EIPP (e-invoicing) and StartUp World

As you probably know I will be at Future of Web Applications event on 3rd October 2007. I also have a Conference Pass worth �245 + VAT to give away. Here is the criteria for selection:

1. Make sure you can attend the event.
2. Respond by 15:00 hrs on 01 October 2007.
3. State clearly why you deserve the free pass.

Whoever come up with the best response will win. Please remember to leave the correct e-mail address.

Update 1:

Both people who have commented cannot attend the event. This means the ticket is available to whoever first reply. What a shame nobody wants this ticket?

Technorati Tags: FOWA, Sun Microsystems, Stewart Townsend

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It’s good to hear that Transcepta is going from strength to strength, servicing the needs of more than 12,500 companies in such a short time, proving that there is a real market for a simple product offering on EIPP. It’s a great story, and my congratulations go to Mitch, Shan and the team. But I wish they do not get carried away with marketing statements such as “the only solution in the market…”. As I stated before there are number of solutions that constitute printer driver technology. Among these are Accountis and EasyInvoice. EasyInvoice’s business model is perhaps closer to Transcepta than Accountis. At the end, it’s all down to the execution and in most cases, it does not matter how great your technology is. In this regard, Transcepta has done exceptionally well, perhaps better than Accountis as Accountis’ business model is significantly different from Transcepta. 

Having said above, Transcepta has done well to simplify Accounts Receivable (A/R) automation workflow:

1. Supplier (Vendor) downloads and installs Virtual Printer Driver from Transcepta’s web site.
2. Once installed, Supplier selects Transcepta Virtual Printer as the printer and prints an invoice.
3. An electronic message is sent to Transcepta’s hosted data center, which maps, parses and formats the invoice dynamically.
4. Transcepta then transmits the invoice to the relevant buyer.
5. The buyer receives the invoice in desired format and import invoice directly into the Accounts Payable (A/P) system for processing.

Whilst Transcepta handles supplier-end directly, the Buyer (Purchaser) end interfacing is usually undertaken by Transcepta’s partners, such as 170Systems. In this respect, Transcepta’s core competency lies on Supplier-side, similar to that of Esker, where Transcepta’s founders come from. However, Transcepta’s solution is easier to implement and lot less complicated than Esker’s. Transcepta clearly fills a gap in the market. But at the same time, they are constraints by their reliance on partners for A/P interfacing. However, if you flip the model (stick with my argument till the end please and do take a pinch of salt before you read on):

1. 170Systems wins a contract with a large buyer.
2. The buyer has 1000’s of suppliers from large to small.
3. 170Systems has two options, implement data capture through scanning, OCR and ICR, or look for a partner who could connect supplier ends, so that invoices could flow electronically from suppliers’ systems to buyer’s system.
4. If the timing is of the critical essence due to corporate deadline (someone within CxO deciding on an unacceptable deadline), then go with data capture and deal with significant error handling.
5. If not choose a partner who could bring supplier invoices electronically.
6. Now 170Systems got two partners to choose from, OB10 and Transcepta.
7. mmh! Decide on whose solution offers the best financial reward and/or ease of implementation.
8. In addition, who has most suppliers already trading through their network, which reduces the deployment timescale.
9. Now my guess is Transcepta is fully geared for supplier adaptation, but OB10 does both supplier and buyer side implementations, which means management of multiple expectations, which Transcepta is not burdened with. 
10. If I use MBA thinking, then Transcepta has the better chance of coming on top on A/R side than OB10. This is not to say that OB10 is complacent, but their sole focus is not on A/R. As a specialist of A/R, Transcepta has a better chance of emerging on top over time.
11. However, OB10 has a proven track record and longer history, therefore can be deemed as the incumbent.
12. Customers do like dealing with one provider than multiple providers. OB10 can do both A/R and A/P ends but not sure whether they have printer driver technology.

Ignoring few more steps, let’s speculate here thinking aloud. Now I know Jamie do not like me writing this, but this is only a hypothesis and should not be taken too seriously (however if you do take seriously I can bridge a conversation):

1. OB10 will watch Transcepta grow in the US market.
2. Transcepta will be wanting to launch in Europe fairly soon.
3. US is a vital geography for OB10 as most revenue growth will come from there.
4. If Transcepta adopts an aggressive strategy with significant financial backing with improved pricing model for suppliers, they will start to capture vital market share from OB10
5. Now OB10 is faced with two choices - continue to battle with Transcepta or buy them out

Now there are many options to this scenario as it is hypothetical including somewhere down the line “Hub Alliance”. I will leave that for another day.

Thinking back, am I irresponsible in writing above. I do not think so. I merely stated a possible scenario that CxOs always should think about. What if..Unfortunately, CxOs are busy delivering and may not necessarily have sufficient time to think through such crazy forward looking scenarios. And no one can be complacent. I also need to establish whether OB10 has printer driver technology. If not they need to seriously consider it, as it could take a lot of the pain away.

This is where ebdex’s market brief and advisory services become valuable resource to vendor community. Good to have a sales pitch somewhere.

References:

• Transcepta #2 - The product
• Transcepta #1 - A breath of fresh air

Technorati Tags: Transcepta, OB10, Accountis, 170 Systems, EIPP, A/P, A/R, e-invoicing, easyInvoice

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ebdex moved to Daresbury Innovation Centre (DIC) within Daresbury Science & Innovation Campus (DSIC) in February 2006, when there was a handful of tenants, and everyone knew everyone else at that time. Time has passed since, and now DIC is getting ready to celebrate 50 tenant companies on Thursday 4th October 2007.

According to John Leake, General Manager of DSIC:

?We are delighted to have reached the milestone of 50 hi-tech tenant companies and look forward to supporting these businesses as they grow and develop. ?  

The 50th company to join the DIC is Quantum Detectors, a spin-out from the Science & Technology Facilities Council, specialising in detector technology ? a major strength on the DSIC. According to Roger Goldsbrough, Director of Quantum Detectors :

?In the Daresbury Innovation Centre we are perfectly placed to benefit from the world-class scientific facilities of the Daresbury Laboratory in close proximity and a ready-made network of like-minded innovators, entrepreneurs and support communities within the Centre. The impressive, modern building houses a superb facility in which to grow our new business.?

According to Mark Blackburn, Marketing Manager of DISC:

“DSIC is a partnership of the universities of Lancaster, Liverpool and Manchester as well as Halton Borough Council, NWDA and the Science & Technology Facilities Council and was established to create commercial opportunities out of the existing world-class scientific capabilities at the Daresbury Laboratory.” 

“Key to the success of the overall Campus is the Daresbury Innovation Centre, which provides a focused centre of excellence for scientific and hi-tech companies, and has attracted many businesses across a number of market sectors including digital / ICT, healthcare, electronics, instrumentation and advanced engineering.  This is supported by the rapidly growing Daresbury Network and access2experts programme which brings together a powerful community of high tech SMEs, multi-national companies, universities, service providers and other business support organisations.

The Daresbury Innovation Centre offers the ideal infrastructure for commercial and research- based collaboration and continues to strongly attract hi-tech businesses whether they are start-ups or established companies.”  

Here is a list of tenant companies at the DIC:

Healthcare

• Auralis
• Bioeden Ltd
• Copper Lime
• Gem Nutrition 
• Medalytix
• Medical Device Innovation
• MeditrEn
• TipChip

Instrumentation & Engineering

• Calon Associates
• Engineering & Project Solutions Ltd
• Instrument Design Technology Ltd
• IntrfID
• MSM Corporation
• Perceptive Engineering
• Peak42 
• Quantum Detectors
• SYFT  

Digital/ICT/Telecoms

• ADB MultiQuote Ltd
• Alavana
• Aventura
• Clip-Star
• Comworks Ltd
• DaComs
• Devigo Ltd
• ebdex Ltd
• edocr Ltd
• Goddess 
• Godel Technologies
• IBM
• Ixis IT Limited
• M-Send
• Pinnacle Computing  
• Quadteq Ltd
• Real Time Race
• Sensam
• SnG Technologies
• Thin Space
• Wadaro

Environmental

• Enviro Centre

Business Services

• Better Regulation
• F S Walker Hughes
• Incubation Northwest
• National Skills Academy for Nuclear
• Tecmentor

Electronics & Instrumentation

• Apple Sound 
• Apple Dynamics 
• Instrument Design Technology
• Norcott
• Shibden

Industrial Technologies

• AGI UK Ltd
• Gencia

Chemicals

• Hixia

What is also fascinating is that number of these companies are run by Manchester Business School MBA Alumni. There are also serial entrepreneurs running more than one company. Isn’t it great to be part of a successful story?

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It has been less than 3 weeks since the launch of edocr Alpha. Today, we allowed anyone to register an account on edocr. We will be at Mashup* DEMO on 2nd October, demonstrating edocr and will also attend Blognation launch party later the same day in addition to attending Future of Web Applications on the following day.

So far, 4 EIPP related companies have uploaded content to edocr, these being: ebdex, Paystream Advisors, Accountis and Causeway Technologies. All of the documents can be access through http://www.edocr.com/tags/eipp. Here is the link for RSS feed: http://www.edocr.com/taxonomy/term/7/feed.

Wouldn’t it be great if we can build the largest database of documents related to EIPP on edocr? I will certainly be writing to most of EIPP vendors over the coming months requesting them to upload their content. What are you waiting for? Upload your content today for better interactivity with your peers, customers, prospects and stakeholders.

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I attended the Project Sahara kick off meeting held at Sheffield Halam University last Saturday.

The concept was put together by Lee Strafford, Founder and ex-CEO of plus.net with the support from his fellow team mate Marco Potesta and Ian Spence, who Lee has worked with in the past. Having sold Plus.Net to BT and then getting the sack, Lee had plenty of time to think of what to do next. He also realised how stressed he has been in nurturing and growing plus.net since its incorporation, dealing with various stakeholders including Sarbanes Oxley compliance. As Lee said it, he does not want to run another company at the same speed, instead he is looking to diversify risk through working with number of startups. He was faced with two options, these being:

1. Set-up a company that will nurture startups, raise funding and offer a technology platform on which the startups can build their web based products and services. This is no difference to running a medium size fast growth company.
2. Do the same but with a community, diversifying the risk and creating opportunities for all involved. The preferred option.

So the intention of the kick off meeting was to explain the concept and decide on which of the above two options to take. I am happy to announce that agreement has been reached with Option 2. I and Imran Ali took upon us to spread the word into our startup communities through blogging and events. Three people took upon themselves to develop the community site. Lee is also looking for software architects to start conceptualising the technology platform. Everyone is a volunteer. Costs will be covered by Lee through an Administrative Vehicle that need setting up with legal frameworks drawn.

The community is currently split into three segments:

1. Administrators - Lee, Marco and Ian
2. Stakeholders (potential investors) - Ajaz Ahmed of Freeserve fame, Ed French of Rising Stars, Paul Cusack of ebuyer fame, Saul Klein of Seedcamp, OpenCoffeeClub and Index Ventures. There are others that I am not familiar with. Paul was there to provide support to Lee. Paul could also be speaking at the next NW StartUp 2.0 event.
3. Affiliates - Volunteers that satisfy many needs of the community. I also call this bunch business enablers. There are lot more technical people in this pot at present than business people. I am hoping this ratio will balance over time.

In order for this to work, there need to be four types of inviduals:

1. Entrepreneurs - people who are ready to commit to good commercial ideas.
2. Investors - people who have or have access to necessary cash to realise commercial ideas.
3. Business Enablers - those who can provide services to Entrepreneurs in terms of mentoring, business development, etc
4. Administrators - people who manages the interactivity among the first three under a legal and commercial framework with full compliance in mind.

In terms of tangibles, there need to be:

1. A community site for everyone to interact
2. An idea bank
3. A technology platform on which ideas can be reaslised with ease

Extract from Lee’s recent thread on Facebook:

Looking forward we now need to finalise the thinking / start taking action on the three components:-

[1] Community site for Web start-ups (idea development and deal making)
[a] who to engage to run and driving the community through participation [b] how to build the website
[c] how to interface to other community resources

[2] Web Business Incubator infrastructure (hands on help and mentoring)
[a] defining the relationships with leading universities in the north
[b] defining the relationships with the RDA
[c] establishing relationships with other incubators

[3] App Dev platform (web start-ups in a box)
[a] engaging with the architectural talent pool in order to design and spec
[b] Identify the methodology and resources to build it

So, if you want to be involved, start interacting through Facebook. If you need an introduction to Lee or anyone else, let me know through here or by e-mail.

Personally, I would love to run [1] but faced with significant time constraints. Unless time can be justified by financial reward. This may be against the voluntary nature of the project. Well there is nothing to loose by having a chat as this fits with the services ebdex provides.

This is only the start, if you want further insight to this exciting project, here is a list of publicly available documents:

Further information can be accessed through following sites:

• Project Sahara Basecamp
• Facebook Group

References:

• NW StartUp 2.0 - 5th Event on 17 Jan 08 at KPMG Manchester
• Angel of the North Aims To Create New Northern Stars

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OpenCoffee Manchester 6th event took place yesterday at the usual venue. Here are three stories:

1. Paul Robinson of Vagueware - Paul has been developing Vagueware for number of months (feel like years) whilst competition is getting products out to the market. After much debate, I hope I convinced Paul to release Vagueware, which will now be available from 1st October 2007. It’s an idea bank without the strict conditions attached to many such services. It’s free - it’s fluid - it’s simple - it’s no brainer. In fact, can be used as a brain dump and allow the social network to interact with your thoughts - the ideas - to form products and businesses. Paul is more interested in products than businesses, so Vagueware can begin to differentiate as almost all services of such are commercially driven including Project Sahara.
2. David Hawdale (Hawdale Associates) - David will be launching a new business in Q1 08 based on an idea discussed at the very first OpenCoffee Manchester, a social networking spin on freecycling, if I remember correctly.
3. Roderrick Kennedy of Simul - I met Rod first time at OpenCoffee Liverpool held at Daresbury Innovation Centre last week. Since then, this was the third time I met him. Rod is into simulations and games, recently exiting from Evolution Studios which was sold to Sony last week. He has retained the IPR, which has since then transferred to Simul. He is looking for an office, a team and starting to develop his prototype into a commercial product. I spoke to him about changing the model to offer it as a Software-as-a-Service model if its all possible. We also discussed how to write a business plan and what it needs to contain and the thinking process that needs to go into produce such a vital document. Rod has also created a sensation at Daresbury Innovation Centre, especially with Paul Treloar and RealTimeRace.

References:

• OpenCoffee Manchester - 5th Event
• OpenCoffee Manchester - 4th Event
• OpenCoffee Manchester is moving in the right direction
• OpenCoffee Manchester - 2nd Event
• First OpenCoffee Manchester

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I attended the Second Chance Tuesday run by Judith Clegg and Michael Smith at Royal College of Physicians last night in London. A superb networking event except for poor catering. Then again, I set the bar high with NW StartUp 2.0, which any event organiser will find hard to beat. Northerners are much better at hospitality than Londerners, but Londerners continue to pull the crowd putting Northerners (especially me) to shame. Enough of comparisons, let’s get back to the story..

It was an exceptional opportunity to hear the story of two classic web 2.0 entrepreneurs Felix Miller and Martin Stiksel, CEO and CCO of Last.fm respectively, interviewed by Rory Cellan-Jones of BBC. I am not going to repeat the story here, as it is very well documented and it will not take long for a business school to produce a detail case study. When you do, please remember to upload to www.edocr.com for interaction.

However, I will say the following. The founder duo sold the company to CBS for US$280 million, and does not plan to invest that money into startups founded by others. They are entertaining many ideas they had whilst setting up and running the company, and may pursue those ideas in addition to growing Last.fm.

Among the crowd, there were few known faces: Stephen Morrisey from Clipstar from Daresbury Innovation Centre (I would not have been there, if Stephen did not happen to mention about the event last week), Mike Butcher from TechCrunch UK (hey, Mike got the exclusivity for next NW StartUp 2.0 - its up to him to write about it though), Simon Grice of Mashups (I will talk about edocr at Mashup Demos), Daniel Waterhouse of 3i (met first time but known him through e-mails).

In addition, I met bunch of new people, some known through the web and e-mails, these being: Richard Marsh of Oxford Capital Partners, Ben Holmes of Index Ventures, James Brocket of Calibre One, Andrew Romans of Georgetown Venture Partners, Jonathan Moss of Ballz.com, and James Vinall of LastMile Communications. I had to dash back as I took the last train to Manchester.

I also discussed with some of the above VCs the possibility of speaking at one of the NW StartUp 2.0 events. I used the opportunity to warm up VCs about edocr. It’s still early days for us. But I must now start thinking about producing the business plan.

Technorati Tags: Second Chance Tuesday, Last.fm. Judith Clegg

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The news of acquisition of Digital Vision Technologies by BasWare was broken to me at the ExPP Summit. Apologies for taking so long to write about it. Better late than never though.

Digital Vision based in Northwich, Cheshire is a system integrator who specialises in accounts payable automation. Its solutions are based on Kofax’s Ascent, a data capture product that scans invoices and other purchase-to-payment documents. Through Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and Intelligent Character Recognition (ICR), Ascent converts data from paper to electronic data which can then be automatically fed in to an accounts payable system. As you very well know, this is not a bullet-proof solution, nevertheless it has a place in the current market until EIPP becomes the norm. Digital Vision also offers workflow and content management solutions to extend their data capture capability.

Digital Vision has about 70 customers, some being blue chips such as Barclays, BAe Systems, BUPA, DSGi, Countrywide, HBoS, Abbey/Grupo Santander and many SMEs. Directors Dennis Wright, and Peter and Robert Goodwin have done remarkably well to have such great names as clients on their books.

BasWare has acquired the entire share capital of Digital Vision for EUR 9.2 million, to be paid in two parts. EUR 9 million is to be paid upon completion of the acquisition. The remainder to be determined by Digital Vision’s net assets on the Interim Financial Statements on 31st August 2007 and to be paid by the beginning of October 2007. This could be interpreted as few anomalies on the balance sheet that require clarification.

Please find below a quick estimation of shareholder earnings from the exit.

Above is based on number of assumptions:

1. The shareholder details I obtained from public domain is accurate at the time of exit
2. Ord 1p, Ord A1 and Ord B1 shares are of equal value

Above could be correct or miles apart. If you require accurate data, my suggestion is to contact BasWare or Digital Vision.

It’s good to hear that BasWare intends to continue to employ the current management. This is a typical announcement at acquisition stage, for specialist companies such as Digital Vision. Organisational cultures will determine the survival of the management, plus whether the key shareholders would be keen to continue to build the business having worked so hard from inception to sale.

Good example of owner manager impact post acquisition is Tony Bray from Version One, who sold the company to Cedar sometime back only to become a full time consultant. But Tony has set up Version Two (great brand name). Tony and I were supposed to explore the possibility of setting up a company, but I have not been able to find time to think through the concept I came up with. So it has gone to the back burner. I wonder whether its worth putting this idea to the pots of Project Sahara or Vagueware. Let’s get back to the story, shall we…

The acquisition strengthens BasWare’s presence in the UK market, both in terms of number of staff (about 70) and market share for data capture solutions (combining the offerings of Kofax led sales and BasWare’s own data capture solutions).

According to  Hannu Vaajoensuu, Chairman of the Board, BasWare

“As a result of the acquisition, BasWare gains a leading position in the UK Enterprise Purchase to Pay market, be it in terms of the number of customers, net sales or the size of the organization. Additionally, we will gain valuable expertise on data capture and management. This improves our competitiveness in especially the financing segment and among multinational, large corporations. The expertise can be utilized within the global partner agreement we recently signed with DICOM”. 

As usual drop any feedback you have here or through e-mails.

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Above is a single page outlining the Vendor Advisory and Analysis services offered by ebdex. The second document below captures pricing guidelines for services rendered

Both documents have been uploaded to edocr for interactivity. Let us know what you think.

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Now, don’t get too excited! There will not be a formal announcement nor you would see TCS mentioned on ebdex’s website, or ebdex mentioned on TCS’s website. But we have reached a verbal agreement today to work together. The actual proposition has to be worked out and joint targets identified. This further strengthen my belief that ebdex truly has a unique place in the UK market place.

Most people may not have heard of Tata Consulting Services! It started as an IT services company servicing the needs of Tata Group. Today, they provide number of services to global clients in the areas of offshoring and Oracle and SAP support. They now aspire to take market share in the management consultancy arena. This is where it makes sense to partner with specialists to create niche opportunities.

So, let’s look at a potential opportunity where both companies could add value! A large corporate has a strategic objective to streamline their operations or have embark on a cost reduction exercise. ebdex gets involved in auditing the existing processes from optimisation of purchase-to-payment and/or supply-to-cash cycles, as well as advising on best options for integrate document exchange with trading partners. This requires change at ERP end perhaps including addition of new modules and customer lacks the capacity to undertake those changes in house. TCS steps into advice and implement those changes.

From ebdex’s point of view this bring further credibility and access to a great resource base. Before I can start thinking about joint targets, I need to get ebdex’s two value propositions (to users of technology as well as providers of technology) on two pages to start a mail shot campaign. There will be standard pricing (e.g. 1/2 day market brief) to non standard prices. Will talk about this bit more once I completed the document and upload it to edocr!

If anyone wants to explore or exploit this relationship, do get in touch!

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I am proud to announce that the next NW StartUp 2.0 event will be held on 17 Jan 2008 at KPMG Manchester. The event details were published last night with one confirmed speaker. Without a doubt, it will be better than the 4th event held yesterday. Why? Simply, I am gaining confidence and experience. In addition, I am gaining a loyal attendance. And the hosts, KPMG are beginning to understand how to interact with the community they have hosted four times.

Here are some great pictures. All can be accessed through flickr.

So here is the story from the speakers:

1. Lee Strafford - Lee spoke of growing up in Sheffield, and leaving school at the tender age of 14 to join his father’s london based Structured Cabling Company. By 16, he was project managing large contracts. However, his father’s business went under when one of their large client’s business went into financial difficulty. This brought Lee back to Sheffield. Sometime after this, Lee got involved with a business, which eventually created the plus.net as we know now. Lee spoke about the pressures of operating a fast growth business with profitability targets and how he created an open transparent culture without group/divisional boundaries. In one aspect, his company was developing software for deriving significant internal efficiencies, on the other hand, it was operating in the retail dial-up and then later broadband market. Only thing they had was that it was a fast growing market, allowing them to ride the wave. Lee also spoke of hiring the wrong team and learning from that experience. Hiring Dean Sandler from Sheffield Hallam University has allowed him to tap into an immense fresh talent pool. Lee had matrices for measuring every bit of the company. This has created such a focussed team environment, that they continued to out perform the incumbents, grabbing the attention of BT. A truly remarkable and accomplished individual, I am certainly privilege to know him. He spoke of Project Sahara, which I will blog about later. In the meantime you can access seven documents on the project through here.
2. Chris Astle - Chris spoke of setting up his company 3 yrs ago. What he did was to tap into his network to find a very wealthy business angel. This has allowed them early to focus on the business without having to continually worry about capital. Now Chris has international aspirations with a three year plan. 
3. Peter Leather - Peter joined Liverpool Ventures few months ago after a successful carrier at ICDC, etc. He has worked extensively with startups, which has helped them to understand their needs.

So who attended the yesterday event and what are their stories - let’s start with the loyal attendees first:

1. Alexander Goldstone from IDINSO - third time. It seems that he has not slept for three days as he is helping my friend Anish and Philip put final touches to Yuuguu’s launch for DEMO. Its nice to hear such a successful story of a North West company. Alex seems to be doing number of things whilst also trying to get his own business off the ground. What I realised yesterday was that I know very little of Alex - well this has to be corrected, don’t you think? He might in fact be a good source to help me construct top 25 web 2.0 companies in the North West.
2. Muditha Gunatilake from Doubleclick Seychelles - Muditha is a family friend, another sleep deprived individual - 2 days this time. He is completing a MBA at Manchester Business School. Muditha and his family was at my place last Sunday - last summer BBQ. He is taking today off - going to Knowsley Safari Park.
3. Tony Bray of Version Two - second time - having exited from Version One sometime back, his new owner’s Cedar OpenAccounts are getting Tony to work 7 days a week! Poor Tony! We spoke in the past of working on my third company idea. Unfortunately I have not been able to find thinking time. So, I am afraid it has to stay that way for a while. I am interested in finding out what Tony would do under his Version Two brand.
4. Stephen Morrisey of Clipstar - second time - Stephen has an extensive network of investors and has recently put together Clipstar, a YouTube type venture he plans to launch in the City with celebrities, etc. Suppose to be the next big thing! I do not know much about Clipstar, but there is certain excitement around the company at Daresbury Innovation Centre. I wish Stephen and the team all the best.
5. Valerie De Leonibus of Inventya - Valerie plans to run Girlie Geek Dinner, possible kick start in Nov 07. Can’t wait to get an invite!
6. Mark Rahn of Enterprise Ventures - Good to see Mark - We both completed our MBAs at Manchester Business School around the same time. There was also another wannabee VC in the room, on whose behalf I asked the odd and silly question of “how does one become a VC?”.
7. Fiona Barker of Baker PR - Did not get much of a chance to speak with Fiona, but I understand from Valerie that Fiona loved the idea of Girlie Geek Dinner.
8. Roderick Kennedy of Simul - Rod has just left a full time job to concentrate on Simul and was wondering whether to move to the South East than stay in the North. Knowing the real reason, I think we probably going to loose another good brain to the South.
9. Manoj Patel and Kamlesh Shah from UES - Working on JD Edwards systems, they are looking for investment to bring a new product to market.
10. Tom Cheesewright of IO Communications and NetRecords - Nice to see Tom again. Another individual I need to spend time understanding.
11. Mick Carter of m-send
12. Dominic Wood - CEO of 15secondTV - good to see Dominic. I hope you had time to network with Stephen and m-send.
13. Steve Shinn - one of A team of Plus.Net with a new idea around URLs - building a multi million pound business. I actually owns about 8 or so URLs - three I bought to build social networks for kids on behalf of my 7 yr old daughter. Anyone out there want to get involved?

Andre Maljaars flew in from Amsterdam to attend the event, but never made it to the event at the end due to another meeting.

Big thank you to Steven Livingston of KPMG for providing the venue and catering. I also met Paula Holland from KPMG. I now need to sit down with Steven, Paula and others to work out a programme of how KPMG and others could support startups. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could put together a package of assistance from KPMG, solicitor, bank and PR. Maybe a format similar to Dragon’s Den with 3 companies winning the package. Might need a big sponsor to pull this off with using a venue such as G6 of Manchester Business School. Let’s watch the space.

Where am I going to find time to run these projects, get ebdex and edocr off the ground and also start thinking about company 3? And Andre wants me to run his UK operations, which I had to decline! And then another European buddy rang me just before midnight wanting advice on whether to sell his company to a British or Swiss buyer - very emotional affair! Life is getting crazy at the moment. Need to reduce noise and concentrate on the overall core objectives, which is simply ebdex + edocr. Everything I do must fit into these and should be revenue generative. If not, perhaps its time I hand them over to someone else. And there is also 1st Tuesday knocking on the door!

Please note that the next event will be priced at £35, but if you pay 2 weeks before, it will be £25. This should give me the ability to predict the number of attendees better and reduce the food wastage. These events need to be revenue contributing, but I do not see break even at any stage when I bring cost of my man days in to the equation. In fact, I spent too many man days organising last event due to last minute planning. So I need to be more efficient and find ways to justify return on investment. If you got any ideas of how to improve this series of events or want to become a sponsor, please do get in touch.  

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It’s with regret to inform that Billa will not be speaking tonight at NW StartUp 2.0 event due to a logistical nightmare. He has however confirmed his desire to speak at the next event in January, which hopefully will be better organised. I was unable to give much notice for this event due to last minute planning and holiday season. All these will be sorted out by next event, with better registration facility as well as better communication.

The confirmed speakers include:

1. Lee Strafford - Plus.Net founder and ex-CEO
2. Chris Astle - Managing Director of m-send
3. Peter Leather - Liverpool Ventures

Some of the planned attendees include:

1. Tony Bray - Looking for investment opportunities having sold Version One
2. Mark Rahn - Enterprise Ventures (VC) and my buddy from MBA
3. Andre Maljaars - CEO of FounderContact - Great network
4. Valerie De Leonibus - Director of Inventya - if you are thinking of starting a business but wondering whether to give up your day job - get a free on line validation test through Valerie’s i2monline. Plus she is also planning to run Girlie Geek Dinner in Manchester.
5. Stuart Bruce - PR Extraordinaire - a pleasure to finally hook up with Bruce

Apologies if I have not mention your name, but will do post event.

There is still time to register! Spread the word.

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Today, we had the opportunity to host Jeff Barr of Amazon AWS at Daresbury Innovation Centre. Here is the proof:

1st pic L to R: Phil Blything of Glow New Media who runs OpenCoffee Liverpool, Jeff Barr and me.

Jeff was kind enough to give an understanding to Amazon AWS, both in terms of business case as well as product propositions. This was followed by lunch (thanks to Paul Treloar and Mark Blackburn of Daresbury Innovation Centre) and few presentations from the audience, which included edocr, i2monline, MyLiverpoolSkyLine and two more.

Afternoon was spent on discussions with Jeff on edocr platform with respect to Amazon AWS, which has to remain confidential for the time being.

Hopefully, Jeff and I will work on identifying companies in the North who uses Amazon AWS with the intention of holding a gathering of some sort next year.

Big thank you to all who managed to make it to the event, at short notice.

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The 3rd ExPP Summit was held on 10th and 11th of September at Millenium Glocester Hotel in London. I attended both days as a guest of Bruno Koch of Billentis. Bruno who organised the event with Johannes von Mulert of Vereon AG is to be congratulated for hosting an excellent gathering of European e-invoicing community.

In the evening of the 1st day, I had the opportunity to speak to both Bruno and Jahannes. Whilst Bruno brings the e-invoicing domain expertise and industry connectivity, Johannes brings skills and resources necessary to organise such a large event. Together, they have delivered a superb conference packed with users and providers of e-invoicing solutions as well as other stakeholders such as banks, regularity and legislative authorities. Johannes was fascinated by web 2.0 activities in the UK and is attempting to create a buzz in the Switzerland. I introduced him to OpenCoffee concept as an excellent way to promote technology entrepreneurship in Switzerland. I also discussed with Johannes of my ambition to hold two e-invoicing seminars in the UK, one in the North and the other in the South.

This idea was generally well received by number of UK based vendors. My thoughts are of holding an event solely focussing on the corporates, perhaps inviting 30 or so prospects with five service providers. Keep it small, but effective. I know I have the full support of Henry Ijams at Paystream Advisors.

The only criticism I can draw on ExPP Summit is that it was not meant for users of technology but for providers of technology. Whilst EDI has been around for 40 odd years and XML based products has been around for seven or so years, we have achieved very little traction in terms of penetrating the market. According to Bruno, this sits around 3%. If that is the case the priority ought to be “education education education” and not about technology. Especially not about features and functionality. Unfortunately, ExPP Summit miss the opportunity to address this vital issue. Hence my thoughts of organising two events in the UK.

I spent significant amount of time speaking to vendors, notably Accountis, OB10, Ariba and JP Morgan Chase. Ifor Williams of Accountis made some key introductions to those who are trying to address the issue of roaming. I personally do not like this terminology, but 100% behind the desire to interconnect e-invoicing networks.

According to Bruno, there are about 250 vendors operating in the European market, and he predicts this number to increase to 400 in 2009, a 60% increase with 15% market penetration. He also believes most vendors will achieve low penetrations of under 1 million transactions a year, resulting in eventual market consolidation. This belief has resulted in Bruno offering mergers and acquisition services. As you have already read in this blog, I have also discussed acquisition opportunities with one US company recently. I hope Bruno’s prediction will come true. This will certainly increase the level of activities injecting further funding into the sector, which will fuel development of new services as well as expansion both in terms of geographical coverage as well as provision of vertical solutions.

I always consider Bruno as the real guru of e-invoicing. Over the years Bruno has gathered significant market data. I will comment on this later once I get my hands on the relevant slides.

I also had the opportunity to meet Jamie Gunn, CEO of OB10 and Anders Hellermark of Trustweaver on 12th. I will cover these separately, as well as bringing more posts on the Summit. This is really a quick note to cover the event in brief as I have not kept up with blogging recently.

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I am looking for analysts and consultants to join ebdex to create the No.1 consultancy and analyst firm in the UK within 2 yrs for e-invoicing and supply chain finance. In fact, I do not know any other firm who provides this type of niche service without broadening into all other disciplines. If you know anyone who might be interested, please pass my details. If you are interested, please do get in touch. If you like to partner or become an associate, do get in touch. If you are curious, do get in touch.

Popularity: 9% [?]

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