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Perspectives on the wonderful world of tech

Internet of Things 2013

February 4, 2013 by

The Internet of Things (IoT) Forum, 27th June 2013, Cambridge.

IoT13 – a one day forum for people building businesses in the Internet of Things for the people and companies turning connected devices into profitable businesses. We will discuss the commercial application of IoT, the investment opportunity and what it takes to make money – how can entrepreneurial businesses partner profitably with large enterprises? You will meet people who could be your future customers, investors, partners, advisers and collaborators.

See the speakers.

See the programme.

See our partners.

IoT13 considers:

Who is doing inspiring things with the Internet of Things?
What business models are best suited to the sector?
Which sectors are showing signs of success?
How large corporates are using connected devices and how to get involved?
What makes the difference between success and failure in IoT?
Where is the smart money going?

The BLN IoT Forum Promise

It’s simple. We are so confident you will enjoy and get value from our events that if you attend and don’t agree, we will refund your ticket price.

More information and event updates are available on the IoT website here.

February 3, 2013 by Mark T Littlewood

Which are the determining factors that shape success for a tech business sale? Discussion and networking drinks 6-9pm.

Been thinking about exits? So have we, and we think it’s time for an open discussion about the market for technology businesses. While the market for tech IPOs in Europe is still lacklustre, (as we discussed in our CEO Tales in November) what other options are available at the moment? And what are the practical steps any board should be taking to get the sale they want?

We’ll be bringing together entrepreneurs, investors and acquirors to look at the market for tech businesses in 2013 and to talk about best practice, along with speakers who have all been at the sharp end of selling their business and can share their experience of what went well and what didn’t. What would they do differently next time?

We’re delighted to confirm four outstanding speakers on the topic:

Ian Gotts, Nimbus

Ian was founder and CEO of Nimbus, recently bought by TIBCO Software where Ian is now a Vice President. TIBCO is a US quoted provider of infrastructure software for companies to use on-premise or as part of cloud computing environments.

He is the author of 6 books including, Common Approach, Uncommon Results, Why Killer Products Don’t Sell and two Thinking of… books on Cloud Computing. He is also prolific blogger with a rare ability to make the complex seem simple which makes him a highly entertaining speaker.

Wendy Tan White, Moonfruit

Wendy (the 2011 Tech Entrepreneur of the Year) is co-founder and CEO of Moonfruit, the UK’s leading DIY website and online shop builder for SMB’s to publish on web, mobile and social platforms. Moonfruit was founded in 1999 with co-founders Eirik Pettersen (current CTO) and Joe White (current COO), in 2012 Moonfruit was acquired by hibu (formerly Yell Group) in a $37m deal. The acquisition was an important step in its transformation to a leading global digital services provider and local eMarketplace.

It has been an interesting journey: Moonfruit was launched with VC funding in 1999, liquidated and bought-back by the founders during the dotcom crash and then bootstrapped, self-funding innovation until raising $2.4m from , Stephens (US) and Silicon Valley-based 500 Startups in Sept 2010. Wendy has a deep interest in entrepreneurship : she is a 500 Startups mentor, and supports the Women 2.0, ChangeTheRatio, WiTT and Astia networks.

Before Moonfruit, Wendy was Marketing Director of Gandi Group, helped launch Zopa.com – first European P2P lending site and Egg.com – first UK internet bank. She trained at Arthur Andersen after getting a BEng Computer Science from Imperial College, London. Wendy also has a MA in Future Textiles from Central St Martins.

Shirin Dehghan, Arieso

Shirin Dehghan is the CEO and founder of Arieso, a business with solutions that harness the power of customer generated, geolocated intelligence to tackle some of the biggest challenges facing mobile operators today. JDSU acquired Arieso in March 2013, adding the world’s leading intelligent, location aware solutions for mobile network operators to its Communications Test portfolio.

Shirin founded Arieso in 2002 with the vision of enabling self-optimizing networks, after a career which included roles as a research engineer at Vodafone Group Plc (where she was responsible for the development of WCDMA simulation and business modelling, as well as being part of Vodafone UK’s UMTS auction team, where she acted as technical expert on systems and technology issues, providing technical liaison to the UK board) and as manager of the consultancy division of Multiple Access Communications (MAC), leading projects involving major operators and manufacturers.

Shirin is the author of several technical publications and has been a speaker in numerous technical conferences. She is a member of the IET and a Chartered Engineer.

Martin Leuw, ClearSwift

Martin Leuw is a serial entrepreneur and executive and an acknowledged expert on business growth. He is currently the non-executive chairman of Clearswift, a global specialist in adaptive cyber protection. Lyceum Capital backed an MBO of Clearswift in November 2011.

Prior to joining the Clearswift Board, Martin served as Group CEO of IRIS from 2001-2011, leading its growth from revenues of £9m to over £120m p.a. During this period, IRIS grew from an enterprise value of £30m to over £500m to become one of the UK’s largest private software houses, with market leading positions in a number of sectors and circa 60,000 business customers.

In July 2006, Martin was named Entrepreneur of the Year in the Technology & Communication category in the Southern regional final of Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year programme. In October 2009, he was awarded the new ICAEW Faculty prize at the Software Satisfaction Awards.

Martin has been a regular judge for the prestigious Real Business “Business of the Year” awards, speaks on entrepreneurship and business growth and is a columnist for Real Business and the Daily Telegraph.

Format:

17th April, 6-9pm.
Drinks networking, panel discussion and audience Q&A, drinks networking.

We’re very grateful to our sponsors for the evening who share our interest in making networking fun and informative, Erevena Executive Search, First Capital, Rackspace and UBS:

For more information: info@thebln.com

February 2, 2013 by

BLN dinners are a great opportunity to meet and share problems with peers (under Chatham House Rule) in a relaxed, informal and fun atmosphere, allowing you to spend time thinking about working on, not in, your company. Guests take away strong relationships and opportunities to develop themselves and their business, through

Better business relationships – with partners/customers/suppliers
Market intelligence from your peers
Opportunities to profile raise at leading industry events, publications and blogs
Personal opportunities for advisory boards, NEDs

This is the 8th dinner in an established series for the digital media industry, which has consistently attracted great feedback from guests.

Participants in the series have included founders/CEOs/senior executives from companies including: Telegraph Media, Facebook, Index Ventures, Admob, Mind Candy, ITV, DMGT, Google, LoveFilm, Pearson, Tweetdeck, Fidelity Ventures, MTV, Channel 4, DFJ Esprit, Datasift, Conde Nast and Shazam.

These events are made possible through the support of our sponsors UBS, Blick Rothenberg and Taylor Wessing, who share our interest in improving the quality and fun of business networking.

Please note we CANNOT guarantee a place to everyone that is interested in attending – we try to curate the audience for our discussion dinners to ensure the maximum value for all participants. We do our best to accommodate relevant individuals. Our priority is always to ensure that our guests are relevant to the specific discussion/sector focus.

Please contact us if you would like to attend to request a code and details for registration.

February 2, 2013 by Mark T Littlewood

How technology and demand is shaping digital media business models. Discussion and networking drinks 6-9pm.

Venue, 5 New Street Square, London, EC4A 3TW

Digital media fascinates us. And we know you feel the same way. So this CEO Tales will look at how changes in consumer behaviour and technology are driving new business models in digital media. We’ll look at questions such as:

What are the new ways of making money in digital?
Which sectors are leading the way in using digital tech? What lessons can we learn from them?
Are there industries which are ‘digital-proof’?

The first 50 registrations will also get a copy of Dan Pink’s brilliant new book, ‘To Sell is Human‘. You can see him talking on the subject about at our Business of Software event here.

Our speakers for the event on March 20th, 6-9 pm are:

Patrick Dowling, Telegraph Media Group

Patrick has many years of experience at an executive level in successful early stage digital media ventures – CFO at Handbag.com which was sold to The National Magazine Company in 2006 and CFO / COO at DMG which was sold to Dennis Publishing in 2009. He is now is Chief Operating Officer of Telegraph Digital with teams across Advertising Operations, Strategic Planning & Analysis and Ecommerce. Prior to working in digital media Patrick worked in senior financialroles including the FTSE 100 Capita Group and financial services company First Data.

Juan Lopez-Valcarcel, Pearson Group

Juan Lopez-Valcarcel is Chief Digital Officer at Pearson International. The company’s goal is to help people make progress in their lives through learning and Pearson is the world’s leading educational technology and services company with 40,000 employees and revenues of GBP 6B. Juan leads digital product strategy, technology development and digital partnerships for all Education businesses outside North America.

Pearson’s brands include: Financial Times, Penguin, Dorling Kindersley, Prentice Hall, Longman, Poptropica, Edexcel, VUE, MyLabs, eCollege, Fronter and many others. Digital products and services already account for a third of total sales.

Juan started his career as an entrepreneur, launching one of the first Internet portals in Spain. Most recently, he was VP Digital Media at NBC Universal in New York and Engagement Manager in the Media & Entertainment group at strategy consulting firm Booz Allen. Juan is also a guest lecturer at INSEAD MBA in France and the MIB (Master in Internet Business) programme in Spain, acting as a mentor to multiple digital startups in Europe.

Karla Geci, Strategic Partner Development, Facebook

Karla works with broadcasters, media companies and content owners who want to use the Facebook Platform to build social applications and experiences on 3rd party web properties and Facebook Pages. Previous to Facebook, Karla was Director of Marketing at Bebo where she drove strategic marketing partnerships with media owners and publishers and before this Karla spent six years at RealNetworks as the European Marketing and PR Manager working across their mobile, software and digital music verticals, launching enterprise products and consumer services. Karla is originally from the US where she received a BSBA from the University of Pittsburgh, College of Business Administration. She has lived and worked in the UK since 2001.

Adam Baker, Blottr

Adam Baker is a serial entrepreneur, having founded three internet businesses since 1999.

His latest company, Blottr, has changed the way news is gathered and reported by enabling anyone, anywhere in the world, to capture and report news they witness from the scene.

It has taken Blottr 2 years to find a robust, sustainable business model, yet today the company work with some of the worlds most recognised and respected news organisations by syndicating Blottr content to editors and newsrooms around the world.

As ever, we’ll bring together entrepreneurs, investors and established corporates to meet and do business as well as educate each other. It promises to be a great evening, and registration is now open so join us.

We’ve very grateful to our sponsors for the evening who share our interest in making networking fun and informative.

Erevena Executive Search, Rackspace and Taylor Wessing.

For more information: info@thebln.com

January 30, 2013 by Mark T Littlewood

I love where I live. Every night this week, less than 5 minutes walk from my home, Eric Schmidt, Chairman of Google (you can Google it) has been speaking at an open lecture series (i.e. free and open to all) about where the world is headed. He is in a unique position to synthesis some of the big stuff going on in the world and offer us a Google-centric view on where the world is going right? Half right. He sees things and has access to information, ideas, people, governments, data and all that stuff but this wasn’t the ‘Google view’, this was a very personal view on the future of the digital world. If the lectures I attended as an undergraduate where as thought-provoking, engaging and authoritative, I would probably still be at university.

Eric Schmidt, Google, Lecture in Cambridge

The talk I attended tonight (I couldn’t make the 1st 2 due to some last minute and unavoidable child-care issues), was on, ‘The Future of Conflict, Combat and Intervention‘. I am sure video of the talk will be posted in due course and we will link but what was billed as a 90 minute lecture was in fact significantly shorter – about 30 minutes (and delivered with an autocue). It was a fascinating essay on the power of technology to change the world of conflict, considering the impact of technology on dictators and despots, politics, war, drones, artificial intelligence and the evolving role of humans and computers. Some pretty scary, pretty depressing stuff in some cases.

Some of the points that he raised in the talk (he also covered quick summaries of the previous ones):

The world has less wars now than in the past though they are more visible so might it might ‘feel’ that the world is worse today.
This isn’t a great time to be a dictator.
Today, leaders cannot commit atrocities and get away with it in the way they could in the past.
Means leaders will focus less on genocide and more on discrimination including restricting access to technology and content.
Warmongers will get better at marketing and mobilising tribes to promote their cause.
However, even if the state controls the majority of media, they can never control it entirely. Mobile phones, and microsd cards etc just can’t be controlled like Pravda.
The switch to a digital world makes it much harder to delete the evidence of atrocities.

Most worrying aspect of shift is complete removal of combat humans from field of conflict – drones, remote-control weapons, military weapons. This will become strategic priority for all nations in our lifetime.
The most effective way of combating drones is to attack digital control systems.

This is, in Eric’s view, likely to mean more conflicts in the world but they are likely to remain reduce the likelihood of all out war.
Humans will still be very involved in war and combat as they need to teach machines what to do.
States, and the United Nations, will be forced to deal with cyber wars and cyber alliances to combat threats.
States with small military forces but technology expertise will become more powerful.
Open Source networks will become more important as a force for peace.

One line summary of earlier talks.

The Next 5 billion – Life in our connected age.

5 billion people getting digital in a 3/4 years. What does this mean for medicine, women, media, entertainment? Society will see this as overwhelmingly positive even if we don’t know what will happen.

The Future of Identity, Citizenship and Reporting.

Everyone has one from birth. No choice. People must fight to control them. [This really wasn’t a corporate gig…]

In summary, Eric finished with the remark, “Humans and computers will eventually do the things they are best at.”

Humans – judgement & leadership.
Computers – big processing problems & remembering stuff.

Humans should invest relentlessly in education.

But it was all over in only 30 minutes, not 90. Disappointing?

Actually, not. The reverse, as he spent the rest of the time answering questions, in depth and off the cuff. A class act.

Questions from the floor (paraphrased, not comprehensive and my interpretation…).

When was the best time in history to be a brutal dictator?

Depends on your perspective but all dictators share a certain combination of psychotic characteristics – NPD, randomness etc. Dictators today are *probably* less likely to establish huge power bases as their psychosis will be recognised earlier thanks to technology by both their immediate supporters and wider population.

China – how can Google help democracy in China?

“We negotiated with China. We lost. I can’t put it more bluntly than that. Until China changes outlook to censorship, nothing more for us to do.”

Best gentle put down of the evening…

Is investing in technology for warfare unethical as it is directed at killing people?

“In the US, DARPA – Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency – does this. It invented the Internet.”

One of the last questions was from a serial lecture attendee and pessimist (Eric recognised him from the night before). He asked why, given some of the appalling potential scenarios that Eric outlines as ways the world can go, Eric was so optimistic about the world of the future.

Aside from a belief that the vast majority people in the world are, ‘good’. “In last 15 years, 2 billion people have moved from abject poverty to lower middle classes. This is best insurance against doomsday scenarios there can be.”

If he comes back, I will bring the children.

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January 28, 2013 by Mark T Littlewood

An invitation only, BLN peer-networking discussion dinner, for the leaders of Cambridge-based, high growth companies, with ambitions for world domination and a potential interest in accessing corporate/venture capital/sovereign wealth fund investment. Attendance is restricted to a maximum of 20 entrepreneurs to facilitate effective networking.

A great opportunity to meet and share problems with peers (under Chatham House Rule) in a relaxed, informal and fun atmosphere, allowing you to spend time thinking about working on, not in, your company. Guests take away strong relationships and opportunities to develop themselves and their business, through:

Access to funding from proven, qualified and active institutional investors. (Note BLN is not a corporate finance house. We make introductions where we can but do not write business plans, we do not run investor road shows and we do not charge for any connections we make).
Better business relationships – with partners/customers/suppliers
Market intelligence from your peers
Opportunities to profile raise at leading industry events, publications and blogs
Personal opportunities for advisory boards, NEDs

This is the 8th networking and dinner we have run in Cambridge. Our networking events consistently attract great feedback from guests.

Participants in the series have included founders/CEOs/senior executives from companies including: CSR, ARM, Neul, Red Gate, Abcam, Ubisense, Solexa, DisplayLink, Bango and others.

These events are made possible through the support of the BDO and UKTI Venture Capital Unit who share our interest in improving the quality and fun of business networking.

Please contact us directly if you would like to request an invitation.

Please contact us if you would like to attend to request a code and details for registration.

January 24, 2013 by

GrowthAccelerator helps ambitious businesses achieve their high growth potential – identifying key barriers to growth and creating a uniquely tailored growth plan to help overcome challenges, and optimise opportunities.

A partnership between private enterprise and government, the GrowthAccelerator service currently works with over 2,500 businesses from a diverse range of sectors, from software to manufacturing. The service includes expert business coaching, delivered across areas including innovation, access to finance, and business development. It also offers up to £2,000 match-funding for leadership and management training.

Contact: Darren Harper

enquiries@growthaccelerator.com

0844 463 2995

January 18, 2013 by

There are times in a network organiser’s life when you just know you’ve hit a sweet spot. And it seems that the February edition of CEO Tales is going to be one of those times. We’re delighted to say we already have nearly 90 delegates – selected details below – and an excellent new speaker to join the panel in Canonical’s Jane Silber.

If you have any interest in open source or business models in a booming tech sector (or even in a free Raspberry Pi) then early registration is recommended.

Eventbrite - CEO Tales: Open Source

Here’s who you’ll be mixing with:

CTO	2ndQuadrant
General partner	Acacia Capital Partners
Managment consultant	AlixPartners
CEO	Amplience
CEO	Amplience
CEO	Api Axle
Developer	ApiAxle
Creative Director	Apptivation
Software Engineer	ARM
Private Banker	Barclays
Private Banker	Barclays
Co-Founder	Basis Technologies
Head of TMT	BDO LLP
Director	Brand Dean
Investment Manager	Cambridge Enterprise Limited
Program manager	Cisco
CEO	Cloudsoft Corporation
CEO	Cognidox
Managing Partner	Connect Ventures
Partner	Crelligo
Partner	DFJ Esprit
CEO	Embecosm
KTP Associate, Embedded Systems Engineer	Erlang Solutions
Partner	FirstPartner
Managing Director	Flax
Director	Freedman Services Limited
Director	Gare Ventures
Cofounder / CEO	GroupSpaces
Founder	Hatch.js
Principal	ILMM
Associate	Index Ventures
CEO	Inqb8tor
Commercial Director	Inqb8tor
CEO	Integrity Software
Managing Partner	IQ Capital Partners
Founder & CEO	KashFlow Software Ltd
CEO	MapleBird
Ceo	Masabi Mobile Tickets
Investment Manager	NESTA Investments
Class of 2013	New Entrepreneurs Foundation
Director	Numerous
Creator	Numerous
Founder	Oi!
IP Strategy Consultant	Origin Ltd.
Director International Sales	PCF
Founder	PiChimney
Engineer	Pivotal Labs
Head of DBA Tools	Red Gate
Director of Product Management	Riverbed
Principal	SEP
Senior R&D Engineer	Setred
*	Shapesmith Ltd
Associate	Silicon Valley Bank
CTO	Simply Business
Principal Developer	Simply Business
Architect	Sinebridge
Founder	Software Verification
Co-Founder	SquibbleBox
CTO	TagMan
CEO	TAP Biosystems
Consultant	Tenia Business Services Ltd
Project Lead	The CentOS Project
Co-Founder	The First 65
Co-Founder	The First 65
Hacker/Founder	The Internet
Entrepreneur	Venture Strategy
Principal Consultant	Virtual Techniologies
Director	Well Informed Limited
Director	Well Informed Limited
General Partner	Wellington Partners
Programme Manager	wonga.com
Director	www.skpang.co.uk

January 18, 2013 by

It seems we are not alone in being curious about how the growing number of open source businesses are making revenue.

Kirk Wylie, of OpenGamma, has written this blog post to answer a question that he probably gets asked several times a day. In a nutshell, it seems that commercial clients of OpenGamma need a range of services to tailor OS software to their needs, services that sometimes, an open community cannot provide (Kirk will be speaking at CEO Tales: Open Source Business Models on the 6th February if you want to ask him more detailed questions).

But what if your customers want to reuse the code in their products? Kaltura, an open source video platform, gives a good explanation here of how to run a dual license model that allows customers to embed their open source software in proprietary systems. The emphasis from both models is on transparency – that the majority of development is done in the full view of the developer community.

Which gives that community a significant amount of clout: for example the interesting story from earlier this year of the spat over Vert.x between VMWare and RedHat. Two big hitters in the open source world, squaring up over who has rights to a valuable bit of code – a recipe for large lawyers’ bills and years in court, right? Well, no. The development group supporting the project weighed in and the companies have promised to work things out through the community.

What’s different in open source is that the community tends to win over business interests, and the community’s over-riding interests will always ensure that value flows ultimately to the user. Which makes open source solutions typically much better value than proprietary ones, but arguably nowhere near as profitable.

A tricky path to tread – and we’ll hear more from CEOs of open source business on this and other challenges in our first CEO Tales of 2013, looking at open source business models. You can learn more and register here.

January 17, 2013 by Mark T Littlewood

We wanted to support the Raspberry Pi Foundation at our next CEO Tales on 6th February on Open Source Business Models so decided to give the first 75 paid attendees a free Raspberry Pi. We now have over 90 registered to attend this discussion and in a fit of uncharacteristic generosity, I decided it would be nice if everyone that came had one so I just bought 120.

Here they are in their very smart new cases.

120 Raspberry Pi computers for CEO Tales

There are still some places remaining so get registered and come and listen to some very cool people talking about open source business models.

Speakers:

Jane Silber, CEO, Canonical
Jack Lang, Chairman, Raspberry Pi Foundation
Kirk Wylie, CEO, Open Gamma
Nigel Beighton, European CTO, Rackspace
Tom Hulme, IDEO

We want to thank our awesome supporters for this CEO Tales: Erevena Executive Search, Rackspace and Taylor Wessing

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Blog

Perspectives on the wonderful world of tech

Internet of Things 2013

February 4, 2013 by

CEO Tales: How to sell your technology business successfully

February 3, 2013 by Mark T Littlewood

Which are the determining factors that shape success for a tech business sale? Discussion and networking drinks 6-9pm.

Digital Doers Discussion Dinner

February 2, 2013 by

CEO Tales: Evolving Digital Business Models, London 20th March 2013

February 2, 2013 by Mark T Littlewood

How technology and demand is shaping digital media business models. Discussion and networking drinks 6-9pm.

Venue, 5 New Street Square, London, EC4A 3TW

This is not a great time for dictators says Google’s Eric Schmidt.

January 30, 2013 by Mark T Littlewood

Cambridge Growth Discussion Dinner, June 17th

January 28, 2013 by Mark T Littlewood

GrowthAccelerator

January 24, 2013 by

So who’s coming to the first CEO Tales of 2013?

January 18, 2013 by

Open Source: where does the money go?

January 18, 2013 by

More free Raspberry Pi computers at our Open Source CEO Tales

January 17, 2013 by Mark T Littlewood