EIPP (e-invoicing) and StartUp World

L to R: Paul Robinson and Simon Grice at Northern StartUp DEMO 2 on 19th March 08

I cannot exactly remember when I first met Paul Robinson, perhaps at the inaugural event of North West Digital Communities, which was organised by Manchester Digital Development Agency to bring event organisers together every other month or so for collaboration. Since then Paul and I have discussed many issues, but have not yet worked on a single project.

Paul recently published an article titled: The Vision Thing inviting comments from me and few others. Whilst I do not have the same extent of understanding of software engineering nor about computing, I thought of airing my views about Paul and the industry.

First of all, I am a strong believer that computers and software are here to help us improve our lives. They are not here to dictate how we should behave. However, the use of applications, especially those within government sectors have significantly influenced our lives, and in some instances have changed our behaviour. Whilst technology have significantly improved every day mundane processes, it has also created new processes which will not exist without computers. Going forward, more and more new processes will be added to our daily lives resulting in having less time for computer-free relaxation. It will become more difficult to achieve work-life balances.

Whilst most people in this industry have been involved with it for many years, my entry only occurred in 2005 with disastrous consequences. I am not a programmer and therefore do not enjoy the same pleasures as Paul and others. I see a great opportunity and perhaps not burnt out as some of the others. Yes, I lost significant amount of money and time due to appointing affno to develop ebdex Document Exchange, but I do not keep awake at night regretting what I have done. Yes, of course I could have done much better with hindsight, especially by not appointing affno.

But the truth of the matter is I cannot get enough of this industry. When I entered the digital startup world, I saw myself as an opportunist. I still see myself in the same light. I am no longer content with just doing one project. I am interested in doing multiple projects, but all must have some synergies with each other. edocr, eveo and evigon all go hand in hand.

So, what is Paul’s problem? Paul is immensely talented and never short of words. But I feel that he is trying to do too many things which are not interconnected. I believe he should learn to delegate and learn to build teams around him to get his ideas out as businesses. It is always good to learn new skills such as marketing, but not everyone can handle different disciplines, especially those that are alien to one’s beliefs. Paul is also trapped between two worlds, the commercial and freebie world.

In my case, I am only interested in commercial activities. And I also believe I can manage multiple disciplines simultaneously with ease, due to my past experiences with both startups and multinationals. I am not speaking here about civil engineering vs. bio technology, but of all aspects of businesses from opportunity analysis, product development, marketing, sales, operations, customer service, finance, business planning and leadership. I am definitely poor on human resource management. Whilst I included product development here, it is not the same as software development. It is more of defining the product and delegating the development process to someone such as Paul, in the case of software development.

You should not be in an industry you are fed up of. I was fed up of engineering and I moved on. Ok, the results are not so positive, but I believe I can turn things around. And in this process, I have learnt to spread risk by getting others involved. Just look at edocr for example:

• Built and run Alpha version under £500 (excl team time and my expenses) - to achieve this, I brought team on board on equity
• Hosting for exchange of ….
• PR for exchange of …
• Legal for exchange of …

Now edocr has achieved a status where others want to align themselves with the brand. How can this be possible? Well I build something else that I can exchange with and we got on board of webmission08, which brought new fortunes, higher expectations and more risk to manage. But we are partnering with the right organisations, e.g. Sun Microsystems, NTT Communications, Smith&SmithPR, Aaron&Partner, Amazon AWS. And all of these relationships go beyond edocr, and they are at a very personal level. Could Paul repeat this? Does he wants the same? Perhaps not. More importantly, does he know what he wants?

At the same token, it is highly dangerous to venture into a sector that you know nothing about (as I demonstrated). Paul, the best course of action is to work with a mentor who can provide critical analysis and recommendations. And you should agree with your mentor a firm action plan. And it is ok to have reservations from time to time. But having an action plan will help you get back to the plan once you defeat those short-lived reservations.

I am sorry, but I will not be tagging anyone, as above is slightly off from what you were trying to address.

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As part of our preparations for Webmission08, we have decided to migrate our back-end and the front-end to Sun Microsystems platform. We are a proud member of the Sun Microsystems’ StartUp Essential Programme and also a Sun Microsystems Advantage Partner. In fact, I have been evangelising the programme well before it was launched, working closely with Stewart Townsend, who manages the programme in the UK and Europe. The final details are yet to be worked out, but the hosting will be provided by NTT Communications. Both companies are fully supporting edocr’s virgin mission to San Francisco in April 08.

As part of the process, we first moved the back-end from North Wales to Ixis IT Offices at Daresbury Innovation Centre, at which point some of the team got bit carried away with celebrations, as you can see from following images. I must say, we are still looking for the front-end which is still somewhere in North Wales.

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This morning I shook hands with Nathan Smith, Managing Director of Smith & Smith PR, appointing them as PR Agency for promotion of edocr over the next 3 months. Smith & Smith PR will be responsible for PR within the European Union. As part of the discussions, they will also work closely with Northern StartUp 2.0. The actual details will be worked out over the next week or so.

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Today, I decided to publish key documents related to development of ebdex Document Exchange. You would need to log in to edocr to view these documents. Please note that these documents may not necessarily be the final release. Feel free to use any content as you see fit. Comments are welcome.

Mutual Confidentiality Agreement	Agreement for Preparation of Specification	Software Development Agreement	Confidentiality Agreement

Request for Proposal	User Requirement Specification	Software Design Description	Use Cases

User Acceptance Test Plan	Business Plan	Sales Channel Agreement

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My brain was in an explosion this afternoon, whilst accompanying my family and a friend on a shopping trip to Ellesmere Port, off M56. This all started due to two conversations I had yesterday. I linked the two conversations with my experience of ebdex and edocr and devised a methodology for launching a new business for £25,000. For this to work, I need two ingredients:

1. The domain expertise must be present in-house. Ideally, the proposed startup CEO must have this expertise and must be passionate about it.
2. It must be easy for me to understand quickly and relate to a pain I have, so that I become the customer.

Then it is my task to quickly evaluate the possibility of its potential:

1. It must appeal to viral marketing
2. It must be suitable for a free and fee charging pro model
3. It must be simple to understand, if not, then find a way to simplify it
4. It must be suitable for web 2.0 treatment, if not, then find a way

Having done that, then quickly sketch out the proposition - real fag packet stuff, complete contradiction to MBA strategising. The next stage is to work out whether it will meet the following criteria:

1. Can the alpha product be developed for under £10,000? Alpha would be the product that will be offered free forever.
2. Can the beta product be developed for under £10,000? Beta would be the pro version offered at a no-brainer fee, allowing revenue generation.

Allocate further £5,000 for evangelising and administration. The £20,000 development budget does not allow all bells and whistles product, but a product that works and able to attract revenues. The bells and whistles can come second after concept is proven with Alpha and Beta. So the total cost to launch is £25,000.

As a new entity the business will have zero value, but taking future growth potentials into consideration, it is not unfair to assume a valuation of £100,000. This gives the investor a 25% stake of the business and possible role of Non Executive Director or Non Executive Chairman. The business must be able to generate significant value within 2 years to provide an exit for investor. What return the investor would get is anybody’s guess, but expects to be far higher than an average investment. Of course the whole thing could go flop which applies to any investment whether you invest into a startup of a FTSE100 company.

In this scenario, I see my role as Doer and never as the CEO. As the Doer, the role of COO is more appropriate with 9 to 12 months part-time role. I would also develop the product through my new company evigon, which in turn will manage resources from my ever growing Northern StartUp 2.0 community. Or yes, for this service, I would also demand 25% of the company. The CEO would be given 50% of the company, perhaps mixture of options and equity.

What is the downside to all this? Yes, the investor could loose £25,000. I will not be able to recover my investment (time and energy) through sale of 25% equity. The same could apply to the CEO.

Above is given for guidance only, as no two circumstances are the same. Could above be applied to e-invoicing/EIPP? Yeap! Don’t be silly, when OB10 spent $30 million, how could you launch for £25,000? Yes, it is possible. Of course, you should not compare like for like, but this can be done. If you are a developer, you can in fact do this with zero cost as you would be developing it. But what I stated here include paying for development time.

Anyone out there got multiple of £25,000 to test the model? Here is a real test for you - the cost of development and running of edocr to date, excluding time costs is less than £1000. This was achieved mainly due to in-house development capability. If the model described here was applied, it would certainly come within the £25,000.

In case you are wondering, there are others out there thinking the same. And all this work could be done in the UK without having to outsource to India, Russia or anywhere else.

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OB10 is no stranger to making classic mistakes with it’s web strategy. How do you manage expectations of local communities whilst pursuing a global strategy? Perhaps the best example is to learn from HSBC - the world’s local bank. At the heart of HSBC web strategy is the corporate site, followed by country specific sites. In the case of OB10, no provision has been made for a corporate website. Here is the home page of UK website, where the company is head quartered.

And here is the US website. Both attempts to retain a similar look and feel, but fail miserably on certain aspects.

Let’s look at the key differences of these two web pages (just the home pages without taking a detail review):

• Menu bar: UK has a symbol for “Home” where as it is spelt out on US home page. US in upper case, UK in lower case other than first letter. “Partners” position swapped. “About” and “About Us”. No “Customers” on US site. “Government” vs. “Public Sector” is a fair change. “Download” missing from US. “Learn More” and “Support” not on UK site. Almost gives the impression that “much more hand-holding” is required in the USA than in the UK.
• Side bar: different information. Like the “meet our customer” section on US site. Prefer “Join Now” message better than “Register”. News and events combined on US and these are separated on the UK.
• Main image: US is much better than the UK.
• “Deloitte Technology Fast50″ is missing from the US site.

Why is there a necessity for country specific websites?

• Terminology, e.g. Government vs. Public Sector
• Legislations and regulations, e.g. VAT
• Language
• Key messages
• Country specific product and service offerings (and markets where applicable).

But why leave out such key messages as “Deloitte”, and news items from the UK site? This mistake could have easily be avoided by providing a corporate website that captured all news and events, and other common marketing messages.

Download page could have been improved significantly by embedding document thumbnails. Of course edocr will be glad to provide this service free of charge, if Jamie wishes to collaborate - be an innovator not a laggard Jamie! 

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If you are thinking of starting or have recently set-up an e-invoicing/EIPP business, ask yourself candidly how do you intend to innovate? I assume you know the fundamental customer pain you are trying to relieve! Just for clarity, this is to replace manual paper based processes with an electronic system that exchange structured documents seamlessly from one system to another. In the past, I spoke about having connectivity up and down the value chain before commencing any development. Part of this is having a sizeable first willing customer who has significant power over its supply chain to allow the technology/product to be tested. I do not see any innovation in this approach - this is all common sense.

So, let’s assume that you spent considerable amount of resources (money and time) developing the first cut of your product and have successfully led trials with your first willing sizeable customer. So what? Given the success, you will no doubt be able to repeat especially as e-invoicing allows your customers to become the unofficial salesforce. All of this is fine - but there is nothing new in this! Yes, you might have reduced the delivery times or supplier enrollment times by a x factor, that is just not enough to make this business take off! So what do you need to do? This is when you need to apply out of the box - or crazy thinking!

I am not going to spell this out to you! But observe what is happening in the enterprise software arena, the Software-as-a-Service revolutionised by Salesforce.com and others, the social networks wave - come up with something that no one has thought of! With this level of innovation, there is a fundamental problem. Yes, you guessed right, the people who use these technologies, i.e. billing clerks and financial directors are not ready. So with this level of innovation, you have the potential to achieve first-mover advantage with the extra trouble of educating the market! So, is this another crazy idea of mine! I do not think so!

Technorati Tags: e-invoicing, eipp, innovation

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I am proud to announce that edocr has been chosen by webmission08 as one of the 20 most promising UK digital startups to visit San Francisco in April 08. I have known this for a while, but was not allowed to speak in public until TechCrunch broke the news. I see this as a win not just for the edocr team and its user base, but for the whole of the North West of England. We are proud to follow our fellow web 2.0 startup Yuuguu across the pond. Yuuguu achieved significant media coverage and growth since establishing connectivity with San Francisco.

Webmission08 is organised by entrepreneur Oli Barrett and Polecat and backed by UKTI, Heller Ehrmann, BT and HSBC. 20 companies were selected from over 100 applicants.

According to Mike Butcher, editor of TechCrunch UK:

Who judged all this? TechCrunch UK was asked to contribute thoughts on the applicants (TCUK is also the official media partner), as was well known tech entreprenuer, investor and former Dragon Doug Richard, along with UK Trade Invest, Oli Barrett and Polecat. We were all really impressed with the quality of the applications. In the words of Doug Richard “some of these companies are as good as anything coming out of the Valley”. And sponsors Heller Ehrmann are issuing a statement today saying: “The sheer volume of applicants provides convincing evidence of the depth and breadth of emerging growth technology companies in the UK. The shortlist of companies selected demonstrates that the UK is able to produce credible web businesses.”

What was the criteria? The judges were looking for companies who could do meaningful business in the US; from setting up office, to finding funding, to extending their network, and developing sustainable cross-pond relationships. They also assessed the companies based on their business viability and the strength of the management team. And they looked for a mix of companies that showed the breadth of what the UK has to offer in this space. The aim is for the companies “to explore new opportunities for growth with key people in Silicon Valley.”

Here is a list of the other 19 companies selected:

• Groupspaces [Oxford]- Web-based tools for groups
• Tioti [?] - A social network around TV
• Exabre (TheFilter) [Bath] - Advanced music recommendation
• Coull [Bristol] - Interactive video platform
• Zogix [Hertfordshire] - Employee services platform
• Byteplay (dotHomes) [?] - Real estate search engine
• Trampoline Systems [London] - Enterprise software harnessing social behaviour
• Hubdub [Edinburgh] - News prediction social network
• WAYN [?] - travel and lifestyle social networking community
• TrustedPlaces [?] - Venue recommendation network
• Slicethepie [?] - Enabling bands to raise money directly from their fans
• Mydeo [Wimbledon]- Mainstream application for storing and sharing video
• Skimbit [?] - Research and share decisions
• Huddle [?] - Enterprise 2.0 collaboration
• Rummble [?] - Mobile social networking and recommendation
• Zebtab [London] - Desktop TV application
• Silobreaker [London] - Contextual and graphic search results
• Kwiqq [Brighton] - Social Website builder
• ShortFuze [Cambridge] - Online movie creation tools for social networks

I have been discussing various ways to collaborate with some of the above companies. Some of these companies have raised funding and are generating revenues. edocr may well be one of the youngest and least funded companies. If you attended my discussions at BarcampManchester and Start Up Camp London, you know how much it cost us to develop edocr.

Raj Anand’s “Blogging for Business” white paper is extremely popular with edocr community. I plan to setup a Special Interest Group within edocr to help collate documents on webmission.

I have secured sponsorship from Daresbury Science and Innovation Campus (where edocr is based) to offset some of our costs and currently looking for two other sponsors. If you are interested, please do get in touch sooner than later.

Technorati Tags: edocr, webmission08

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I attended Barcamp Manchester on 1st of March 08, and here are couple of pictures thanks to flickr.

BarcampManchester had been a subject regularly discussed at North West Digital Communities meetings. Until Paul Robinson took over, they remained just talks. Paul made BarcampManchester happen! Well done mate!

Here are some of the blog posts by other attendees:

• BarCamp Manchester
• BarCampManchesterUK
• Brightbox at Barcamp Manchester UK

Here are couple of videos:

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I am proud to have brought OpenCoffee to the North. First Manchester and then requesting Dean Sadler and Phil Blything to run Sheffield and Liverpool respectively. At the time, Imran Ali was thinking about running the same in Leeds. I convinced him to set the schedule for 1st Tuesday of the month. Manchester OpenCoffee never took off as intended. One reason perhaps was that I never gave 100% of making it a success as I was more serious about making Northern StartUp 2.0 a commercial success (at the time it was called NW StartUp 2.0 and it was free to attend).  We always struggled to have a decent number of people attending Manchester events where as more success was achieved by Leeds and Liverpool. I am not sure how successfull Sheffield has been!

At the back-end of last year, I handed over Manchester to Paul Robinson. Paul turned the event to combine with co-working which he passionately believes in. Last week Paul announced the death of OpenCoffee Manchester. Personally, I would like to see OpenCoffee Manchester continuing but without anyone else stepping into succeed Paul, I do not see any future for it’s continuation. Paul has given a number of reasons why OpenCoffee does not work in Manchester. I do not agree with all of them, but generally accepts that:

• GeekUp - provides an environment for deep technical discussion, attended mainly by developers
• Northern Startup 2.0 - provides an environment for entrepreneurs, investors, deal makers and service providers
• Barcamp - Paul Robinson is attempting to make this a regular fixture in Manchester - this brings both communities together.

Paul also mentioned event fatigue in an e-mail to me, which is exactly what I have been thinking with respect to forthcoming Chinwag events in Manchester. Initially, I was interested to seek a partnership with Sam Michel, but decided against the idea as this will dilute the impact Northern StartUp 2.0 has.

Manchester certainly isn’t London. But has the potential to host successful regular events. I still believe we are only reaching out to a small number of individuals at present - so much more work is required to make all of these events even more successful.

Personally, I would like to see BarcampManchester happening not more than twice a year, but believe Paul is thinking of more regular events. Barcamps are much more demanding to attend than Geekup or Northern StartUp 2.0 events, and more regular events will ultimately results in these becoming “another event” as the excitement wears off. I hope Paul will take this concern into consideration when planning future Barcamps.

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