Skip to content

Tag: Techcelerate

My first exit (asset sale) – Northern Tech Awards

This post should have been written on 1st August 2013 when I sold Northern Tech Awards to GP Bullhound, a boutique investment bank, as I was emotionally fired up on that great scorching day in Manchester. Since 2004, I founded few businesses, some have gone horribly wrong and others have thrived. Northern Tech Awards was not a business, but a key asset that emerged from Techcelerate. It was setup as the highlight of the year, when I used to run over 20 events a year, and our strong community of 2,300 tech entrepreneurs, senior managers of tech companies, investors, deal makers…

Nightmare of segmenting Techcelerate, CapsuleCRM and Mailchimp Databases whilst keeping them cleaned and in sync

How do you segment multiple databases, keep them clean and in sync? If you know an easy way, please do let me know. Techcelerate maintains 3 vital databases among many for operational management. These being: 1. Techelerate.org (Drupal 5) with 1893 community profiles used predominantly for event registration 2. Mailchimp for weekly newsletter with 1844 profiles. 49 profiles seems to be missing. 3. Capsule for sales conversion and membership renewal management. Unfortunately, Capsule does not easily display total number of profiles held. Mailchimp automatically updates when a new profile is created on Techcelerate website, which makes life lot easier. Unfortunately,…

What are the four essential ingredients for a tech company?

Just came back from a 30 minutes jog and got my head cleared. I was thinking about what the four essential ingredients for a tech company is to succeed? In my view: 1. Viable idea 2. Talented team 3. Access to capital 4. Accessible market If so, how does Techcelerate help to achieve each of above? 1. Viable idea – Most entrepreneurs or wanna be entrepreneurs have ideas. Whilst we actively do not get involved at this stage, some of these ideas have been refined as part of engagement with the Techcelerate community. Of course, our events and workshops provide…

TekCoffee hosted by Techcelerate is a fr…

TekCoffee hosted by Techcelerate is a free drop in event for all those who love technology from tech entrepreneurs to social media junkies, and those who falls between. We expect a small group of people attending these events References: 1. Event registration page on Plancast 2. Idea behind TekCoffee

Why am I rebranding Northern StartUp 2.0?

Northern StartUp 2.0 has come a long way since our humble start in November 2006. Whilst I enjoy running it, it has strained my resources heavily. Unless something is done, it’s sustainability is questionable in the medium to long run. So here are my reasons for repositioning: 1. It must generate income to compensate effort. 2. Lacks the collaboration between new and established technology companies: – Customers of early technology products are technology companies – Opportunities in joint ventures – Opportunities in acquisitions 3. It does not provide a mechanism for southern and overseas tech companies to break into the…

Rebranding – Budget vs no budget, freedom vs. constraints

It is no surprise to my regular readers that Northern StartUp 2.0 is currently going through a rebranding and repositioning exercise. Whilst there is a lot to talk about why this is taking place, I thought of highlighting few discussions I had on Twitter about rebranding and repositioning with an international software house which has also gone through a rebranding exercise recently. Here is my situation: no budget but total freedom. Here is the situation of the software house: large budget (assumption) but constraints due to history and stakeholders. With my total freedom, and given I am lazy (or clever,…

Next Generation Broadband Access – Building the Case for Regional Investment

On 15th Jan, I attended an Insider Breakfast event held at Bridgewater Hall hosted by Michael Taylor and his team. Read Insider – Morning with who’s who of Manchester Corporate Sector for my coverage of the event. Following on from there, I am running an event on the Next Generation Broadband Access jointly with DC-KTN. Event details are below and I hope you will be able to join us on the 22nd Feb at eOffice Manchester. Please visit DC-KTN to register for this free event. This event gives you the opportunity to have your say on what the future of…

Northern StartUp 2.0 Website is Under Attack!

For the last five weeks, Northern StartUp 2.0 website has been under attack by spammers. The spamming was related to opening accounts, about 5 every hour, which has resulted in over 1000 new accounts. Less than 1% of these accounts have actually added any comments, but if they all did, the site will be overwhelmed by spammed comments. Here are some facts about the site: Drupal 5.3 Accounts are needed to comment Based on various suggestions via Twitter and from Ixis IT (previous website development team) and CTISN (current website development team), following changes were made: Captcha Recaptcha Mollow Akismet…

Insider – Morning with who’s who of Manchester Corporate Sector

As Michael Taylor, Editor of the North West Insider introduced me at the yesterday’s Insider Breakfast event, “where’s Manoj, a short chap, ah there he is”. Luckily, Sean Fensom, Chairman and Digital Veteren of Manchester Digital later came to my rescue as he is shorter than me. At this point, I felt a whole lot better, having cocked up my earlier question to the panel, which Dave Carter, Head of Manchester Digital Development Agency responded by saying that if we want help, talk to the VCs. Unfortunately, there are only two VCs in town (EV Group and YFM Private Equity). They…

First UK Microsoft Innovation Academy Workshop

The first ever UK Microsoft Innovation Academy Workshop took place on the 10th Dec 09 at Daresbury Innovation Centre. It was delivered by Jyoti Banerjee. I tweeted the full workshop, a two-day event squeezed into one-day, and my tweets are captured on the following report, which you can read on-line or download. Whilst I had reservations about the value of the workshop prior to participation, I was proven wrong during the afternoon session. As far as I was concerned, it was a day well spent getting a valuable insight into developing the right business model for edocr.com. Few quotes from…