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Manoj Ranaweera Posts

Still, Confused with Techcelerate?

This post originally appeared on Linkedin. Disclaimer: This post will not be kept up to date. Best to visit Techcelerate Member web page for full details. Is Techcelerate still a mystery to you? We are looking for few more tech startups to join us including female founders. We work with pre-revenue to £1m+ This is what Tech Founders and their startups get: Unlimited access to meAccess to Founder ClubAccess to Growth ClubAccess to Techcelerate Network Directory Access to WorkshopsPitch to Techcelerate CommunityPriority access to Open EventsDiscounts to third party Events Free Access to Weekly Investment News (worth £63.84)Free Access to Deal Lite (worth £119.16)Free…

My history with EIPP (e-invoicing)

My history with EIPP: In September 2004, I joined an EIPP Tech Startup called Morahan International from London as an investor employee, investing £50k and building the Utilities Sector.The company went into voluntary liquidation shortly. Three new companies emerged out of this. One was mine called ebdex. Focused initially on building the ebdex Data Exchange Hub for invoices. We managed to get the V1 out, but V2 killed V1 – bad outsourcing deal and I had to shut down the company (FinTech) by end of 2006. Started building Manchester’s tech ecosystem from this point onwards. I founded my second tech…

Lessons learned from NetHosted, AWS Lighsail and Linode WordPress hosting

For as long as I can remember, I always host my WordPress websites on NetHosted, a UK based web hosting company. I have a reseller account with them which I use for all my sites. However, I have been wanting to trial AWS Lightsail for a while. My two attempts caused a lot more grief than I bargained for. NetHosted To spin a new WordPress site at NetHosted is dead easy. It typically involves: Buy a URL. I switched recently from 123-reg (which struggled during the last few attempts to purchase) to GoDaddy. Login to NetHosted and then to WHM…

I’m 52

This is the extended version of my post on Linkedin today. I’m 52 today! So much to achieve over the next 48 years or until there is no more Manoj. Since the Covid 19 started, the lockdown continues to help me reach clarity and purpose. As I mentioned before, I will be working on reducing wastage in building tech companies. All the pieces are there except one and I know it will come. The core to all this is the trusted network and friendships I’ve built since 2004. There are a lot of special people in my closed network from Andrew…

250km Bikecation Covid-19 Challenge

The Challenge I was invited by Jon Bradford, the king of accelerators and VC to participate in a weeklong 250km cycling event starting from 25th May 2020. According to the organisers (organised by Jamie Paterson of Bikecation) “Old duffers, young whippersnappers, all cyclists welcome. Riding at least 250 km in a week on the bike, Zwift, Peleton, Wattbike to compensate for what should have been a weeks holiday away. One of our riders has said he’d do something charitable personally. So here we go = If we get 100 people to do 250 km each over 7 days, he’ll donate…

Reaching clarity of future direction

Originally posted on Linkedin. See the conversation there. I had an epiphany today. The next 48 years of my life, I want to dedicate myself in reducing wastage in building tech companies. I will be 52 this year. One of my grandfathers lived over 100 years. If he could, why can’t I? Anyway, 100 isn’t the point. I founded my first tech company in 2004, which was a total failure. Ever since then, I have either tinkered with tech companies or been helping them. There’s wastage in building products. There’s wastage in winning customers (sales). There’s wastage in building teams.…

The arrogance of the West – Covid 19 response

The West continues to bash China refusing to believe in the measures it took to control the spread of the Covid-19 Corona Virus outbreak. We can continue the blame game, or learn from each other to take this pandemic under control. You decide who you want to believe and what additional measures you should take without breaching your own governmental guidelines. However, China seems to have withheld Taiwan from joining WHO meetings to both share good practices as well as learn from others on Covid19 response. Whilst they closed down wet markets (where wild meat is sold next to live…

Gaining 10,000 views on Linkedin in 4 days

Once I managed to gain over 200,000 views over a 4 week period. Since then I have not achieved anything of such significance. The above simple post started to gain traction on the first day. So I spent a bit more effort to see whether I can drive it to reach 10,000 views. It took me 4 days, but gladly to see that it is not impossible to achieve such. Steps I took: Responded to comments.Spoke to others about it.When around 5,000 views, wrote an extensive post and linked back.Spoke to more.

I saw the moon last night

The world we live in – the irony of western democracy or human nature? Brexit happened and Remainers (I was one) are still not happy. What if Remainers accepted the vote and worked with Brexiteers for the good of the country and its people? Would we be in this mess? Donald Trump got elected. The opposition never accepted and ever since trying to destroy the government instead of working together for the goodness of the country and the world. We need strong and fair oppositions to keep those in power accountable. But not the way they are behaving today. Politics…