A few days ago we focused on Finnish innovation. Now it’s time for a look at Israel, another small country punching above its weight. Israel has an unusually high number of engineers per capita, products of the highly-esteemed Technion university in Haifa. Israel is also rated just behind the US in the number of companies [...]

We usually think of geeks, techies, product developers et al as being glued 24/7 to their computer screens, but they actually, every once in a while, socialise OFFline and gather to drink beers and eat pizzas. Meetup.com, a NYC start-up, has become an offline social networking success story. Founded during the dotcom boom era, it [...]

Joining innovatrs has some great advantages for startups, entrepreneurs and innovative souls. Not least of these is the 7-stage, 49-phase, innovate framework which takes our extensive experience and knowledge to create one of the most practical startup frameworks you can imagine. So today I thought I’d give a little sneak preview into one of the [...]

Facebook is apparently valued at over $50bn; Groupon rejected a $6bn buyout from Google when the ‘deal-of-the-day’ website was only two years-old; and if rumours are to be believed, TweetDeck was recently acquired by Twitter for over $40m…not bad for a company with a mere fifteen employees. There’s little question we’re in the middle of [...]

It’s been a busy week here at Innovatrs, but we’ve managed to lift the lid and delve into the world of startup competitions. With Monday’s post focussing on European startup contests, Tuesday’s looked at one of the winners from LeWeb 2010. But Wednesday’s post helped to show that it isn’t all about winning, whilst yesterday [...]

We’ve previously written about how innovators and entrepreneurs often build their ventures based on proven models and existing ideas. The ‘innovation’ part is how the existing pool of knowledge is used to progress an idea and create something unique. Innovation is about being smart and savvy, but that’s only one of the prerequisites. A successful [...]

This week is all about acknowledging failure – an important part of eventual success in business. Even with a big fat cheque from an eager VC, it’s a word you may have to come to accept at some stage… As we all know – most businesses that start out life full of hope and promise [...]

Once upon a time, Venture Capitalists used to have all the fun. They still can- but they have to learn the new rules of the game.   Identifying small, niche business opportunities with massive potential for growth and long-term success was the game winning strategy.

Angels beware, Pre-Seed investment funds are returning. And this time around they’re a little more sophisticated. Your average tech related start-up (that can raise money) typically goes through 3 rounds of fundraising: 1. Friend and Family 2. Seed Round 3. Series A

As entrepreneurs there are times when we need to turn to VC’s. Most of the time we do so at our peril. VC’s can be the most frustrating, greedy, calculating sons of… Well, that’s the rule. Every rule has its exception. VC’s worth partnering with are the very rare exception.

Okay, okay. This video will almost certainly not turn you into a smarter, savvier and more effective entreprenuer.  But it might make you laugh. It does contain a few truths though (maybe even a few home-truths). The online space is the place to be to make money.

Traditional venture capital is at a Crossroads. The industry is still young by many standards, and like all spotty teenagers, it’s changing. The first and second generation of professional VC’s have learned a bunch of things, sadly most at the expense of the entrepreneurs they backed and the investors they sold. First up they learned [...]

Traditional venture capital is not working. Just look at the average returns of the vast majority of funds. The downturn hasn’t exactly helped. Early stage investing flew out of the pram. We asked our entrepreneurs what they would like to see as a manifesto for change. Here are some thoughts: – treat entrepreneurs like customers [...]

I recently heard a successful serial entrepreneur and early stage investor state that the secret to early stage investing is to invest in ‘the chef not the recipe’. One of Silicon Valley’s greatest early stage investors, Bill Draper, used to tell me that he treated the entrepreneurs that he invested in like a stable of [...]

Getting enough funds to start a new business sometimes feels as likely as winning the lottery! But there is a silver lining – at least in the UK. Hi-tech startups can apply for the all new UK Innovation Investment Fund. Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced that life sciences, plus digital and advanced manufacturing businesses are at [...]

I remember one of my venture investors, from the Valley, telling me ‘Phil, remember, a VC only ever has to do one thing for you. Write a cheque!’ He went on to add: ‘To get the deal they will promise you everything else under the sun and deliver none of it. So all that matters [...]

Finding early stage investors can be like looking for a very small needle in a very large haystack. And in downturns it gets even worse. In depressions like we have just gone through its like finding nats on camels asses while they sprint for their lives in a sandstorm. Given that venture capital dudes have [...]

The venture capital industry as we know it is going the way of the Dodo. There are 3 key reasons for this: 1. As startups, technologies and innovation become more global the ‘Silicon Valley’ ecosystem is sidelined. And VC’s outside the Valley have poor track records and weak managers. Startups abroad happily build businesses without [...]

Techcrunch has a couple of interesting articles you should look at – one on how much VC’s really support innovation and another written by the founder of Meebo on what it takes to make it from nothing. Both support our view that entrepreneurs need the right independent advice and guidance to get it right. Investors [...]

A couple of seismic events occurred yesterday in the Web world. First up Facebook announced that they have 300 million registered users, $500 million in revenues for ’09 and are cashflow positive – all supporting their recent private equity valuation of $10 billion and a probable Facebook IPO in 2010. Meantime Twitter seems to have [...]

The Glasshouse event in London last night ‘Show Me the Money’ was well attended with some interesting VC’s speaking including London’s latest – PRO Partners. It seems that Spotify and Playfish are the VC’s favorite ventures right now – proving that they still hunt in packs/follow each other like sheep. They repeated that venture investments [...]

TechCrunch recently put out a list of the top 100 ‘networked’ venture capitalists – following some interesting research. They defined ‘networked’ by the number of co-investors that they had in deals and rated firms by the number of exits they had achieved. The top 10 lists most of the usual suspects. Which got me thinking [...]

I was spoilt. Two companies ago I was introduced to Bill Draper III – a legend in Silicon Valley and reputedly the West Coasts king of early stage venture capital. He invested in the company I ran at the time and sat on its board. He was a legend for a good reason – he [...]

Readwritestart produced a neat article recently on what VC’s look for in a first time, Web entrepreneur. I guess the best summary is cool geekness with the determination of a bull and ballerina like flexibility. OK. So, you see, at the end of the day its about charismatic, determined geeks. You know, Zuckerberg look-alikes. Me, I’d go [...]

It’s day 1 at Innovatrs.com so it seems fitting that I should bang on about why I developed Innovate and as a result Innovatrs.com. 40 odd years ago I was born into the Letts publishing empire. The business was rocking. It had invented the diary way back in the late 1700′s and controlled the industry [...]