you think you are going, and have not had confirmation from us, or if you just haven’t got round to signing off yet, now is the time to act. We will not be able to accommodate further delegates after Thursday.
http://growthforum2010.thebln.com/
June 30th, 2010 — Mark Littlewood
Talking about: Getting and Keeping Customers
Why we wanted him to speak: The nicest person we know in the mobile advertising industry. Instrumental in building AdMob to become world’s leading mobile advertising network. Knows a lot about scaling fast and just sold AdMob to Google. Champion of innovation, ethical business and supporting women in business. Closest thing the mobile industry has to the Big Lebowski’s Dude.
Background (more…)
June 30th, 2010 — Mark Littlewood
Talking about: Getting and Keeping Customers
Why we wanted him to speak: We met Ted when he ran a workshop for out Silicon Valley comes to Cambridge CEO Workshops last year. He takes a lot of those new-fangled Californian social media concepts and turns them into actionable ideas for real businesses. He really understands marketing. He is an awesome facilitator.
Background (more…)
June 29th, 2010 — Mark Littlewood
Mark Prisk, Business Minister announced today that the new government would be shutting down the Business Link network. Real Business broke the news. Elsewhere, it was announced that the Regional Development Agencies, RDAs, would be axed.
Predictably, the RDAs and Business Links are up in arms. Lots of spokespeople have come out to insist they create value. Some business organisations, particularly in the north of England have joined in the shouting to keep the status quo.
The two reactions I have heard from the business community however, have been, ‘Great, about time too’, or, ‘What did they actually do?.’
We need to cut public sector spending. Usually the best thing a government to do to support business is to create a benign environment for entrepreneurs and then get the hell out of the way. Sadly, this seems to have been an approach that many an RDA has totally forgotten, seeing the creation of a regionally based support infrastructure as an end in itself. Goodbye to all that.
Do some of the grants distributed by the RDAs have a beneficial effect on some companies? Yes. Would they still have a beneficial effect if they were available and distributed nationally? Yes. Is it right that grants were distributed regionally which means that if there are two equally deserving companies in two different regions, only one would receive one? How about if one company was much better than the other but happened to be in a ‘hot’ region with more competition for grants? I don’t think so. How about you?
Frankly, there has been an absurd focus on supporting enterprise with government money in places that cannot absorb the investment. I know several Regional Venture funds that actively seek investments outside their own areas as they simply cannot find the deals to do for their funds in the way that they are structured. They find ways of investing in companies in other parts of the country and then set up an office in the region in question.The ECFs seem to be a much more imaginative, and potentially successful, mechanism to invest in scaleable businesses.
Reward successful entrepreneurs by looking at things like a favourable CGT and taper relief. Too much public money going into support entrepreneurship across the country is just misplaced. Spreading money wherever it is felt there isn’t enough about just creates a dependency culture. Entrepreneurship is about risk taking and winning. It is not necessarily compatible with a lets be fair for everyone ideal. We cannot create 9 Silicon Valley type environments across the UK, one in each region, just because each RDA want to be the next Silicon Glen, Fen, Corridor, Moor, Bog or whatever. For the best technology entrepreneurs in certain sectors, the best thing you can probably do is move to London, or go to Silicon Valley. No amount of money, public or private will change that.
The big question for me is what will replace these bodies and activities. I personally welcome the moves to streamline and rationalise an overly bureaucratic system. I will be more interested to see the detail of what is planned to replace. Bring it on.
I cannot imagine many people will be spending too much time worrying about the fate of Business Link and the RDAs at the BLN Growth Forum on 15th July. Those particular CEOs will be busy getting on with building great businesses in the real world. http://growthforum2010.thebln.com
June 29th, 2010 — Mark Littlewood
Talking about: Building Great Teams
Why we wanted him to speak: Started in corporates and turned into big thinking entrepreneurial manager. Raised over $ 600 million funding for one company (Webvan). Great turnaround story at QXL Ricardo. Friendly, approachable, thoughtful, refreshing thinking. Seems to have left fans in all the companies he has worked in.
Background
Since 2007, Mark Zaleski is the Chairman of DVDPost. He is also a Venture Partner in BBV and a NED in CyberSports. Mark was Chairman and CEO of Dailymotion from 2007 to 2009. Under his leadership it became the world’s leading independent video-sharing site. From 2000, Mark was CEO for QXL ricardo plc. QXL was the best performing stock on LSE’s Main Market in both 2004 and 2005. It was sold for nearly £1 billion.
Prior to QXL, Mark was President of Webvan, where he and other officers raised nearly $600M. Mark is a Fellow of the IoD.
http://be.linkedin.com/in/markzaleski
For more information on the BLN Growth Forum, 15th July 2010, visit http://growthforum2010.thebln.com/session/
