Startups: What would the ideal web technology start-up team be composed of? 23 answers on Quora
What would the ideal web technology start-up team be composed of?
Startups: What would the ideal web technology start-up team be composed of?
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Author Archives: ManojRanaweera
Is there a similar service to mint.com for UK?
Is there a similar service to mint.com for UK? Write an answer on Quora
Is there a similar service to mint.com for UK?
Nightmare of segmenting Techcelerate, CapsuleCRM and Mailchimp Databases whilst keeping them cleaned and in sync
How do you segment multiple databases, keep them clean and in sync? If you know an easy way, please do let me know.
Techcelerate maintains 3 vital databases among many for operational management. These being:
1. Techelerate.org (Drupal 5) with 1893 community profiles used predominantly for event registration
2. Mailchimp for weekly newsletter with 1844 profiles. 49 profiles seems to be missing.
3. Capsule for sales conversion and membership renewal management. Unfortunately, Capsule does not easily display total number of profiles held.
Mailchimp automatically updates when a new profile is created on Techcelerate website, which makes life lot easier. Unfortunately, the same level of updating is not available between Techcelerate and Capsule, nor between Mailchimp and Capsule, which means, periodical manual importing of profiles from Techcelerate to Capsule. There is a Drupal module for Capsule CRM, but it does not support our version of Drupal.
First problem in here is, which database should be considered as the master? You may think this is straight forward, but it isn’t.
1. Community can update techcelerate profiles any time. As this data is not used directly for any reason other than for building event attendance lists, the profiles are used less and less directly from an operational point of view.
2. Mailchimp is used just for weekly newsletters and nothing else. Again, there is no need to access profile information on regular basis.
3. Capsule CRM is vital, as it is the key operational tool in tracking when to invoice, and what calls to be made from the sales pipeline.
CapsuleCRM is also integrated with Xero.com, but less attention is paid at present to the data exchange. From an operational management point of view, Xero’s unpaid receivable invoices list is sufficient to expedite debt recovery.
The three databases are vital to:
1. Know who to invite to events or become members
2. Inform them about events and workshops
3. Raise invoices and collect fees and expedite where relevant
But as the databases grow, segementation become even more important. This is where all become even hard to manage. Which databases do I segment? And why do I need segmentation?
Let’s say, I want to find out who to invite to be a Dragon at our next Dragons Lair. If I can pull an up to date list of investors, then I can simply start contacting them. So where do I pull the list from? Techcelerate profile are managed by individuals and therefore may not have accurate data. E.g. an individual might consider himself as an entrepreneur instead of investor, if s/he has dual roles. Segmenting on capsule isn’t straight forward as it’s bit of a mess. Mailchimp, perhaps is easier, but if someone unsubscribe, then the segmented lists might miss some of the investors I like to contact. This means I have no choice but to get the data in Capsule cleaned and segmented.
The overall conclusion is that, I have total control of data on Capsule, but not necessarily on Techcelerate (people can change) or Mailchimp (can lose as a result of unsubscription). This shows how important CRM is from day to day operational management of your business. Therefore, I ought to make a time investment to get the data on Capsule cleaned and segmented.
But I feel I am making my life difficult here. Can I get the community to clean their data, and then automatically update records on Capsule? To do this, I would need to regularly ask the community to keep their profiles up to date (they will only do this, if they see value in doing so) and then upgrade Drupal to version 6 for automatically update profiles on Capsule. I also wish there is an easy way to segregate data on Capsule to people and Companies.
It’s quite interesting to hear how Duncan Stockdill has built Capsule CRM. He is actually making you to think about your data before just uploading, hence the lack of some features. The lists are be filtered, even though they list minimum information. Whatever the problems or lack of features, I need to get Capsule in order, before the 1900 profiles grows to 2,500 and beyond.
How do you overcome similar problems with your business?
Image credit: Microsoft
What are the four essential ingredients for a tech company?
Just came back from a 30 minutes jog and got my head cleared. I was thinking about what the four essential ingredients for a tech company is to succeed? In my view:
1. Viable idea
2. Talented team
3. Access to capital
4. Accessible market
If so, how does Techcelerate help to achieve each of above?
1. Viable idea – Most entrepreneurs or wanna be entrepreneurs have ideas. Whilst we actively do not get involved at this stage, some of these ideas have been refined as part of engagement with the Techcelerate community. Of course, our events and workshops provide ample knowledge sharing opportunities. I have a nice case study on this, yet to be written though!
2. Talented team – Right team makes growth a possibility. Wrong team or lack of team makes growth impossible to achieve leading to stagnation and eventual death. Once again, I have few case studies on this. I am also counting that our new partnership with Innospace will provide access to graduates from Manchester Metropolitan University
3. Access to capital – oh boy, don’t I know how vital capital is to achieve growth. Again, we got some nice case studies yet to be written. Techcelerate has a unique opportunity to do something, perhaps actively getting involved in fund raising.
4. Access to markets – We can provide access to the north west for US and Southern companies. Again there is a case study
You will see lot more hands on action by Techcelerate in 2011 to help our Member tech companies. There will be three key initiatives for 2011:
a. Tech Centre Manchester – I am yet to find the time to write the proposal.
b. Funding and Senior Management – Need to close some of the on-going discussions
c. Working with the new government – I need to meet key individuals to discuss these
WorkFlowy as a Personal Task Management Tool
Since I was introduced to WorkFlowy by my fellow tech entrepreneur, Joel Gascoigne of OnePage, I have been using it daily as my personal task management tool. WorkFlowy is a simple outline tool that can be used in multiple ways, e.g. build your business plan.
I have tried many task management tools since venturing into the exciting world of tech entrepreneurship in 2004, but never found anything that is as simple as workflowy. For many years, I used MindManager from MindJet, a licensed software application for mind mapping to plan my daily, weekly, monthly and annual schedules.
For daily and weekly tasks management, I would continue to use WorkFlowy. Monthly and Annual plans, I will continue to use Mind Mapping, which is licensed software and not SaaS.
Having trialled, how do I plan to use WorkFlowy:
- Every night, I plan to add the tasks for the next day and review the tasks for the week
- Those daily tasks which were scheduled but not completed on the day will be distributed across the next few days
- Tasks completed will be crossed out and will remain intact as a diary entry.
I am also thinking of adding a summary of the day’s accomplishments, as a Journal entry, which should help me produce Progress Reports at key periods.
In terms of general planning, I break a company into ten areas. This is something I have been practicing for many years. You may also benefit from this process. Here are the 10 areas:
- Opportunity – Opportunity analysis and refinement, business planning, strategy, competitor analysis, etc
- Product – Product development, road maps, testing, etc
- Marketing – Market plans, segmentation, etc
- Sales – Sales plans, target list, sales performance, etc
- Operations – Operational plans, scheduling, progress reporting, etc
- Service – Customer service, support desks,
- Finance – Financial forecasting, annual accounts, Tax, etc
- HR – Worforce management, recruitment, etc
- Legal – Contracts, legal compliances, companies house, etc
- Other – anything that does not fit into above
The starting point for above was Michael Porter’s Value Chain Analysis. But as you can see, above is quite different from Michael’s well founded framework. What matters is, above works for me, and it may also bring you discipline.
One last point to clarify; above breakdown is more suited to monthly and annual planning (in my case; on mindmaps). From there, you could breakdown to daily and weekly targets and add them to your WorkFlowy.
I am keen to understand how you segment your work.
Becoming a Trustee of The Bridgewater Hall Community Education Trust
Bridgewater Hall Community Education Trust
The Bridgewater Hall
Today, I became a Trustee of The Bridgewater Hall Community Education Trust (BHCET).
The BHCET maximises the education potential of the Bridgewater Hall which is a world class concert hall in the centre of Manchester. The BHCET runs a wide range of projects, programmes and activities taking the building and its rich artistic life as a stimulus.
The Board of Trustees consists of many well known faces of Manchester and the North West, and how I would add value is yet to be worked out. I am hoping this may be in couple of areas:
1. Brand
2. Technology
3. Culture
These days, just like you, I am very careful about what activities I take on and how these align with my overall objectives in life. My daughters’ interest in music and drama paid a part in my decision to accept the position of Trustee. I would also be keen to explore how they could take part in activities as I learn more about the Trust.
In case you did not know, my other voluntary contribution is to help bilateral trade between India and the North West through UK India Business Council.
If you would like to find out more, please visit the website http://www.bridgewater-hall.co.uk and select Learning from the menu.
Mini Social Media Strategy for edocr.com
Mini Social Media Strategy to stimulate your documents on edocr.com:
+ Find five colleagues savvy with social networks, and get them to bookmark your document to Twitter, Linkedin, Facebook, Del.icio.us, Digg and StumbleUpon
+ Let us know and we could also bookmark, provided its relevant not a low quality document
What are the 10 most used enterprise web applications?
What are the 10 most used enterprise web applications by you and what are the primary reasons for their usage?? In my case, in order of frequency, i.e. first being the most used and 10th being the least used out of the 10:
1. http://mail.google.com – emails
2. http://edocr.com – lead generation
3. http://docs.google.com – spreadsheets
4. http://xero.com – accounts
5. http://capsulecrm.com – opportunities (techcelerate.org)
6. http://salesforce.com – opportunities (edocr.com)
7. http://mailchimp.com – email marketing (techcelerate.org)
8. http://zendesk.com – customer support (edocr.com)
9. http://assembla.com – product management (edocr.com)
10. http://madmimi.com – email marketing (edocr.com)
Do share your list! Many thanks
What are the 10 most used social web applications by you?
What are the 10 most used social web applications by you and what are the primary reasons for their usage?? In my case, in order of frequency, i.e. first being the most used and 10th being the least used out of the 10:
- www.edocr.com – no surprise here!
- www.twitter.com – instant broadcasting, traffic generator and on-line collaboration (plus tweetdeck + tweetie + cotweet)
- www.facebook.com – access to 500 million user base with difficulty
- www.Linkedin.com – verify email addresses of new contacts and learn about individuals
- www.youtube.com – videos of our events
- www.stumbleupon.com – traffic generation
- www.digg.com – traffic generation
- del.icio.us – traffic generation
- www.slideshare.net – for slides of interest
- www.flickr.com – pictures sharing and embedding
Do share your list! Many thanks
My comment to “Rapleaf and the Facebook Privacy Ruckus” by Om Malik
Hi Om,
I wrote a blog post several months ago about how to find a person’s email address, verify it and then use other services to enrich it. I never published it due to not being totally comfortable with what I have written. The process involves (where the email address is not known):
1. Guessing the email address (there are number of ways)
2. Verifying this using the largest professional network (and if needed the largest social network)
3. Once verified, add to web applications that could enrich the email address by finding out social profiles of the individual and then automatically capturing updates of her/his web activities.
In addition, there are many startups offering digital cards where individuals willingly add their profile data.
Given above, it is unclear who the bad guy in this case is, as we have provided the information willingly in the first place to various web applications. Selling our data to third parties was pioneered by people such as Experian, and it happens every day whether we like it or not.
Perhaps, there ought to be a set of best practices that reputable applications will adhere to. You can take it to another stage by allowing third party audits, etc. This could create an opportunity for a new market segment.
Not a simple issue…I am glad you raise it though..
Best regards
Manoj