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Webmission08 – Day 1: On flight to San Francisco

This is written on flight but posted after landing as there isn’t a mechanism to post this any other way, eventhough my shiny new mac is picking up a "Free WiFi Signal". According to the list of attendees, I am accompanied by 19 exceptional individuals (so called entrepreneurs) and 27 supporters which include organisers to  media including Tom Watson, representing the UK Government. Some of them are already in the US (Stewart from Sun Microsystems, Jack Fairhall from Kwiqq, etc).

So here I am sitting next to two journalists, Ashley Noris, Founder of Shinymedia and Edie Lush of The Spectator magazine. We had a lot to speak as you do in long haul flights. Ashley is an entrepreneur who has raised venture capital funding for Shinymedia, and its a great pleasure to travel with a media startup. Whilst I cannot check his credentials and portfolio at present, I understand he has a similar product to gadgetspy run by Chris Haslam, who came on board to set-up edocr.

It was also good to catch up with Kristofer Mansson this morning, Founder of Silobreaker, whom I met at a large exhibition last year in London. We spoke about working together then and continued our discussion again today. Whilst we all have our own agendas, this mission also allows us to find ways of working with each other. And with that thought, I presented a challenge to Ashley: Write an article of how each company could work with each of the other 19 companies. Whilst we are of different sizes (some are post-funded whilst others are just thinking about it), collectively we can be larger than any one company. I am a great believer that we need to work at local level whilst nurturing global ambitions. Whilst I am at the start of the journey, I am almost thinking about the end, not just next Saturday, but in a years time and beyond. If statistics are to be believed, not all 20 companies may be live in 12 to 24 months time. But it would be great to look at the progress of the 20 companies in 12 months time, don’t you agree?

Here is the second challenge. Somebody need to take a profile of each of these 20 companies and then compare the progress each company has made in 12 months time. Who would rise to this challenge? Whilst all our profiles are on CrunchBase, a snap shot need to be taken. Would webmission08 be forgotten in 12 months time? Will there be a webmission09 next year? If so, who would represent the North next year? How would I like to see edocr in 12 months time? This is certainly a key date in edocr’s short life.

Ok. here are some targets for me to achieve by April 2009:

  • Funded
  • Full time team in place –
  • edocr Version 3 launched (formally) – edocr has five stages: alpha, beta, launch, growth and dominate- funding will decide how quickly we can move from one stage to another.
  • Revenues of GBP 75,000 (I know this is low – but remember we are web 2.0 – yes, I like to hit exponential curve in late 2009 as we enter launch and growth stages)
  • Presence in Silicon Valley
  • Brand equity – a well understood proposition. instant recognition.
  • Traffic – not so worried – more interested in number of companies on board as customers (would edocr be hosting most of public-facing documents from HSBC? – at least lot more than we have today!)

If you are in San Francisco, I will be staying at the Clift Hotel till 25th morning. Do contact me if you are interested in:

  • Building relationships with Northern UK technology startups (eveo Ltd)
  • Want to know more about edocr (edocr Ltd)
  • Want to know more about e-invoicing/EIPP/Supply Chain Finance in UK and Europe (evigon Ltd)
  • Want to run an event in the North of England (eveo Ltd)
  • Thinking about entering the UK market (evigon Ltd)

Just for clarity:

  • edocr – YouTube/iTunes/Amazon/Google Search/Speed Dating for business pdfs
  • eveo – one stop shop for event management (no website, but first brand is Northern StartUp 2.0)
  • evigon – management consultancy and advisory services (no website yet – check this blog for competency and also my LinkedIn profile)

Lastly, this journey would have not been possible if it was not for:

  • Sun Microsystems – the startups true friend (contact: Stewart Townsend)
  • Daresbury Science and Innovation Campus- the only place for technology startups in the North (contact: Paul Treloar).

That will do for now! Catch you with the next post soon.

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