ALEX KAVEL

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Dear Investors, Mentors and Partners,

I don’t think you’ll respect our relationship to keep our conversation private.

I just don’t trust you

See attached for our NDA.

Thanks,
Startup Founder.
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When we first setup Graduly I was of the mind set that I had a unique idea and my biggest concern was if I spoke about my idea someone - somewhere would steal my idea, build it and launch it before us.

Three laptops, two office moves and a pivot later I’ve come to realise four important lessons:

1. A  Stealth Startup is a shit idea.

If you need to be so stealth so your competitors don’t know your idea, you should ask yourself: Is this a viable business? If its all about the idea and not about the execution you’re probably not the guy/girl/team to execute this idea.

No-one expects to know your business plan - but you should be willing to talk about the market, customers - or at least the industry your problems are in.

Please don’t say “Oh, sorry we are stealth. We can’t talk about the stuff we’re working on.”

2. You are not alone.

If your idea is a problem worth solving you’re probably not the only startup working on solving it and you won’t be the last.

If your alone - be afraid - there maybe a reason why no-one else is working in the same space.

3. No-one cares as much as you.

I’m sure I could’ve taken my sixty page business plan to my biggest competitor and a detailed specification on how to build our app and they would’ve ignored it.

They wouldn’t have the resource/time/infrastructure and even if they did, they wouldn’t have done anything because no-one cares about your idea (not as much as you anyway).

4. A Non Disclosure Agreement is a bad way to start a relationship.

See above.

Dear Reader,

I am not a charitable do good-er, I don’t believe in handouts, which is why it took such a compelling message to help a charitable cause.

Suit Amnesty is a campaign to enable those less fortunate to help themselves into the world of work. By giving them appropriate attire for an interview. Simple.

So if your like me and don’t normally do charity. You don’t have to open your wallet or roll up your sleeves. Give us your unwanted suits (ladies and gents) and we’ll do the rest.

You can read more on the Graduly website

P.S. We’ll be around on Thursday’s & Friday’s from 08:30 – 18:00  Pop in with your donations and we’ll have tea.

Its inevitable sometimes things go wrong,

I had an experience which changed my view of a company which allowed them to truly differentiate themselves from a crowded space.

PlayNice.ly is (yet another) web based bug tracking tool, lovely crafted by these clever people. 

I attempted to login when I was greeted with a single line error: “something has gone error” and naturally fired up TweetDeck to contact them.

Before I could tweet, I had a message:

Impressive Fixed within the hour.

In a techworld of APIs, Responsive Design and cloud computing we all sometimes forget the importance of good customer service.

Hats off to Mike Kus for this insight into the realignment of Innocent Drinks.

Current

New

Watch the process.

Realigning Innocent from Mike Kus on Vimeo.

GeeknRolla 2011 was the 3^rd instalment of an annual conference by Mike Butcher and the folks at Techcrunch. The event was curated to bring together Europe’s technology start-up to network with investors and talk about how they create and build themselves.

The event took place at the basement of the Park Plaza in Victoria,very plush, great location with poor internet connectivity. The more notable speakers of the day were:

• Wendy Tan White’s talking about her rollercoaster ride at Moon Fruit highlighting how money makes you lazy and a closer look how the lack of money forces a creative, frugal and profit focused business.

• Errol Damelin demonstrated how Wonga are distrupting the retail banking industry and has sparked a whole industy of small-short-term- loans.

• Found it hard not to be in awe of Dave Mcclure and his drive for business metrics and his love of TLAs.

Some great pitches from a wide variety of startups, not convinced 3 minutes are long enough to get a real sense of a business but it was entertaining to watch. I’d recommend checking out the following: Duedil, Market Invoice, FlyPost, and Qubulus

The highlight for the day was by far Morten Lund a real entrepreneur who cuts BS and “love sales”. 

Overall great value for money, too many speakers but nevertheless an awesome atmosphere. 

(Photo by Steph Bouchet)

NoSQL (Not Only SQL) is a term used to designate database management systems that differ from classic relational database management systems.These data stores may not require fixed table schemas, and usually avoid join operations and typically scale horizontally.

As an IT Recruiter I’ve written hundreds of job adverts, mostly good ones some awesome and a few that were distinctly average.

Most job adverts read: Job title, location and salary plus benefits. Followed by a paragraph detailing desired skills or experiences.

It seems most employers and recruiters seldom value the importance of engaging with candidates to answer the most important question.

Why would someone who is happily employed want to work for you? (or your client).

Now for some good examples: Mark Boulton Design, Carsonifed and AdLib.

Hello World