EIPP (e-invoicing) and StartUp World

Are you a highly ambitious, exceptional and entrepreneurial Chief Technology Officer? If so, we want you to lead the on-going development of document exchange solutions for our clients. Your background must be in software development and solutions architecture, and you must have demonstrable experience of leading software development teams, meeting stringent quality, time and budgetary requirements. Experience of managing offshore software development teams is highly desirable.

You must be passionate about the solutions your team develops and must have exceptionally good skills in project management, quality assurance and control, and technical sales. Previous exposure to document exchange (not document management) solutions is highly desirable. You must be a commercial and technical innovator, always looking for that competitive edge.

You will be a key member of the Executive Team, reporting direct to Chief Executive Officer. Your high performance will ensure the opportunity to join the Board of Directors within 6 to 12 months.

ebdex is an organisation with significant potential. You will be given an opportunity to make a significant contribution towards realising that potential. There will be no boundaries to what you are able to achieve.  The Founder and CEO is a hardworking and fun loving character who is building a team of like minded high calibre professionals to take the company to the next stage.  ebdex now wants a passionate and inspirational leader who demands to join us on the exciting journey ahead. This is not an opportunity for the typical employee. Key reason for joining should be taking advantage of the opportunity to make a substantial return at exit within 3 to 5 years (trade or IPO). In this journey, you will be remunerated accordingly for your effort and performance.

Interested parties should email a current version of the CV in the first instance with a cover letter identifying why you think you are uniquely qualified for this role and what positive impact do you think you can make to the company. Please quote ref: 2006/CTO.  Contacts details are available through http://www.ebdex.co.uk/contactus.html

Technorati Tags: ebdex, CTO, Chief Technology Officer, Solutions Architect

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Imran Ali has volunteered to organise the next NW StartUp 2.0 event in Leeds on 1st Feb 2007. Do let me know if you would like me to organise another event (2nd Manchester event) in mid January in Manchester. I am also looking for a volunteer to organise similar events in Liverpool.

Tags: NW StartUp 2.0

Popularity: 10% [?]

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Frank Bennett of Impaq raised the following point today on AccountingWeb in response to one of John Stokdyk’s articles published sometime ago.

EIPP who’s gonna pay?
There is an abundance of vendors offering solutions for EIPP. So what? It is gonna boil down to: Who pays and how much? Put yourself in the role of a supplier serving 500 customers. 400 of your customers use post and fax. 85 of them use email. 15 of them have implemented electronic XML document exchange. The supplier has fully absorbed the cost of post, fax and email, it is taken for granted as a cost to doing business. Whoever asked if they could put a stamp on an envelope or send a fax? In those situations where a customers sends XML orders and expects the supplier to reply with XML invoices then these costs are highly visible to a supplier and can be allocated to each customer. I have seen this force suppliers to look at the associated costs and the impact on their gross margins achieved with a customer. Some have said NO thanks based on this analysis.Among those 15 customers some will expect the supplier to meet their own costs to serve up the XML documents they need (crave) and others will subsidise this so there is NO COST to the supplier.Supplier must be confused? Why do some customers insist I pay while others insist they pay? This is the big debate that needs to be resolved before EIPP takes off.

I do not believe the issue here is about who is going to pay. It is really about how we bring relief to customer pain. In this process how do we add value to both parties, the supplier and the purchaser. If we can resolve their pain, then they would be happy to pay an acceptable fee for the services rendered. And this is the starting point for ebdex.

Frank has an interesting blog that I have not spend enough time on. This needs to be corrected.

Some point in near future, ebdex Document Exchange needs to be inter-linked with Impaq/Elcom supplier portal/network. My view is that within 5 years, all these networks/exchanges will be linked, resulting in significant upside for users of such solutions, whether they operate as suppliers or purchasers.

Technorati Tags : ebdex, AccountingWeb, John Stokdyk, Impaq, Elcom

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One of the crazy moments of last night was talking to Rhys Jones, CEO of Accountis, one of our key competitors, about partnering. Traditionally, you would keep your competitors at arms length. But is it time to change the tradition? How can any trust be developed between competitors? Is it time for a paradigm shift in thinking? And what is this got to do with web 2.0?

There are number of ways we can bring benefit to each other without loosing each others competitive advantage. Its time to explore these! Simon Woodroff (Yo!) got his break when he borrowed money from his suppliers to pay for their services, e.g. extended credit. What is stopping ebdex’s competitors help ebdex get its business off the ground? And what’s in it for the competitors?

Technorati Tags: accountis, ebdex

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We had a very successful gig last night, thanks to Sam Sethi (TechCrunch), Ivan Pope (Snipperoo), David Terrar (D Squared C) and those who attended the event. The feedback I received has been excellent, with some suggestions for improvement. Others want to know about the next event and the event after. I encourage you to submit your suggestions here. Special thanks for KPMG for sponsoring catering, IoD for the venue (thank you very much Lisa and your team for looking after all of us - apologies for the overstay), Haliwells for badges (unfortunately, I lost the lot in the pub afterwards) and Ivan for the T-Shirts.

My own thoughts are (taking comments from Sam) for the future:

1. hold a monthly event at a pub/bar. Format: Keynote speech + pitching opportunity for one company + Panel + Networking.

2. Every 3rd event is held at a corporate venue, e.g. IoD, KPMG, etc. Format: Same as above, with a better known keynote speaker with theme, e.g. enterprise 2.0 or podcasting

3. Every six months, hold a special event for pitching to investors 

There would be a small charge of about £15 towards expenses. Please let me know your views. The same format can be applied to other regions, if anyone is interested. Links to feedback:

+ David Terrar:

Time permitting, I will introduce most of the companies who attended. David has introduced some of them already.

The new official web site is at etribes, courtesy of Simon Grice. There is no intention to use upcoming.org in future due to its limitations.

Tags: NW Start Up 2.0, etribes

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I hooked up with Simon Grice, Founder of etribes yesterday (piggy-backing on an e-mail I received from Chris Leigh of Real Time Race). Within 24 hours, we have a dedicated web presence for the StartUp 2.0 events. A true collaborative effort. etribes also have a payment gateway, which will no doubt be handy for organising future events. Unfortunately, upcoming.org has serious limitations (e.g. it does not record sufficient details of users - no company name or designation - a nightmare when organising name tags/badges).

Tags: NW Start Up 2.0, etribes, upcoming.org

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I have just been sorting out the name tags for the event (shame on those who have not given me their names, company names and designations!). Here is a list of entrepreneurs who have brought or in the process of bringing products and solutions to the market (please note web developers, outsourcing experts, etc have been ignored):

1. Anish Kapoor and Philip Hemsted  - CEO and Director (respectively) of Yuuguu - Solutions for teleworker - in private beta (first round funding by Rising Stars)
2. Ivan Pope - CEO of Snipperoo - Widgets (seeking equity finance)
3. Manoj Ranaweera - CEO of ebdex - Document Exchange with first application being EIPP (yes that’s me) (seeking equity finance + strengthening management team)
4. Rhys Jones - CEO of Accountis - EIPP (Accountis is well established and funded) - I believe Rhys is working on some new ideas.
5. Robert Wakeling - CEO of Wadaro - Mobile Networking Software (seeking equity finance)
6. Sam Sethi - CEO of Vecosys (in addition running the UK TechCrunch franchise) - Sam is working on few ideas which have not yet been publicised.

This is not a bad start. So far 35 have confirmed attendance. The programme for the event is:

• 18:15 - Doors open
• 18:30 - Networking
• 19:00 - Keynote speech by Sam Sethi
• 19:15 - Panel and Q&A Session
• 20:00 - Networking
• 20:30 - Move to pub

Due to a family tragedy, Imran Ali is not able to attend the event. Sam, thanks for stepping into fill the gap.

Tags: NW Start Up 2.0

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These days I speak to many Indian businessmen and I am connected to many Indian networks. Asians constitutes 2% of the British population but generates 10% its GDP. So knowing Indian community is vital to doing business in UK and globally. I even received a certificate recently from Indo British Partnership signed by Lord Karan Bilimoria. One of my mentor’s is Indian. And my new friend, Billa Bhandari of Akoura Biometrics is also an Indian (but I am sure he wish he is Sri Lankan - they all do!!).

Where are the Sri Lankans? How come we are so far behind when compared with Indian and Pakistani community. Aren’t there any Sri Lankan entrepreneurs worth talking about? Are we too lazy?

Ok, sorry for going on a tangent, what I want to show is how clever Billa is. What is the difference between this picture and the text underlining it?

Billa Bhandari (Founder, CEO) has fifteen years experience building business oriented, secure, scaleable and mission-critical trading systems in the banking industry, including Chase, Credit Lyonnais, Putnam Investment and State Street Bank. Before Akoura, Billa founded Parallax Corporation to provide technology-consulting services to clients including GTE, Sun and HP. Billa’s background in Finance and Technology exploited the need for user oriented yet highly secure information solutions. Billa has strong recognition in the International Biometrics community and serves on the Technology Board of ID World (www.idworldonline.com), and Advisory Board of My Data Vault (www.mydatavault.net) and www.swwan.org.  In addition Billa sits on the Board of www.medserventures.com, www.medhelpindia.com, and www.locuz.com.  Billa has appeared on many industry panels focused on deployment of Biometrics in the Enterprise and brings vision and business development skills to Akoura.

The answer is…when you decode the picture with Billa’s software you get the text message. Wow!!. How can ebdex capitalise from this?

Technorati Tags: Billa Bhandari, Akoura Biometrics

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Quick update on the progress….

1. The event (basically catering) will be sponsored by KPMG Manchester Practise. Thanks Siddiq for your support.
2. Venue has been sponsored by IoD. Many thanks Laura.
3. Imran Ali, Strategy Director of Orange will be the keynote speaker.
4. Podcasting will be provided/managed by Stuart Bruce in true web 2.0 style.
5. Chairperson/moderator will be Sam Sethi of TechCrunch UK (previously Marketing Director of Netscape and Strategy Director for Microsoft/MSN EMEA)
6. Panel will include:
   • Ivan Pope of Snipperoo - on widgets, dot.com experience, web 2.0, funding, etc
   • David Terrar of Twinfield and D Squared C - SaaS (Software as a Service, Enterprise 2.0 and Enterprise Irregulars)
   • Manoj Ranaweera of ebdex on venturing into the unknown (yes, starting up experience - think twice before giving up your day job) plus SaaS and power of blogging, etc etc.

Just to illustrate the power of blogging, I met all of the above people through blogging except Laura and Siddiq. I am yet to meet face-to-face with Ivan, Stuart and Imran - yet we are collaborating. I had the pleasure to meet Sam at his local pub and David at IoD London.

I expect the attendance of Philip Hemsted and Anish Kapoor of Yuuguu, who just raised first round of funding from Rising Stars. Ed French who funded them will also be there. Make sure you speak to them, if you are after VC funding.

Tags: NW Start Up 2.0

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Congratulations to North West’s entrepreneurs Anish Kapoor and Philip Hemsted for securing funding from Rising Stars Growth Fund in Oct 06. I am one of the first users of Yuuguu and happy to recommend the service to anyone. Whilst the functionality is limited, they have a clear product road map and with an Ace Team, they will no doubt prosper.

Here is the press release……

RisingStars Growth Fund II, the early stage technology fund managed by Enterprise Ventures, is delighted to announce that it has made its second investment from RisingStars Growth Fund II in software company, Yuuguu Limited. Yuuguu Limited, a start-up company based in Manchester, has recevied a first stage investment from the Fund to help it bring a new set of instant collaboration tools for distributed team working to market. This first stage investment will form part of a total funding package of £600,000, which will support the company at various stages of its development, culminating in the launch of its product.

Edward French, Investment Director at EV, said, "Whilst there are web-based collaboration tools in the market today, we believe the Yuuguu team have spotted a way to make it more convenient and simplt that will appeal to many organisations, large or small. The company has a talented and committed team who have experience of growing technology companies".

David Scowsill, former CEO of Opodo and now Chairman of Yuuguu, commented, "Many organisations face difficulties in enabling teams to collaborate instnatly across dispersed geographies. The Yuuguu service, which is currently in private "beta" trials, has real potential to make virtual team working as easy as being in the same location".

Anish Kapoor, Chief Executive of Yuuguu, said, "The RisingStars Growth Fund investment team at EV has been working with us for the past year as we developed our plans. It makes a real difference having an investor who understands the market, our business and shares a vision of where it can go."

RisingStars Growth Fund II, the follow-on Fund to Enterprise Ventures’ successful RisingStars Growth Fund, achieved its first closing in April 2006, raising funds from institutional and private sector clients. RisingStars Growth Fund II will invest in early stage and proof of concept technology opportunities located throughout the North of England.

RisingStars Growth Fund II was advised by Stuart Scott-Goldstone of Laytons of Manchester, whilst the company was advised by James Sheridan of Halliwells in Manchester.

By the way, Stuart is also the legal adviser for ebdex since the company was formed.

Technorati Tags: Enterprise Ventures, Yuuguu, Rising Stars Growth Fund, Anish Kapoor, Philip Hemsted

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FounderContact.com promises to be a friend for entrepreneurs looking for funding for getting their idea off the ground or those who seeks additional funding for growth.  It was co-founded by Andre Maljaars, who is also the CEO, with the vision of creating the world’s premium online marketplace for entrepreneurs and investors.

Andre claims to have 3000+ contacts in their database. I could only access lot less than this. I could not find more than one or two who resembled a VC. Perhaps this is due to I being registered as a FC Guest. Quick look at my Outlook shows that I have 1469 contacts (few entrepreneurs in there!). So, 3000 is not a big number, but a good start. Since registering, I have also managed to introduce number of my friends to the web portal, e.g. Sam Sethi from TechCrunch, Ivan Pope from Snipperoo, Robert Wakeling from Wadaro, David Terrar from D Squared C, etc.

UK specific web portal has not yet been activated, but the Indian portal is run by Vivek Kalyan of Symphisis, whom I met on Skype today. Most notable experience is meeting Billa Bhandari of Akoura Biometrics, and the subsequent dialogue on Skype through the last couple of days. We spoke critically of what is needed to be done to improve the service as well as make it the preferred portal for entrepreneurs. The discussions will continue…In case you did not know, I am a keen networker…just ask Paul Treloar..

So, how did this all came about…According to FounderContact, the story is…

Andre Maljaars from Leaderboard and Coen Meischke from JCM Pension met early 2004 and were convinced that networking for SME entrepreneurs could be organised more effectively. Their vision was to build an online business club for entrepreneurs where ‘no salesman will call’. Like every businessman they visited numerous network meetings and were disappointed with the results. 

As a result they founded in May 2004 DGAcontact that is a Dutch databank where entrepreneurs write their own profile. Members can search throughout the protected database and communicate directly with entrepreneurs with 2 clicks of a mouse. The membership offers a mix of online and ‘traditional networking’ where also interesting events are organised   where you can meet fellow-entrepreneurs. On the website you can check who is who and who is coming to these events, which increases the effectiveness of networking.

At summer 2005 they decided to partner with Stephen Howard and Bas Welles from BDIS Ltd. at London and founded Foundercontact Ltd. that is the international networking initiative for entrepreneurs worldwide. At october 2006 foundercontact India ltd. has been founded.

Does this means it is too late for AngelPitch? Perhaps not. But it certainly increases the awareness, which can only be considered positive?

I also managed to convince Andre to post the NW Start Up 2.0 event. I wish Andre and the team well and will continue to speak to Billa. Who knows what this might leads to…

Technorati Tags: NW Start Up 2.0, FounderContact, Billa Bhandari, Andre Maljaars, AngelPitch

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This was an article which I published earlier and then removed due to protest from my LinkedIn buddy…I have now removed the name of the Talk Talk Executive, so as not to jeopardise my LinkedIn buddy’s relationship with Talk Talk Executive………………………………………………….

I switched our home phone line from BT in an attempt to consolidate our telephone and Internet bills in May 05. Well that was the general idea, and reality and experience were quite the opposite. The phone line was transferred as promised without much delay. However, nothing happened to the broadband connection, which was supposed to provide down load speeds up to 8 Mbps.

On 10th October, the telephone line was taken over by Talk Talk as part of the local loop unbundling process. This should have been transparent, i.e. no impact on user other than improved quality of service….Did I say quality? The reality was complete loss of service…

Now unless you try to call, you probably will not be aware that your telephone line is dead. We noticed this during the weekend. So, I tried to contact Talk Talk. I could not get through. Correction. The system at Talk Talk end picks up the call and put you on a queue at which point you start paying. Its a 0870 number which means 10 p plus VAT. From a mobile, this is obviously much more expensive. It took me well over a week to report the failure.

Response was "engineers will look into it…and in the meantime we will transfer your calls to your mobile sir…and will update progress through text messages" Nothing happened other than receiving the same text message day after day.

Whilst exploring contacts in LinkedIn, I came across an Executive of Talk Talk, whose name is shown on the diagram. So, my network buddy, forwarded my request to the Executive. Guess what, I received a phone call from Talk Talk confirming everything will be taken care of to resolve the matter on priority basis. That was last week. We still do not have phones back in service. So, this sounds like a real cock-up by Talk Talk. I wonder how many other consumers and businesses have been affected this way? And what is the compensation policy of Talk Talk. I bet they do not have one… unlike BT. A point to be raised with the Regulator no doubt. The lady who called me kindly volunteered to remove the charge for this months calls..hang on there has not been many calls as phone line was dead..But I just received my bank statement which clearly showed a payment to Talk Talk. Perhaps no one knows what they are talking about…..I will pick on this later with them.

Now in the midst of all this, I notified them that I did not receive the modem for broadband. Now I do have a modem, but no active line to connect it. Luckily I stayed with NTL broadband and otherwise I would not be able to post this article.

If it was BT, I would have got through to them first time and they would have sent an engineer very quickly to resolve the problem (past experience).

So in my humble opinion, Talk Talk really sucks..and our telephone bills have gone up instead of going down as Talk Talk promised..Will do an analysis if I get a minute… 

This Executive also reminds me of my father. He used to be the General Manager (equivalent to CEO) of CEB (equivalent to UK Electricity Board before privatisation). He used to get calls from all sorts of people, mainly high ranking politicians every time the power lines tripped (which was quite often those days). As a public sector company, he had to respond to those calls. Which meant perhaps tripping a none politicians line so that politician can have power..

Well I am no politician and this is not Sri Lanka. It is unbelievable to accept that one can be without a telephone line for three weeks without a clearer explanation. If this Executive cannot fix it, do I need to contact his boss, Charles Dunstone? Does anyone know him? Unfortunately, I signed a 18 months contract. Perhaps its time I grabbed the attention of the regulator…

Tags: Talk Talk, BT, Talk Talk Sucks

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Following was taken from upcoming.org

Having asked others to introduce, I realised I have not really introduced me. So here goes..

I run ebdex, which was set-up 2 years ago to streamline the way businesses exchange structured documents with their suppliers and customers. It’s a hosted and managed service and can simply be explained as a hub and spoke solution, hub being the transaction hub. It is developed for end-to-end transactions with a web interface.

Our solution, ebdex Document Exchange has been available for commercial use since September 06. We are in the process of securing debt finance to take the company forward. Our current challenges are:

1. Build the team - we need to fill positions in Sales, Operations and Product Development. All three Director designates (for right individuals). We are also looking for a Non Executive Chairman and a Non Executive Director.
2. Sign up medium to large customers - we have some small customers, but need a sizeable organisation to kick start "snow ball/tsunami" effect
3. Funding - we need further funding within the next 12 to 18 months to meet the strategic business plan. This time, hopefully we would have ticked off all the boxes, so that we should be an attractive proposition to VCs.

What am I hope to get out from this event?

1. Change the environment in some way, so that start ups have a venue to network with other start ups as well as with the investment community.
2. I am hoping I will find individuals who can help me fill the current vacancies.
3. As always, looking for introductions to potential customers, or meeting them
4. Make the investment community aware that ebdex is very much alive and we have achieved some of the aims without their funds (yes with great sacrifice and difficulty), but we need their funds within the next 6 to 18 months depending on our sales efforts.

What I am offering:

1. I am looking for the second idea - this time, it has to be a team effort with external funds behind it.
2. I am also looking for consultancy opportunities

I look forward to meeting you all on the 23rd.

Technorati Tags: NW Start Up 2.0, ebdex

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Sam Sethi of TechCrunch UK just reported the above event I have been blogging about for number of weeks now. Sam has kindly arranged for Imran Ali, the deputy to the Director of Orange’s Technology Research team (based out of Leeds) as the keynote speaker. There will also be a panel with Q&A sessions. Further details will be revealed nearer to the time. Please do keep visiting regularly for updates…

I am hoping I could drag David Terrar from Twinfield and D Squared C to attend, who is an expert on SaaS (Software as a Service) and recently attended Office 2.0 Conference in San Francisco. David’s blog can be reach through here…

Technorati Tags: IoD, TechCrunch, SE Start Up 2.0, NW Start Up 2.0, SaaS, Web 2.0, B2B North West

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I was trying to find out any news on my father’s appointment to the board of CEB, alas there is nothing out there! Only thing I can find is a small contribution my father made to Digital Butterflies sometime back. History is that he joined CEB in 1962 and retired as the General Manager (equivalent to CEO) in 1997. I am very happy for him. According to my mom, he did not want the job (refused the chairmanship and asked for the deputy role - too much politics involved at CEB) but left this morning to work with a happy smile…

His name is not on the websphere, so here is a technorati tag to start the process…Well done dad!

Technorati Tags: CEB, Abey Ranaweera, Ceylon Electricity Board

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