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Effort Management and focus

This is almost a note to myself. Taking stock of what I am up to or not up to. I have three companies:

  • edocr – well you know about this one! If not, shame on you! Are all your public facing documents available on edocr? If not, please act now…
  • eveo – event management. Currently manages Northern StartUp 2.0 events, Digital Futures with Simon Grice in Manchester and potential e-invoicing seminar is July 08
  • evigon – no transactions to date. My personal management consultancy firm for servicing opportunities as they arise

The future certainly is with edocr, which has a startup team comprising of Rhys Jones (Accountis, Sanoodi, etc), Mike Carter (Ixis IT), Chris Haslam (Ixis IT and footy247.co.uk) and Stuart Scott-Goldstone (Aaron and Partners) with PR support from Susan Tonge (SmithandSmithPR). This means responsibility and meeting expectations. On the other hand eveo and evigon are solely owned by me with no others involved except on project or event basis.

The Northern StartUp 2.0 complements what I am doing with edocr by providing a lever to leverage. This has already produced decent returns. Therefore, irrespective of what MikeB and others think, it will continue for the time being. It could also be a profitable enterprise.

On the other hand, evigon has been a disaster as I have not allowed any time. The original thinking was to provide e-invoicing (EIPP), supply chain finance and business advice services through edocr. And part of this was to monetise my blog. I almost made up my mind to stop talking about EIPP. Unfortunately (or fortunately), I just received two enquiries, one party is thinking about building an EIPP product, another is interested in leveraging my blog for publicity. In the past, I had many discussions with similar companies including Top 3 US based global bank, Top 3 spend management company, European EIPP providers, etc. In most cases, after many discussions, the projects did not proceed due to lack of available budgets or internal bureaucracy. So, the first thing I must establish now is:

  • Is there a budget?
  • Am I talking to the decision maker?

If not, however tempting the enquiry is, it’s a conversation that is not worth having. What do you think?

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