Vince Cable made an interesting comment at today’s entertaining Real Business Entrepreneurs’ Summit:

“90% 0f angel investment is in Scotland.”

Vince Cable is the business secretary and is in charge of a lot of things that entrepreneurs care about. It is deeply shocking that someone in such a position could come up with such nonsense – maybe he has been spending too much time talking to the SNP or maybe the government just doesn’t have a clue and is making policy on the back of  nonsense disguised as data. Whatever the reason, it scares me that someone in such an important position of authority and influence can be making decisions of the back of utterly ridiculous data.

So how is government policy being formed?

Thank God Luke Johnston was there to call bullshit in the way that only he can although Vince Cable certainly didn’t seem to accept that he might be wrong.

Just for the record, the most recent data  available for angel investment, based on EIS Claims submitted to HMRC of £503m and only provisional figures for 08/09 claims were:

• Scotland –  £32m
• England –  £459
• Wales –  £8m
• Northern Ireland –  £4m

That means Scotland is about 6%.

Get the full data set in pdf format here: http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/stats/ent_invest_scheme/table8-4.pdf Note the most recent information available from government sources is provisional data from 2008-09! Maybe Vince has access to more up to date information than us, in which case, it would be great if he could share it. If his numbers are true, every train and plane to Glasgow and Edinburgh will be packed for months. Of course, not all angel investment is EIS but this seems to be a much more likely balance based on anecdotal evidence too.

Come on! If a government wants to support entrepreneurs, can we please have some evidence that they might have a clue that they know what they are talking about?

I don’t think Vince Cable will be speaking at the BLN Growth Forum, 5th July 2011.

Themes:

• Making it big – targeting big markets and maintaining your lead.
• Successful sales– making profitable sales a core goal. How to sell against market leaders.
• Putting people first – creating a culture to attract and retain the people you need.
• Growth strategies – maximising value from startup to IPO and beyond.

Speakers:

• Jonathan Milner, Founder & CEO, Abcam
• Warren East, CEO, ARM
• Neil Gaydon, CEO, PACE plc
• Stuart Miller, CEO, ByBox
• Mo Bulbrook, Head of International, Cheapflights Media
• Tim Weller, CEO, Incisive Media
• Mary Turner, CEO, AlertMe
• Martin Leuw, NED, IRIS Software Group
• Mark Gerhard, CEO, Jagex Games Studio
• Ariel Eckstein, Managing Director EMEA, LinkedIn
• Peter Bauer, CEO, Mimecast
• Nigel Payne, Director and Prev CEO, Sporting Bet plc
• Andy Leaver, VP EMEA, Workday

Supporters:

• The Growth Forum is produced by the BLN in partnership with BDO.
• The Growth Forum is supported by BDO, Mills and Reeve, Kleinwort Benson, Intel Capital
• Media Partner Business Weekly
• To discuss sponsorship opportunities, call Marcin Zaba, 07702 216 930.

For more information, the full agenda, all the stuff you need to know, and to reserve your place. http://growthforum2011.thebln.com/

 

With a brilliant line-up of speakers confirmed for this year’s BLN Growth Forum on 5th July, we keep getting asked who is coming this year. We don’t know yet as we only just released tickets (though we now have a shade over 50% of the places gone). Here is the guest list from last year to give you an idea about who will be there.

You can also see some pictures from last year’s event so you can see for yourself here.

• 2e2 Group, Chief Executive Officer
• Accel, Partner
• ACIS, CEO
• Adaffix, CEO
• Admob Europe, VP Alliances
• Advent Ventures, Associate
• AlertMe, Executive Director & Co-Founder
• All-In Group, CEO

According to Business Weekly,

“Cambridge based antibodies supplier Abcam plc has bought US-based MitoSciences Inc. which provides specialist antibody and assay research tools. And the Science Park company says future acquisitions are on the cards.” For full story.

Jonathan Milner, CEO of Abcam plc will be speaking at the BLN Growth Forum on 5th July. If you are thinking about how to grow and capture value in your business – and meet great people who are doing just that – it would be well worth making a day of it. Last year’s event was a sell out with delegates – entrepreneurs and investors – coming from across the UK and Europe for a day of talks from some brilliant and inspiring business people along with great networking.

The content alone is worth coming for but other outcomes for participants last year included investment, advisory roles, and a few career changes. As well as discussing some of the burning issues facing the leaders of growth businesses, the day considers what happens when things go wrong – and how to get back on track. You will hear stories of success – and failure – and walk away with relevant, actionable opportunities to help strengthen your business. You can see the full programme here: http://growthforum2011.thebln.com/

Themes:

• Making it big – targeting big markets and maintaining your lead.
• Successful sales– making profitable sales a core goal. How to sell against market leaders.
• Putting people first – creating a culture to attract and retain the people you need.
• Growth strategies – maximising value from startup to IPO and beyond.

Speakers:

• Jonathan Milner, Founder & CEO, Abcam
• Warren East, CEO, ARM
• Neil Gaydon, CEO, PACE plc
• Stuart Miller, CEO, ByBox
• Mo Bulbrook, Head of International, Cheapflights Media
• Tim Weller, CEO, Incisive Media
• Mary Turner, CEO, AlertMe
• Martin Leuw, NED, IRIS Software Group
• Mark Gerhard, CEO, Jagex Games Studio
• Ariel Eckstein, Managing Director EMEA, LinkedIn
• Peter Bauer, CEO, Mimecast
• Nigel Payne, Director and Prev CEO, Sporting Bet plc
• Andy Leaver, VP EMEA, Workday

Supporters:

• The Growth Forum is produced by the BLN in partnership with BDO.
• The Growth Forum is supported by BDO, Mills and Reeve, Kleinwort Benson, Intel Capital
• Media Partner Business Weekly
• To discuss sponsorship opportunities, call Marcin Zaba, 07702 216 930.

For more information, the full agenda, all the stuff you need to know, and to reserve your place. http://growthforum2011.thebln.com/

Interesting analysis by SeeWhy Software looking at 60,000 completed ecommerce transactions across multiple ecommerce sites in the first few months of this year. Note this is TRANSACTIONS, not visits, so this looks at the visits to a site that led to the site taking money.

When they analysed the sources of traffic to the shopping cart, they found that by far the biggest source of referrals was email. (Remember, that thing that is dead?).

Over 50% of the traffic to shopping carts was from email. Social media drove just 4%.

Even more starkly, when it came to actual conversion of visits to a shopping cart to actual revenue, email actually accounts for a total of over 2/3 of the traffic.

Social media drove just 2% of the volume of transactions.

In a world where the new kids on the block seem to believe that email is totally dead, and social is the future, this is some interesting data that might just make people think.

Of course, that doesn’t mean social media or other forms of promotion and engagement are not relevant, but it does mean you need to think hard about what you use it for. ecommerce businesses know that the bulk of their revenue and profits come from the people they know which is why so much time and effort is spent understanding customers, building up mailing lists, newsletters and the like that they can use to put the right offer in front of the right people at the right time.

BLN Money in Mobile Award: it’s free and ridiculously easy to enter, deadline for entry May, 31 2011

Couldn’t put it better ourselves! Thanks Andy and mobiThinking.

“Here’s a great opportunity for a young UK or European mobile company to get some free exposure and see how you measure up to your contemporaries. As part of the Money in Mobile Forum (London, June 14 2011), 10 companies will given the platform to pitch their companies in front of the conference audience and the competition judges (who include 16 venture capitalists). These pitches will also be recorded and posted on the Web. The winner will be the company that the judges conclude will be the one that is most likely to make money in mobile for its clients.”

You know mobile is going to ever more important to your business but can you see how it can make you money now? You should come to Money in Mobile, June 14th, if you want to see how companies are making money in mobile today.

We have some of the most influential doers in the mobile, ecommerce, software, games and media sectors together for an event that connects entrepreneurs, investors and corporate users of mobile technologies to share ideas about practical, profitable mobile strategies for their businesses. We will show you how companies are using mobile to attract customers and increase profits.

See what is in store here and come along. http://moneyinmobile2011.thebln.com/

Early Bird tickets available until 22nd May.

The latest monthly data from Millennial Media shows that Android handsets now account for over half of all advertising impressions across the Millenial Media advertising network. This represents 10% monthly growth in market share for advertising on the Android platform.

Another month, another change in global market share that in most industries throughout history would be seen as seismic even if it had taken a year. Has there ever been such a rapidly evolving industry?

Download the full report here.

You know mobile is going to ever more important to your business but can you see how it can make you money now? You should come to Money in Mobile, June 14th, if you want to see how companies are making money in mobile today.

We have some of the most influential doers in the mobile, ecommerce, software, games and media sectors together for an event that connects entrepreneurs, investors and corporate users of mobile technologies to share ideas about practical, profitable mobile strategies for their businesses. We will show you how companies are using mobile to attract customers and increase profits.

See what is in store here and come along. http://moneyinmobile2011.thebln.com/

Thanks Tony Quested. The team have been working really hard in putting this together and we are very, very pleased that so many great entrepreneurs and business people will be joining us on 5th July. It is always nice to have good feedback!

“It’s one of the hottest business shows in this or any other town – and the BLN Growth Forum 2011 in Cambridge on July 5 is set to become the most effective catalyst for growth ever staged locally.

“The speaker line-up for the day event at the Hauser Forum is a veritable Who’s Who? of entrepreneurial greats. Delegates can’t help but learn from sharing their experiences of life at the commercial coal face.

“They include Warren East, CEO of superchip designer ARM Holdings; Jonathan Milner – CEO of antibodies supplier Abcam; Nigel Payne – Non-Exec Director, Sportingbet plc; Mary Turner – CEO, AlertMe.com; Ariel Eckstein, managing director, LinkedIn EMEA; Mohini Bulbrook, who is head of International Development, Cheapflights Media and Neil Gaydon – CEO, Pace plc.” Business Weekly

The BLN Growth Forum combines talks, interactive discussion and great networking with the leaders of some of the UK’s most successful entrepreneurial businesses. It will share the insight and experience of the presenters in a number of key subjects:

• Making it big – targeting big markets and maintaining your lead
• Building successful sales teams – making profitable sales revenue a core business goal
• Putting people first – creating a culture to attract and retain the people you need
• Growth strategies – maximising value from startup to IPO and beyond

As well as discussing some of the burning issues facing the leaders of growth businesses, we will consider what happens when things go wrong – and how to get back on track. You will hear stories of success – and failure – and walk away with relevant, actionable opportunities to help strengthen your business.

Look out for some exclusive interviews with speakers on the topic of growing great business in Business Weekly over the next few weeks.

Supporters:

• The Growth Forum is produced by the BLN in partnership with BDO.
• The Growth Forum is supported by BDO, Mills and Reeve, Kleinwort Benson, Intel Capital
• Media Partner Business Weekly
• To discuss sponsorship opportunities, call Marcin Zaba, 07702 216 930.

For more information, the full agenda, all the stuff you need to know, and to reserve your place. http://growthforum2011.thebln.com/

Early Bird Booking Discounts available until 22nd May.

Great news that the Business Leaders Network will partner with Business Weekly at this year’s BLN Growth Forum to be held in Cambridge on July 5^th. This one day forum, now in its second year, brings the leaders of ambitious, high-growth innovation businesses from across the UK to share ideas and best practice as well as meet major investors who want to back growth.

Business Weekly has long been a champion of business and innovation across the East of England and has a long track record of supporting the growth and development of winning businesses in the region. There is no doubt that the East of England has spawned a lot of great ideas and some great businesses. The chance to hear from the success and failures of some of the best run entrepreneurial companies in the UK is a great opportunity for the region’s finest, most ambitious, entrepreneurs to up their game and learn from each other. This is an idea that Business Weekly supports as the long term future of the Technology Cluster is entirely dependent on the continuing growth and development of the businesses and management teams within it.

The BLN Growth Forum is one content packed day to think, talk & learn about growing and scaling your business. Speakers include:

• Jonathan Milner, Founder & CEO, Abcam
• Mary Turner, CEO, AlertMe
• Warren East, CEO, ARM
• Christopher Clark, Partner, BDO LLP
• Stuart Miller, CEO, ByBox
• Mo Bulbrook, Head of International, Cheapflights Media
• Tim Weller, CEO, Incisive Media
• Martin Leuw, NED, IRIS Software Group
• Mark Gerhard, CEO, Jagex Games Studio
• Ariel Eckstein, Managing Director EMEA, LinkedIn
• Peter Bauer, CEO, Mimecast
• Paul Kenny, Principal, Ocean Learning
• Neil Gaydon, CEO, PACE plc
• Nigel Payne, Director and Prev CEO, Sporting Bet plc
• Andy Leaver, VP EMEA, Workday

The BLN Growth Forum combines talks, interactive discussion and great networking with the leaders of some of the UK’s most successful entrepreneurial businesses. It will share the insight and experience of the presenters in a number of key subjects:

• Making it big – targeting big markets and maintaining your lead
• Building successful sales teams – making profitable sales revenue a core business goal
• Putting people first – creating a culture to attract and retain the people you need
• Growth strategies – maximising value from startup to IPO and beyond

As well as discussing some of the burning issues facing the leaders of growth businesses, we will consider what happens when things go wrong – and how to get back on track. You will hear stories of success – and failure – and walk away with relevant, actionable opportunities to help strengthen your business.

Look out for some exclusive interviews with speakers on the topic of growing great business in Business Weekly over the next few weeks.

Supporters:

• The Growth Forum is produced by the BLN in partnership with BDO.
• The Growth Forum is supported by BDO, Mills and Reeve, Kleinwort Benson, Intel Capital
• Media Partner Business Weekly
• To discuss sponsorship opportunities, call Marcin Zaba, 07702 216 930.

For more information, the full agenda, all the stuff you need to know, and to reserve your place. http://growthforum2011.thebln.com/ Early Bird Booking Discounts available until 22nd May.