TechCrunchUK's Christmas Party

The networking part of the event featured the highly predictable scenario of a mostly male crowd, with the odd cute girl and TechCrunchUK editor Mike Butcher dressed as Santa. (c). 

The TechCrunchUK's Christmas Party on 16th Dec was an interesting night out. I attended the last speaking session, which consisted of entrepreneurs giving pitches to investors and the audience, as well as the networking event that followed. Riaz Kanani has a good summary of the companies that took part in this session.

Most of my evening was spent in the networking party. I was surprised by the number of startup type people at the event. It felt like we were back in the age of the bedroom startups of the 80s, when people were creating games that distributors would pick up and sell to millions. Perhaps this is the power of the internet. Some of the ideas that people were working with seemed so wacky (just check Riaz's writeup of the pitching session to get an idea), that it made me think my own business startup idea is the most solid idea in the world. It was insightful learning about how people were approaching their startup problems. One person, for example was reselling open source software while adding a bit of consulting. Another was rehashing and aggregating feeds to produce their own dot com site. There were also investors there. Some of them made interesting points: Hollywood always makes the most money during a recession, so there is interest in investing in entertainment. There is also an appetite for investing in startups that create cost savings for other companies. Among others at the event, I even managed to catch up with the BBC's technology correspondant, Rory Cellan-Jones. The networking venue worked well, with plentiful of free drinks and food.

TechCrunchUK have posted their own debrief.

Tech Predictions for 2009

Perceptive Pixel is one way one way the which the way people interact with technology is changing.


As 2009 approaches, all kinds of are people starting to think about the future and what it holds. These are my predictions for next year in the technology space: 

• I think we can expect advances in interaction devices that make it easier for people to interact with computers, as the iPhone multi-touch and Wii's remote control have done. It is the 25th anniversary of the Mac in 2009; perhaps Apple will introduce a touch-screen / tablet PC that works.
• Increasing availability of free wifi spots driving mobile internet usage. My sister wanders around her university, shopping centres and home - constantly browsing the internet on her iPod Touch (not iPhone) through free wifi spots.
• New collaborative / Social Media technologies for the workplace take off. For example, at my current workplace we have started using Yammer, a Twitter type thing.
• With Firefox 4 adding Prism and Chrome already including Google Gears, more and more applications will be built for the web browser rather than the desktop. i.e. more things like Google Apps and Zoho.
• New forms of devices that are neither mobile phones or computers will continue to reach expanding niches. This continues the trend of devices such as satnavs, flip cameras, ebook readers and portable gaming devices such as the PSP.
  
• The internet will continue to challenge newspapers, movie producers and all other creators of content. How can money be made when content becomes free? Media companies, such as local newspapers, will continue to face bankruptcy.  News ways of funding / paying for content will need to be found. These could include, creating scarcities (pdf), crowdfunding, or new forms of product placement.
  

MIT Enterprise Forum: What does the current economic crisis mean for European entrepreneurs and investors?

Intel was co-founded by an MIT graduate.

The UK MIT Enterprise Forum held an event last week, Wed 26th November, titled  'What does the current economic crisis mean for European entrepreneurs and investors?'. At the event, Abdul Guefor, Managing Director of Intel Capital EMEA, gave a talk on Intel Captial's business and current financial situation.

I was particularly impressed to hear that the MIT Entrepreneurship Forum has 27 chapters in the world, of which London is one. Entrepreneurship really does seem to be in the life blood of the college.

Below are the highlights of Abdul Guefor's talk.

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About Intel Capital
Intel Capital think they are the largest investor in tech startups in the world. They also have offices across the world and have been investing in companies for 20 years. Whereas some VCs have only recently been realising that VC is becoming global, Intel has been there for 20 years. Intel does not use VCs as a way of doing R&D. Instead, there are things that are important to be done to help Intel’s business, but which Intel does not want to do. E.g. Wimax: Intel does not want to be a telco, but adoption of Wimax is important for growth of Intel based mobile devices, so it made sense for Intel to invest. Intel is also interested in spend companies that will be financially successful.

The trends that Intel think will be important are

• Mobile broadband
  
• emerging countries will go straight to wireless broadband
  
• new types and varieties of devices that are neither the laptop nor mobile phone, but variations in between
  
• Power efficiency
  
• Electronic goods that regulate their power to ensure energy is not wasted.
  
• Example, in the middle east, there are hotels that are interested in air conditioning that turns itself off when people are not in the room
  
• Immersive Graphics:
  
• In the past, graphics where computed by the microprocessor. In recent times, there have been dedicated graphics processors – built by companies such as Nvidia. Will there be separate processors in the future?
  
• 3D immersive graphics are expected in the future.
  
• Healthcare sector starts using IT
  
• For example, remote monitoring of patients.

In the current financial crisis, we are seeing:

• VCs shutting down
  
• Startup companies revenues reducing
  
• IPOs almost non-existant
  

The impact is of this plummeting valuations and fewer finances.

The crisis is different to the 2001 dot com bust in that this time the whole economy is affected and there is a lack of liquidity in the financial system. Stock markets are also not over-valuing stocks as much as previously.

So is there hope for entrepreneurs?

• In a downturn, people / resources cost less, the quality of management shines through (i.e. the company is not on the up because everything is on the up), the less able competitors retrench and the long term investors prosper.
  
• Great sustainable companies are built in this time, for example Google was built in during the dot com bust. Sterling Moss said that in racing, when there is an accident everyone slows down… but he speeds up to get past everyone else.
  
• Entrepreneurs should create a ‘save the company plan’ (detailing cost cuts), rally their investors and ask if the board is functioning – the board is meant to bring outside perspective.
  
• VCs sometimes complain that the entrepreneurship pool in Europe is not strong enough: the entrepreneurs are few in number, they are not pushy enough and they are not good at marketing.
  
• According to a study, VC returns in Europe in the last 5 years have been -5%, whereas in the US they have been +2%. Is the VC model broken? It is probably just the case that VCs are pumping too much money into their companies; at large sums the returns will not be large. Instead, companies need to burn money slowly – for life, not just during a financial crisis.
  
• Innovation, not cost cutting, will lead us out of the recession.
  
• When choosing an investor, pick one with a strong track record and one that can provide capabilities that will make you successful. For example, for Intel the sweet spot is ventures that have a product and now just need a way to distribute it. Intel are able to bring in potential client companies. For some of their startups, they have run open days for potential client companies to come in.