Tag Archives: Techcelerate

Nightmare of segmenting Techcelerate, CapsuleCRM and Mailchimp Databases whilst keeping them cleaned and in sync

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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?

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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

Why am I rebranding Northern StartUp 2.0?

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Northern StartUp 2.0 has come a long way since our humble start in November 2006. Whilst I enjoy running it, it has strained my resources heavily. Unless something is done, it’s sustainability is questionable in the medium to long run.

So here are my reasons for repositioning:
1. It must generate income to compensate effort.
2. Lacks the collaboration between new and established technology companies:
- Customers of early technology products are technology companies
- Opportunities in joint ventures
- Opportunities in acquisitions
3. It does not provide a mechanism for southern and overseas tech companies to break into the north west
4. No attention given to key segments such as mobile or SaaS through out the year
5. Insufficient knowledge transfer from established to new
6. No staff

Above will be addressed through:
1. Membership based on revenues.
2. Two strands, below £5m revenues and above. More opportunities for collaboration, setup joint ventures and help with acquisitions
3. Bespoke events and initiatives for southern and overseas companies to break in to the region
4. Focus groups with activities through out the year for technology segments
5. Active programs of match making for knowledge transfer
6. Membership income will eventually support number of full time employees.

The rebranded and repositioned organisation (techcelerate) will be focusing on both small and large technology companies. At the bottom end, the focus will remain on the needs of tech entrepreneurs. At the top end, the focus would be on accelerating the growth.

Lot to work out, but the future looks exciting. Come and join the ride!

Rebranding – Budget vs no budget, freedom vs. constraints

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It is no surprise to my regular readers that Northern StartUp 2.0 is currently going through a rebranding and repositioning exercise. Whilst there is a lot to talk about why this is taking place, I thought of highlighting few discussions I had on Twitter about rebranding and repositioning with an international software house which has also gone through a rebranding exercise recently.

Here is my situation: no budget but total freedom.
Here is the situation of the software house: large budget (assumption) but constraints due to history and stakeholders.

With my total freedom, and given I am lazy (or clever, depending on your viewpoint), I sought the answer from Twittersphere. What should our brand be, both in terms of name, logo and strap line.

After some deliberations, Katrina Delargy (tech entrepreneur) came up with the winner which was then refined by Tim Dempsey (investor cum service provider). A new brand was born, Techcelerate. The logo concept was forwarded by Ed French (venture capitalist), which is now going through few changes to make it look liked it has been designed by WPP. Strapline will almost be “Tech Business: Accelerated”. Final change for strapline came through email via James Crawford (service provider). All those who were involved in this process were our customers. Techcelerate is a brand that could be easily understood by a first timer without knowing what services we actually delivered. A real winner, in my humble opinion!

In the case of the software house with euro 394 million revenues and 3500 employees, it was not straight forward as tapping into the wisdom of Twittersphere. They have adopted a similar line to most large brands, that is, the name does not mean anything unless the brand is built. Take Apple for example, who would know it is about a computer unless you have come across the product before. Part of the large budget can be spent on communicating and establishing the new brand and its values.

It is important that whether you intend to enable people to buy gold, computers, phones, houses or food, that your brand sits well with your target demographic. Eventually the ability of a company to have people recognise the brand without even having to think is going to benefit them in the long run, but this is crucially based on ensuring that the brand itself is accessible, memorable and geared towards the sort of people who will attach themselves to it in an act of brand loyalty. “Microsoft” is quite a straightforward, no-nonsense name, but “Apple” says casual, cool and fun-loving, and this style is reflected in their product range, a better fit than Microsoft’s overly serious branding which Apple themselves have riffed on in adverts in recent years.

This article is not about showing who is clever, but it is to show that above scenario is a fact of life. It is usual for big companies to spend significant resources in rebranding, but tools like Twitter makes the smaller companies come up with winners with no budget! Just like large companies test the brand with its customers (again at cost), Twitter allows us to do it whilst the brand is being designed.

The power of social media is immense, if you learn how to tame it…

Rebranding - Budget vs no budget, freedom vs. constraints

Next Generation Broadband Access – Building the Case for Regional Investment

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On 15th Jan, I attended an Insider Breakfast event held at Bridgewater Hall hosted by Michael Taylor and his team. Read Insider – Morning with who’s who of Manchester Corporate Sector for my coverage of the event. Following on from there, I am running an event on the Next Generation Broadband Access jointly with DC-KTN. Event details are below and I hope you will be able to join us on the 22nd Feb at eOffice Manchester. Please visit DC-KTN to register for this free event.

This event gives you the opportunity to have your say on what the future of Broadband services should be in the north west, a highly topical subject at the moment in the light of the “Digital Britain” report. Whether provider or potential user of this new level of broadband service, we would very much welcome your views and feel that you could contribute greatly to the success of the event. At the same time, this provides you with the opportunity to shape the future of broadband to meet the needs of your business

BACKGROUND

As the speed of broadband has risen over the past ten years, services available have also kept pace, with email and web browsing giving way in bandwidth terms to music downloads, live TV, interactive gaming and peer-to-peer services. In turn, it’s these new services that have also placed higher demands on broadband access for higher download speeds and increased mobility. It is becoming clear that current mainstream access speeds, whatever the operator or technology, are unlikely to be able to provide the variety and quality of service that consumers will require in the future. A number of operators are beginning to invest in improved access technologies (fibre to the home and WiMax, for example) but there is not yet a clear business case either for a particular technology or for investment overall, nor is there a clear view of the services that users will require once the higher speeds are available.

THE FORUM

With 73% of people now feeling that broadband is as important a utility as electricity or water the views of users about future services are important. This forum provides broadband users the opportunity to hear about the future for broadband access and services and to give input on their interests and needs. This event is one of several being held in regions of the UK and the output will be used to inform service providers, government and regulators about the services and packages that people will want as higher-speed access becomes generally available. Our presenters will set out their view of the future for broadband technology and services. Participants will then be invited to join the debate to help to formulate a view of the future landscape of services by joining one of three facilitated workshop groups. The information recorded from these groups will be combined with output from other regions and will be used to inform the industry debate on the technologies, architectures and industry structures needed to deliver future services.

Programme: 

Chair: Philip Hargrave, CEO DC-KTN

12:30-12:45 Registration | tea and coffee
12:45-13:30 Lunch and networking
13:30-13:40 Introduction | Philip Hargrave, CEO DC-KTN
13:40-14:10 How to deliver 10Gbit/s…or perhaps not? | Ian Vance, Amazing Communications; Chair of the UK Government’s Photonics Leadership Group
14:10-14.30 Manchester: United Digital City | Shaun Fensom, Chairman Manchester Digital and Consultant to Manchester City Council
14:30-14.45 Policy changes we need – John Ridd (yet to confirm)
14:45-14:00 Refreshments
15:00-15:45 Facilitated Workshop groups: Benefits (Dennis Kehoe – AIMES) | Commercial (David Ashmore – Metronet) | Performance (James Blessing – ISPA)
15.50-16.30 Reports back, plenary discussion & close
16:30 Close

The DCKTN and Northern StartUp 2.0 are jointly hosting this event in Manchester

Northern StartUp 2.0 Website is Under Attack!

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For the last five weeks, Northern StartUp 2.0 website has been under attack by spammers. The spamming was related to opening accounts, about 5 every hour, which has resulted in over 1000 new accounts. Less than 1% of these accounts have actually added any comments, but if they all did, the site will be overwhelmed by spammed comments.

Here are some facts about the site:

  • Drupal 5.3
  • Accounts are needed to comment

Based on various suggestions via Twitter and from Ixis IT (previous website development team) and CTISN (current website development team), following changes were made:

  • Captcha
  • Recaptcha
  • Mollow
  • Akismet
  • Must complete all 12 fields to register with tricky new feild to catch the spammers
  • Admin must approve account creation – all new accounts are blocked but this activity creates additional emails for me to address

None of the above had any impact on spam account creation! All of us are running out of ideas and wonder whether you have any further thoughts on this issue. All help is most welcome.

Don’t forget, the issue is not to identify which is spam and which is real, but to stop this happening altogether.

Update 1:

With an immediate effect, account creation has been suspended. If you wish an account, please get in touch with your phone no. and email address.

Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience

Best regards
Manoj

Insider – Morning with who’s who of Manchester Corporate Sector

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As Michael Taylor, Editor of the North West Insider introduced me at the yesterday’s Insider Breakfast event, “where’s Manoj, a short chap, ah there he is”. Luckily, Sean Fensom, Chairman and Digital Veteren of Manchester Digital later came to my rescue as he is shorter than me. At this point, I felt a whole lot better, having cocked up my earlier question to the panel, which Dave Carter, Head of Manchester Digital Development Agency responded by saying that if we want help, talk to the VCs. Unfortunately, there are only two VCs in town (EV Group and YFM Private Equity). They are as risk-averse as hell, unless its their ideas (sorry guys – bit unfair I know! Julian, loves your rough 2010 look!). Later, Michael tweeted the following, perhaps thinking he offended me (no chance there, Mike)

@manojranaweera #ff top chap. Loads of energy, ideas and charming eccentricity

At least, Michael has been consistent in there. This is the second time, and the only person to my knowledge to call me eccentric. As you can see from the thumbnail (first one), at least I am with good company (2nd paragraph right hand).

The North West Insider May 2009 - Editorial - A Special Plea Insider Digital Event Report 15 Jan 10 Manchester Vanguard House Brochure

Ok, those who were misfortunate enough to miss the excellent event organised by Insider Digital Team, which was well attended, here (second above) is a Twitter Report courtesy of moi!

What I also realised is that there are some hard networkers in Manchester, whom you would see attending many of the city’s key events. Here is a list in no particular order:

  • Phil Jones – UK Managing Director, Brother – a man who thinks we still need a printer (actually I own two)
  • Awan Moneeb – a man in demand – Chairman of Manchester Chamber of Commerce
  • Graham Bond – Baker Tilly – must find a way to do business with Graham as he is everywhere!
  • Steve Bennett – ex IoD – nice chap!
  • Tom Cheesewright – a man who keeps changing brands, And Digital

I would like to share some of the discussions I was part of, if that’s OK with you:

  1. Manchester Digital – has a desire to connect with all the technology based groups in the city. This aspect is currently managed by NWDC (chaired by Andrew Disley), which I am a member of. Other than NS20 and Manchester Digital all other members of NWDC run software user groups except for GeekUp (Andrew’s baby!), which is a collective of software developers (and friends).
  2. Sharp Project – I am yet to have a proper chat with Sue Webster who runs Sharp project, but question remains whether she has ambitions to open up her well-funded facilities to product-based technology companies that NS20 champions.
  3. Creatives and NS20 – This year, NS20 will put effort into building stronger relationships with other organisations. RedVision promised to give me an insight to digital media – I must follow this up!
  4. Broadband issue – This is currently a hot issue in Manchester, and it would not be right, if I do not poke my nose into this discussion. In addition, being a partner and a tenant of Daresbury Science and Innovation Campus (DSIC), I would like DSIC to be a major stakeholder in this discussion, due to DSIC hosting a Media Access Point, the forthcoming Vanguard House (third thumbnail), and current 85 or so high-tech tenants. I also believe that Northernnet and other stakeholders have not engaged with the business community in sufficient context to understand their needs. I have been promised through twitter that marketing of Media Access Points will commence next month.
  5. Insider and NS20 – There is a desire to do something together. I just wish that respective parties (one being me!) sit down and firm up what, when and where? Talk is cheap, only actions matter! (Take the hint Mr. Taylor!)

Based on some further discussions outside the Insider Breakfast (I enjoyed it, let me in next time as well Michael!), there are few other areas I need to poke my nose at (when would someone pay for all these nose poking is not clear):

  1. Building a VC culture. It seems the city has ambitions to attract VCs from elsewhere to setup base here. Did you know that NS20 brought VCs from Internet Capital (New York, USA), Advent Partners, DFJ Esprit (twice), Eden Ventures, Seedcamp, Difference Engine/North East Finance, Doughty Hanson to Manchester without any public sector spending? The responsibility for this activity seems to be given to a specific body (not sure which part of this was confidential so better not spill out the beans in case they did not know it themselves). Plus they wish to make existing VCs less risk-averse! According to Steve Livingston, most of the VCs that comes through his accountancy practice are not interested in technology companies. If Manchester wants NS20′s help, we will be happy to help in educating the VC sector.
  2. Businesses and IT. It seems that some non IT businesses are bit fedup of hearing too much about the city’s focus on creative media. And they seem to be in the dark about how to take advantage of new technologies to improve their bottom line. Sounds like an opportunity for NS20. I think there is a way we could address this whilst helping our budding tech entrepreneurs. More to come later.

As usual, drop your thoughts here please.

First UK Microsoft Innovation Academy Workshop

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Jyoti Banerjee and Manoj Ranaweera of edocr-

The first ever UK Microsoft Innovation Academy Workshop took place on the 10th Dec 09 at Daresbury Innovation Centre. It was delivered by Jyoti Banerjee. I tweeted the full workshop, a two-day event squeezed into one-day, and my tweets are captured on the following report, which you can read on-line or download.

Microsoft Innovation Academy - 10th Dec 09
Whilst I had reservations about the value of the workshop prior to participation, I was proven wrong during the afternoon session. As far as I was concerned, it was a day well spent getting a valuable insight into developing the right business model for edocr.com.

Few quotes from fellow participants:

“Interseting day, very useful, covered strategic issues that will have a big impact on our approach to the market”, Aldo de Leonibus, Director of Inventya.

“Useful and timely overview covering a variety of issues around the value chain and approaching new markets”, Katrina Delargy, Managing Director, Aventura.

I sincerely hope Microsoft will continue to offer these workshops to high growth businesses across the country.

Microsoft Sponsored Innovation Academy Workshop For Start-Up Software Businesses

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As you are probably be aware, Northern StartUp 2.0 has been a Microsoft BizSpark Network Partner since we launched the programme at Cloud Computing event held in April 2009 when Bindi Karia visited us.


For the first time in the UK, Microsoft is running an Innovation Academy Workshop For Start-Up Software Businesses on the 10th of Dec 2009, and I am honoured to inform you that this event will be run out of Daresbury Innovation Centre, where both of my companies are head quartered.

The course takes the form of one-day interactive instructor-led workshop covering:

- Introduction to the software industry: How it’s the same, why it’s different
- The Market Environment and its Analysis: Managing change and ambiguity
- Building Customer Value and Loyalty: Which Software Business Model?
- Solutions Selling and Managing the Complex Sale
- Software Operations: Introduction Application Life Cycle Management

This  free  workshop is designed to provide executives and managers of independent software application vendors with the business tools and knowledge required to determine their competitive advantage in their targeted value chain, bring software products to market and plan for international marketing and channel promotion.

The programme will be delivered by Agitavi Research.

The software development industry contributes in the region of £20 billion per year to the UK economy. Microsoft is committed to supporting a thriving software development industry in the UK through their partner programmes and through the BizSpark programme for software startups.

The event is co-hosted by Northern StartUp 2.0, Daresbury Science and Innovation Campus and the Northwest Regional Development Agency.

If you wish to attend this event, please contact me in the first instance. Please note that Microsoft is expecting to deliver this programme to about 20 startups, with preference given to those who have already signed up to the BizSpark programme. The sooner you apply the better chance you have of securing a place.