safzath:

If you float it, they will come. That’s the lesson of Blueseed, a brave new utopia for startups that will be anchored in international… http://dlvr.it/1XNk5G

You know when someone develops an idea you think “Bastard! I would have loved that idea.” Well, this is one of them. Peter Theil (ex Paypal) has come up with a cracker in the seed investment space… I’m getting me trunks on as we speak.

safzath:

Ashton Kutcher is a well-known celebrity investor in Silicon Valley, but many see him as just a marketing ploy, an attention-grabbing name. However, Kutcher could be more than the dimples that move product off the shelves.

When Kutcher first came … http://goo.gl/vlvit

Being an entrepreneur is now cooler than being in Hollywood, it seems. It’s the highest eschelon today’s achievement-seeking humans yearn to be…

If you don’t know what YES is, and you’re a young entrepreneur who’s determined to succeed, then get yourself over to the site to find out. Founded by the charming go-getter in Carly Ward, it’s an entrepreneurial game-changer in the education-to-real world area. Working with youth groups, education centres, and individuals, YES (Young Entrepreneurs Society) provides skills, courses, mentoring and a wide network to all aspiring young entrepreneurs.

I was asked to be a mentor at the network by Carly, and I have to say, I humbly accepted. In essence, what I do with YES is no different to what I do in business with my business partners and wider team, as well as the countless of random engagements I have with entrepreneurs (of all ages) who believe I have a relevant story to tell for them. Mentoring is in my blood, and even if I am still earning my stripes and acquiring the years of experience and the oodles of wisdom that I myself seek, there’s still tons in the tank that is useful to one and all.

This year I’ve mentored probably 50+ people in a light capacity, but around 10 more on a more intimate and stake-held basis.

It’s what I do, and it’s what I love.

So here you go. I bring you the kick-ass mentors in the YES Network. Down at the bottom, there’s a mug of someone you just might know. Fill your boots.

Original Article

So there I was in Aarhus, Denmark. Touched down in the smallest of planes, and after the shortest of flights, you could forgive me for thinking I’d been short-changed on this travel expedition. For usual flight durations, I’m used to racking up double digit hours that leave me a little cranky with a stiff neck. Not this time. And the amazement continued when as I added the time it took me to leave the airplane, to walk through security and to get into my taxi outside, I would have been even too quick for a kettle to boil. 2 minutes of walking over the shortest of distances. It was like leaving the bedroom and walking out into the garden. Incredible. It really makes you wonder what other international airports are up to with all their layers of complications and lack of ease and simplicity. Nonetheless, I was here in Denmark and here is where this new chapter of international experiences, cultural insight and economic and commercial understanding began.

So, let’s paint a quick picture on Denmark.

Well it’s 2011. The Viking imperialism is now over. The Norse Gods are kicking about but you won’t see them up on masts on rather fierce longboats anymore. The country still owns Greenland. The Faroe Islands. Danish words still remain in the English language, especially in place names across the North. They have the oldest state flag in the world that is still in use today. They have the oldest monarchy in European history. In other words, Denmark has been about. It’s richly engrained in history, and now as I take you through a journey to its current state of affairs, we’ll see what it offers and boasts in the business world today.

Denmark today boasts a lean and mean population of 5.5 million people and covers a relatively small land mass (compared to other financial powers in Europe), but don’t be mistaken. As a nation, Denmark punches well above it weight in lots of ways in commerce, welfare and strength. The industries you’d most resonate with its leading entrepreneurial growth are in design, in architecture, in IT, in farming, in pharmaceuticals, and most notably, in green technology.

It was when I was in Aarhus – the second biggest city of Denmark (but still relatively small by most European cities comparison with around 300,000 inhabitants) – where I learned what Denmark was all about. Friendly, laid-back, and considered but high in integrity when it came to business. Education runs right through the country as 96% of young people go into secondary education and 47 % a tertiary one. Professionalism runs right through the nation and a humble and understated pride runs right through its people. Bank accounts smile daily with what is, essentially, a very affluent state.

In my time here, I met a teacher, a teaching assistant, a student, a health worker, a marketer and they were all significantly better off than the average equivalent in Britain would earn. An interesting piece of insight, I thought.

While I was here, I was introduced to one of the city’s entrepreneurs and local socialite – Philip Eskildsen. He owns a restaurant, a nightclub, and a distribution company. He believes Denmark is a safe and unique place to do business because its people are largely trustworthy, its corporations are fair, and selling to the big dogs and the small independents is always done justly. It’s how he was able to do well here. He believes nepotism, unlike many European nations, is unheard of. So I checked out what he said, and remarkably, there is some ironclad proof of this. Facts show that bribery and corruption is virtually unknown in Denmark, and it always tops the international transparency index. Add this to the “flexicurity” model that the country introduced (which is a high flexibility initiative in hiring and firing practices which allows companies to operate 24 hours a day, 365 days a year due with no restrictions) you can see why this land makes a great haven for overseas businesses to migrate to Danish soil. The fact four out of five Danes speak English too just makes this too good to be true for international businesses.

So my journey continued, and it wasn’t long before the dainty and peaceful Aarhus was respectfully left for a trip to the bustling and more populated Copenhagen – Denmark’s flagship capital city. A city that would consume most of the country’s other cities in a mouthful, and its near 2 million metropolitan population is around two fifths of the entire country’s people put together. The airport was a stark difference to that of Aarhus’ tiny delightful fragment of a landmark, but remarkable all the same. While there, I learned that Copenhagen airport has the extraordinary achievement of being the most efficient airport in Europe. It’s also the main hub in the Nordic and Baltic region with 57 operating airlines serving altogether 132 destinations and handling approximately 380,000 tons of airfreight each year. Not bad for a so-called minnow European airport. What’s uncanny, is as effective as Aarhus airport was with passenger footfall, Copenhagen airport has an equally admirable feat as it has the shortest goods transit times of all European airports. For me, there’s just something about this country, where everyone from its people, its smaller businesses, its bigger corporations, all the way to the country’s window to the world – its airport – they just love to raise the bar with efficiency and technology that really puts a mockery to those in the world that bathe in complicated, disorganised stagnant affairs and accept that to be the way it is.

Before my trip came to an end, I bumped into an inspiring woman in a coffee shop who revealed proud story after proud story of how Denmark is a leader in how it treats its people and its welcomed immigrants. She had an esteemed history as a business consultant and had travelled the world for decades, and she believed Denmark’s internal system of education, business, welfare, health and social behaviours was something to behold. I couldn’t disagree with what I’d experienced, it has to be said.

Knowing one third of the global wind market is controlled by Denmark and the first nation to exploit second generation biofuels on a commercial basis kind of has you thinking that this nation must be pretty special.

A personal learning favourite of mine has to be the fact that Denmark wins happiest nation of the world year on year. This country not only impresses in commerce but its people are a bunch of cheerful folk too. Something about that just really makes me smile (no pun intended).

Finally, if you speak to any Danish person, they’ll pride themselves on their humility, their desire to educate themselves, grow and do good, and to make a difference to the world around. It’s a society that has built up an admirable infrastructure and society, and the nation is proving that you no longer need an army or an empire to take a world lead. They are doing it by working smart, effectively, creatively and through leverage – with technology and efficiency – and showing us all how it can be done. This I believe is something we can all take heed from as we go down our own paths of entrepreneurship today. With a small team you can lead from the front with a smart, efficient and game-changing approach.

P.s. This article was first featured in Entrepreneur Country’s November Magazine with Austin Healey headlining the publication. I’m fortunate to have been asked to be a thought-leader for the organisation. If you haven’t heard of Julie Meyer’s (of Ariadne Capital) latest entrepreneur focused publication, then get involved. Michael Tinmouth is the exceptionally organised and charming editor. Their online magic lies here.

Original Article

There’s been a debate for a while on whether coffee shops should just make it easier for customers to come in and use internet without having store cards, and log-ins, and limited single hour sessions and a whole host of other hoops to jump.

Well, the simplistic and creative execution from a coffee chain in Holland adds a new dimension to the whole picture.

The Coffee Company make their WiFi completely free, and the reason is simple. They use their connection spot as an internal marketing and communication device. Each store periodically changes the name of their WiFi connection to suit relevant marketing offers of the day, or other amusing and blatant plugs. Things like “Mmm…. YummyMuffinsOnly1.99” or “HaveYouTriedTheCarrotCake?”

A great example of simple but effective guerrilla-type marketing.

Original Article

In July of this year, I headed out to India. Chennai in Tamil Nadu to be exact, in the deep, cultured and monsoon-lashed South. I was heading over to India for reasons not too dissimilar to Christopher Columbus, actually. Okay, admittedly, I wasn’t looking to find a quicker trade route from the Mediterranean and I certainly didn’t bring with me an army of men and a whole amount of scurvy. But I was exploring. I was exploring new lands, new people and new opportunities. Entrepreneurs, life inquisitors and culture vultures do that, for no other reason than to see what’s under each stone. And little did I know what splendour and amazement I would find.

48 hours after my arrival in Chennai, I was sat in a coffee shop looking at my forthcoming agenda for the weeks ahead and watching the enchanting and organised chaos on the roads outside . Millions of people wanting to get to a million places. The sounds and the colours were hypnotic and entrancing. Commuting in Chennai was not for the faint hearted, and not dissimilar to Mexico City for its vigour and frenzy. Here however the people behind each automobile were a lot more passive. Zero aggression in sight. Instead, just a whole lot of charming bustle.

From automobiles to automobile plants. I learned that it’s for this very reason that Chennai has been gifted the name: “The Detroit of India”. Hoards of car manufacturers either chose Chennai as their first India base to tap into the ever-increasing boom in the country or they relocated their existing plant from the North. Whichever, it’s this that allegedly started the term and it’s this that I learned passed from entrepreneur to entrepreneur, yet often changing its meaning, but always used as a beacon of light to shine on this great city. Chennai: The Detroit of India. Yes, alright – I reckon it sounds pretty neat too.

I met with a number of incredibly interesting and engaging entrepreneurs during my stay here. Those that defied the ordinary, convention and those that were doing things differently, each of them I had great pleasure in getting to know.

My first meeting took me to Christie Fernandez’s creative agency – Pixelkraft (www.pixelkraft.in). Christie – who proudly boasts a heritage line of Portuguese descent – runs an incredibly capable design and marketing agency in the heart of Chennai with his co-founder, Siddharth, which in all my years of outsourcing to India, never have I found an agency quite on the same level as this. On a par to many of London and New York’s design agencies, Christie shared with me his secret. “First and foremost, you’ve got to have patience and investment into your team. Without this, you have no supply to offer. Furthermore, we use the West as our benchmark. If we were to use the majority of other Indian competitors as our level of attainment, then we’d unfortunately sink into the abyss. By reinventing the world’s ideas with our own stamp – fuelled from those doing it well – means we can always offer a unique edge to our clients here.”

For the first time in my own personal experience, I’d found a creative agency in India that didn’t want to just be a nuts and bolts back-end technical development centre, they were executing for high standard clients throughout the world and creating their own IP too – a number of social networks to boot. Here lied a company that was as equally talented with its ideas as it was with its front end execution. A harmony, that years before would seldom be seen outside of the West.

Another connection made – this time with Abid Hussain – gave me a greater insight into the entrepreneurial culture for those that dared to be different in this city. Abid, along with his co-founder – Mohammed Azharuddin - recently secured funding for their revolutionary concept in surface computing. Think iPad. Think bigger. Think retail and public environments. Think something game-changing. I bring you emo2 (emo2.com). It appears they’ve tapped into the boom in tablet technology and with their investment coming from a number of sources, their off-shore development based in the formidable tech development land of Korea, and their brains firmly staying on Indian shores for now, they’ve a formula certain for success it appears. Abid told me though, that it isn’t always this easy. “In India, the VC’s just don’t get start-ups. They like proven businesses, track records, guaranteed returns. VC’s were designed to take a risk, and in India, the conservatism in investing is still there. Sadly, I’d even say Europe is similar in that regard to risk. The USA still strikes me as the place where they invest with passion on punts because they realise that great products come out of great ideas. Risking is just part of the process for them.”

So, along with Ramki – an Indian entrepreneur who sold out from a tech venture a few years ago and whom is now putting his energies into food with his world radical One Page Cookbooks (www.ramkicooks.blogspot.com) – and Vijay who heads up Chennai’s recently launched Start-Up centre which provides incubation, mentoring and finance for India’s promising entrepreneurs (www.thestartupcentre.com) – Chennai provided me with a mix of extraordinary people doing some pretty extraordinary things.

The economic insights that India is an agricultural, manufacturing and service industry haven may all be correct but it’s not this that grabbed my attention. There are real thinking, walking, talking entrepreneurs who believe in another way and who defy the conservative convention and the unfortunate limitations that have epitomised this country for years. There are risk-takers developing powerful ideas, starting their own teams and leading their own revolutions. They are playing big like the rest of the world, and I have to applaud that.

Lastly, the more I travel and the more cultures I integrate with, the more I see right in front of my eyes that technology and the internet has flattened the playing fields and evened out the teams playing. Consequently, slowly but surely, powers from unheralded corners of the world are rising. Thomas L. Friedman’s wrote that the world is flat, and here was a startling example of that for me.

For whatever interpretation you choose, I leave you with Chennai: the Detroit of India.

P.s. This article was first featured in Entrepreneur Country’s September Magazine with James Caan headlining the publication. I’m fortunate to have been asked to be thought-leader for the organisation. If you haven’t heard of Julie Meyer’s (of Ariadne Capital) latest entrepreneur focused publication, then get involved. Their online magic lies here.

Original Article

Having recently recommended to someone that they should watch this video by Sir Ken Robinson at a TED conference, I decided to watch it again. It’s titled “Schools kill Creativity”. I got to say, to me, it’s the most inspirational educational speech of all time. It’s short, it’s witty but it’s incredibly poignant, insightful, relevant and thoroughly inspirational.

I’ll let Ken’s mastery do the talking (and it really is mastery), but I really want to add some mind-nibbling thoughts to some of the views Ken makes.

Ken says:

“All kids have talents, and we squander them pretty ruthlessly” – I think how we nurture people in organisations is the same, frankly. Most corporates throw a uniform around their team and expect them to live within a limited, controlled (and comfortable) space. Whereas on the contrary, I believe the best direction to head in life is uncomfortably, unlimited and uncontrolled. Brilliance comes from being open and allowing intuition, human-nature and common (or even radical) sense to take place. You don’t achieve that by putting handcuffs on what is a brilliant team (whether currently or potentially).

“Kids will take a chance on being wrong. We don’t. We run our businesses this way too.” – I believe the stigma attached to being wrong is one of the worst conditions to hit the business world. It’s created a body-swerving blame culture. A culture that stays within a comfort zone because outside of that is risky and precarious. Where heads are on the line. A place where internal politics and saving face is more important than actually getting along and doing a job well. We are brought into this world open, free and untarnished. Many leave this world burned and affected. We have to protect as much of that initial uninhibited talent, intuitive decision-making and natural and enhanced talent as we can as that is the way only way we can ever get close to our potential. Sure, we’ll bomb a few times too, but this has to be better than staying on an undesirable road of lukewarm attainment.

“All children are born artists. Remaining artists is the difficult part. We don’t grow into creativity. We grow out of it, or rather, we are educated out of it” – I couldn’t agree more. Adopt a child’s play culture if you have to. Be committed in thinking creatively. Following instinct. Conjuring up originality and let it turn into something brilliant (or occasionally not - but let’s not sweat about it). Watching our educational systems, listening to society, experiencing corporate environments will be the arsenic in your blood you do not need. Inhale all what is new, original and fresh to you. At least if you start there you may find the artist in you.

I could go on. Instead, I’ll let Sir Ken, himself.

You may watch here and I really hope the power hits you as it did me. If so, then go and lead change.

Original Article

If you find yourself walking through a field of corn
With the sun on your back,
Do not fear, for they say you are already dead.
Illusions and deceptions are boundless here,
As dreams only exist in your head.

If you look out one day and see the world as innocent
As the day you were born,
Do not forsake, for we know it’s not real.
The world has rotated and changed hands since then,
The bad can never heal.

If you realise that the change you want to see in the world
Is not in the reflection looking back,
Do not weep, for every man is the same.
The shadows and footsteps around us
Are all seeking to conquer and gain.

If you feel the warmth of goodness rest upon your shoulders
And it makes you feel alive.
Do not hope, as it won’t last long.
The tracks of pain will soon find grip
And the happiness will be gone.

Original Article