NeilCocker.com

As published in Cardiff Life Magazine, August 2012

There were only two and a half Welsh businesses in the recently announced Startups.co.uk Top 100 for 2012. They were Veritas (translation services), A-Star Sports (developmental coaching for young children), and Rocktails (great frozen cocktails company who despite a company move to London are still produced in Wales). And while it’s hardly a scientific poll, this is just one of many instances where Welsh startups don’t get enough national business coverage.

But I’m not here to complain about the London-centric nature of British media, or propose that Welsh startups get unjustly overlooked. I think there’s certainly some element of truth in that because we’re tucked away at the other end of the M4, away from the throbbing hives of startup activity in London, and the journalists and bloggers who inevitably flock around them. But I don’t think that’s an excuse for the lack of coverage.

I’m here to say we don’t do enough ourselves to shout about what we’re doing. But it’s down to us to tell the the journalists and bloggers about what we’re doing and we can’t expect them to come looking for positive stories. There are plenty of those within a few miles of central London, a short walk from their office or local pub. So we have to work twice as hard to convince them that it’s worth looking over the border and giving precious column inches to our startups.

It’s easy to fall into the trap of complaining that your company or city is overlooked. I know I’ve certainly done it. But self-pity and envy never helped anyone. Every founder needs to be out there working hard to get as much press and PR as they possibly can for their individual startup. But we should also be promoting ourselves as a city or region cluster. There are many benefits to being part of a recognised “movement”. As well as benefitting from being part of the great network in Silicon Roundabout, for example, there’s also something newsworthy in itself about being based there. And that starts to become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Success begets success. Attention begets attention.

So I’m calling on you all to become ambassadors for Cardiff, and to tell the world about the city, the great startups here, and the great founders and entrepreneurs building them. Tell everyone from outside the city that you speak to. As soon as I finish writing this I’ll be asking Cardiff Council what banner or advertising space we can use. Imagine a permanent hoarding in the city with a different startup featured on it every month!

Together we can raise the profile of Cardiff as a great place to build a startup. As John F Kennedy apparently once said: “A rising tide lifts all boats”.

In the latest of our one-minute profiles, Neil speaks to another Cardiff startup making waves.

Hello! Introduce yourself.
Hei. My name is Ollie Gardener. My husband and I co-founded NoddlePod. I was born in Norway and only moved to Cardiff about 6 months ago with my Welsh husband.

So, what does your startup do?
NoddlePod is a collaboration platform for people working and learning in parallel.  Its been used for leadership development programs/communities, university classes, organisational change processes and much more besides!

What makes your startup special?
We are so used to the concept of ‘working in teams’ it often overshadows the various other ways in which our work might be connected. NoddlePod seeks to leverage connections between people working in parallel and create an environment of mutual support.

What was the genesis? The eureka moment that made you realise you had to build this company?
I found myself looking for a tool I soon realised didn’t exist. My husband is a software developer, so it was natural to discuss what I felt was missing with him. The idea and the concept grew from there.

And where are you at right now?
We launched NoddlePod 1.0 about a year ago. We are starting to get some good traction and just feel really privileged to be able to continue developing our ideas and improving NoddlePod.

What’s the key to your growth?
If someone could wave a magic wand, I’d increase employers trust in their own people. I believe that organisations would be a lot better off if they could learn to value systems that encourage the more informal, social approach to learning and getting work done.

Where would you like your company to be in 5 years time?
I hope we continue to see people from backgrounds we didn’t expect “get” NoddlePod and starting using it in ways that benefit them.

Where can we find out more?
noddlepod.com
twitter.com/olliegardener

Tags: Cardiff Life

My recent article as published in July’s Cardiff Life magazine. You can download the PDF to read in all its full technicolour glory here.

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There appear to be only a very small handful of digital and tech companies in Cardiff actively seeking private investment. Mine just happens to be one of them.

The reasons for seeking investment for digital and tech companies is usually very simple: rapid, explosive growth. Most business models in this sector are reliant on being scalable. Many simply don’t work without a very large amount of users. After a recent pitch I got told by a potential investor that my business wouldn’t work because we didn’t earn nearly enough money per user. He used to run a manufacturing firm that had five clients, each of whom gave him half a million a year. That’s how you run a business, he said. But, I countered, what if you have thousands, or millions, of clients? How do you explain Facebook being valued at $50 BILLION when its average revenue per client is under $10 per year, I asked.

He couldn’t answer. His understanding of the only way to build a business was out-dated.

Startups like ours are massively viable, but often only if you have a very large user base. Facebook wouldn’t really make any money with a few thousand users. It needs scale to make serious profit. But it’s not easy to reach hundreds of thousands, or millions, of users then persuade them to regularly use your service. You need rapid prototyping, testing and development to make your service as desirable as possible, and you need marketing to let the world know that you exist. And all this costs money.

The process of seeking that financial boost is mentally and emotionally exhausting. A series of investors pick over every part of your plans in phenomenal detail. It leaves you with sleepless nights as you sweat over the fourteenth version of your business plan, and worry about giving your over-rehearsed pitch for the 12th time. By the end of it you’re sick of the sight of your own financial forecasts. And it almost certainly takes months and months before, if you’re very good, someone invests in you and your idea.

But I would recommend almost any startup serious about growth to begin the process as soon as they can, regardless of whether they feel ready or not. By the time you realise you need the money, you’ll wish you’d started the process six months before. I know I did. And by the end of the process you’ll understand your business more than you could ever have thought possible. It hurts like hell, but it’s a turbo-charged crash-course in understanding what makes your business tick and whether you are ready to take it to the next level.

And if you’re not, you will know exactly what you have to do in order to be ready.

In the latest of our one-minute profiles, Neil speaks to another Cardiff startup making waves.

Hello! Introduce yourself.
Hi, I’m Alex Kavel co-founder of Graduly. I’m a Cardiff boy, graduated from Cardiff University and an ex-recruiter.

So, what does your startup do?
Graduly focuses on helping small and medium businesses across the UK, (instead of large corporates), to connect with Graduates by accessing our own Library of Graduate CVs.

What makes Graduly special?
Unlike conventional CV libraries, we don’t need the graduate to have a ready made  CV – the whole point is that we help them to build it in such a way that employers can easily zero in on the candidate they really want. Our secret weapon is the search tool we’ve built around our unique ‘exact match’ algorithm, and that’s all I’m saying!

What was the genesis’? The eureka moment that made you realise you had to build this company?
As a recruiter I found the tools we were using to search for Graduates were in fact antiquated and ineffective. There are, for example, no tools currently for easily searching for graduates with a 2:1 from a red brick university. So I got together with my co-Founder, Neil Smith, who was already building cool social apps, and Graduly was born.

And where are you at right now?
After a busy first year of building our website, apps and tools, we’re now working with Universities and companies across the UK, and focusing on bringing in the graduates to populate the CV library.

What’s the key to your growth? In other words, if someone could wave a magic wand, what would you want them to do for your business?
Working with Universities will be key to fast growth. So far we have had a good response from a number of key institutions, as well as businesses. Once graduates know what Graduly can do for them, we’ll be on our way, so a megaphone message to all students, please!

Where would you like your company to be in 5 years time?
Our vision is to be seen as the natural choice for graduates moving into the world of employment – as UCAS is to those entering Higher Education. Graduating should lead to Graduly! In industry terms we want to be more than just the biggest database of candidates and range of clients, we want our ‘exact match’ algorithm and approach to the graduate recruitment process to raise the bar of the ‘Job Board’ and CV library industry.

Where can we find out more?
www.graduly.com

Tags: Cardiff Life

I’ve recently been asked by Cardiff Life magazine to write a monthly column on startups in Cardiff. It’s a short look at what’s happening, what the future looks like for startups in Cardiff, and a very quick profile of a local startup. Comment if you’d like to be featured in a future issue.

Anyway, here’s the first article and profile, which is on the shelves this week. Worth looking out for as you get to see cheesy pictures of Rob Lo Bue and I! (update – download the full colour PDF right here).

Cardiff is a wonderful, innovative, creative city. You don’t need me to tell you that. But sometimes we do need to remind the rest of the world. I’m forever having to drag business contacts here, kicking and screaming, then finding that after 48 hours they have to be paid to leave. They don’t want to go, realising the benefits of being in a city that can be traversed in 15 minutes. By bike. Or that it’s a joy to not have to travel 2 hours to the nearest remote countryside, beach, mountains or isolated lake. That stuff is on our doorstep, and we sometimes take it for granted.

And this makes it an absolutely ideal place to establish a digital, technological or creative startup. You only need to look at the geographies of Palo Alto, California (“Silicon Valley” to you and me) or Boulder, Colorado, to see how a relatively small community, with easy access to geography that improves quality of life, can be the bedrock for a great startup scene. Although we’ll have to quickly gloss over the minor issue of the considerably better weather that they have over there!

South Wales has a great history of business, manufacturing and production, but it will need to turn to new innovative business models and learn that the old ways of doing business aren’t always the most appropriate any more. There’s a very good chance that the next global business success out of Cardiff will have been started by young man or woman who spends 80% of their time in a hoodie and flip-flops, and was turning over £500k before they felt the need to get their first office. They will most likely be a Zuckerberg, not a Trump. Things have changed, and fast.

The reasons why Cardiff isn’t yet a city renowned worldwide for its digital startup culture are many and varied, and I certainly don’t have all the answers. And there’s no point trying to replicate Silicon Valley exactly. The story of that region goes back over 50 years to a semi-conductor lab. Our business history, culture, geography and attitude is different, and so our success will be different. But if we’re to be looked upon favourably in a global marketplace we need to be having strong digital successes. Over the coming months I will attempt to throw some light on the great startups here that could one day be our very own Facebook, and the work that lots of different people are undertaking to make Cardiff, and Wales, one of the places you immediately think of when you talk about companies that are changing the way we live, work, play and create.

Neil is the founder of Dizzyjam.com, blogs at NeilCocker.com, tweets at @NeilCocker, and with many others is helping to build the startup community of Cardiff through StartupCardiff.com.

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In the first of our one-minute startup profiles, we spoke to Robert Lo Bue, of Applingua.com

Hello! Introduce yourself.
Hi, I’m Rob and I am the founder of Applingua.com. I was born near Llantrisant, just outside Cardiff, but have been travelling around for the last 7 years (Bath, Munich, Rome & Barcelona!). I got back earlier this year and set up office in Cardiff Bay.

So, what does your startup do?
Applingua takes smartphone apps and translates them into different languages. Most developers make their apps and games in English. Applingua turns them into French, German, Chinese, etc (even Welsh!) so everyone can enjoy them.

What makes Applingua special?
Applingua is pretty unique. It’s not just about translation: we test each app directly on the device, we check word fit on the screen and that they still make sense in context.

What was the genesis? The eureka moment that made you realise you had to build this company?
I was working for an app development company in Munich and was in charge of translating their apps. It was such hard work and translation agencies didn’t really know what an iPhone was. I had to do something about it.

And where are you at right now?
I’m nearly 18 months into Applingua and it’s going strong. We have clients all over the world, helping them increase their own app sales internationally. Applingua recently got its own office and has just brought a new member to the team (Hi Sarah!).

What’s the key to your growth? In other words, if someone could wave a magic wand, what would you want them to do for your business?
Stop time. Often startups don’t need tonnes of cash thrown at them, but Bernard’s Watch. There’s so much I want to do, but there just aren’t enough hours in the day.

Where would you like your company to be in 5 years time?
In 5 years time, Applingua will be the de facto internationalisation agency. I want Applingua to add even more value by consulting apps on their international marketing strategies. The app market is growing every second, we want to grow along with it.

Where can we find out more?
www.applingua.com
www.twitter.com/applingua

Tags: Cardiff Life