Netvibes is my favourite website, my Start (Home) Page and I use it all the time.
It is one of those pages that allows you to have all your RSS feeds and other widgets/gadgets neatly arranged.
Basically a gadget is a box you can add to your personalized page (or blog or whatever). There are thousands of gadgets, with functionality as diverse as 'Weather' or 'Stock Exchange', 'Mail', 'News feed from NYTimes' etc.
There are competitors around. The biggest search engines start in an advantageous position. iGoogle, MyYahoo, MyAOL, Live.com have great audiences, so redirecting traffic from their traditional start page to the customizable one is easy. This has indeed a side effect, as their userbase numbers may be misleading, many people have a google account but this doesn't mean they actually modify actively their iGoogle start page.
I would divide the competitors in two categories, and show some graphs according to Alexa:
As we can see from the graphs, yahoo and google are close competitors in the market of the big ones, reflecting their position in other areas.
In the market of the small ones, Netvibes is the clear winner, although PageFlakes shows signs of strength, and it is showing to be very innovative, allowing users to share their personalized pages. Here and here it is suggested that this is a move that both PageFlakes and Netvibes will undertake eventually, in order to assault the 'Social' market where established sites as MySpace and Facebook live now.
In future posts I will try to further analyze this market, and the strenghts and weaknesses of each company.
I cannot concentrate properly in several things at a time. Some brain studies suggest that women can. I might need to get more in contact with my feminine side.
Soon, in October, I will start working part-time, so part of the day will still be devoted to my old office job, while the rest of the time I will start starting up our Startup with Don Quixote.
Study case: During the last weeks I was unfocused, disperse. I was thinking of my startup while working, then thinking -of rather feeling guilty - of my work while working on the startup. And of course, every five minutes checking my multiple email accounts (gmail, hotmail and work one) and Facebook. Luckily, I use Netvibes as my home page so checking all this wasn't that bad. Add to this checking out throughout the day the latest posts in my favourite blogs, the latest news in my favourite newspapers, my sacred Dilbert and mobuzz... What do I become beyond being a geek (we prefer to be called technophiles)? I become a veeery unproductive person. Add to this a sprinkle of perfectionism and you get a massive amount of stress. Remember a perfectionist is not person who does everything perfectly, but one who suffers and gets anxious when something he/she has to do is not perfect.
From the stressed unproductive geek to the highly productive and mentally healthy technophile in easy to use steps (try this at home and tell me how it goes):
1. Do all that one-off stuff In the morning, take 30 min to do all your daily stuff that happens only once (like Dilbert).
2. Check less, live more Checking email for a geek is like smoking for Humphrey Bogart. Essential. However, try to check less, and surprisingly your quality of life goes up. I was inspired by The 4 hour work week by Tim Ferriss.
3. In the morning, my job In the morning, I will do my job. I won't answer emails related to the startup, I wont have startup calls. And I will try to think of my job only. For getting focus, try the dashes technique for instance. Or this funny Instant Boss program I just found -while procrastinating, of course-.
4. In the afternoon (and possibly beyond), the startup Guess what goes here.
5. Time for yourself, away from the computer Life is short. Go out, see the sun (unless you happen to live in London). Talk to humans. Enjoy.
Note: I did this post is supposedly work time. It won't happen again, I swear! I am a new man, blablabla.
The executive summary is for the start-up what the CV is for the job applicant.
The executive summary is the most important plan of the business plan:
1) two pages to sellyour idea to a potential investor.
2) 30 seconds to grab the investor's interest.
3) You need to be clear, simple and compelling.
I have read many articles and books about Executive Summary but the best one I have ever read is this post by Guy Kawasaki. You can even get it in pdf.
For those who don't know Guy, he is managing director of Garage Technology Ventures, a seed-stage and early-stage venture capital fund.
Here I will try to summarise his Executive Summary How-to:
Executive Summary
Objective: sell your idea to a potential investor
Length: "You should be able to do all this in six to eight paragraphs, possibly a few more if there is a particular point that needs emphasis. You should be able to make each point in just two or three simple, clear, specific sentences. This means your executive summary should be about two pages, maybe three."
Contents:
Component
Description
The grab
The most compelling statement of why you have a really big idea.
The problem
You need to make it clear that there is a big, important problem that you are going to solve
The solution
What is the solution to that problem?
The opportunity
Market segmentation, size, growth, dynamics and above all your target in this market
Your competitive advantage
What makes your different from your current or future competitor's?
The business model
How specifically are you going to generate revenues, and from whom? Why is your model leverageable and scalable?
The team
Why is your team uniquely qualified to win?
The promise ($$)
Your fundamental promise is that you are going to make them a win a lot of money. Show five years of revenues, expenses, losses/profits, cash and headcount.
The ask ($$)
The minimum amount of equity you need to reach the next major milestone. If you expect to be raising another round of financing later, make that clear, and state the expected amount
Crowd investing is about selling equity of a company (usually a start up) to a large number of investors, who will invest each a minimal amount. Crowd funding or crowd sourcing may also refer to the same concept in some contexts.
You need money for your start-up. Don't you? So get 1000 mini-angels willing to invest 100 USD each (in exchange of equity) and you will have 100.000 USD.
In the last months there have been a number of web initiatives to make this happen on the web:
The Spanish company Partizipa, about which we have already talked here in Globthink is going to launch officially on October 1st but they are already organizing talks and already have two start-ups: a real state business in Eastern Europe and a Solar Energy Business.
The Cambrian House is a page with a horrible aspect and a wonderful content, where business ideas for web 2.0 are discussed. There are currently more than 6000 ideas. One of the hot topics on this page is called Angelic Crowd, which has the same scope as Partizipa.
My football Club is not exactly start-up funding but crowd funding to buy a football team. Their goal is to get 50.000 members and raise £1.375 in total.
Not that easy, eh? The main problems are, of course, these two:
How to give trust?
Is it really legal on sell equity on the web? This is the great handicap. If you want to know it get a layer and pay him at 10.000 USD to tell you how to make it "legal"
Partizipa explain here their legal background according to Spanish legislation (only Spanish)
Here you have a great podcast by Jason Drohn about crowd investing. I really encourage you to listen.
In the last 2 weeks I have had the chance of meeting 3 very senior people (CEO or staff like that) here in Hong Kong.
I would just like to make 3 comments about the impressions I had:
1) They were all so terribly modest about their achievements.
2) They really talked to me in a very easy-going way: Hi you, seat here with us! What do you do in life? Why did you come to Hong Kong.
3) They usually prefer not to talk about themselves but make questions about their interlocutor and discuss about those topics suggested by their interlocutor
To sum up, CEOs are just the contrary than middle management bosses
There is a grate number of examples who entrepreneurs who gave up studying to implement their dream. Just to name two of them: Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook).
When I studied in Bilbao, there was somebody I know who left his studies to create a company. At that time, we all laughed (maybe especially me!)
He created several companies on the Internet sector (hosting, domains). He may not have been as successful as Mark Zuckerberg but he is much more successful than many of those who laughed at that time:
Once this entrepreneur and one of those who laughed (not me) met by chance in a seminar about entrepreneurship in the Euskalduna Conference Center in Bilbao: one of them was attending the seminar and the other one was working as a waiter for a few dollars an hour. Who is who?
The other day I discovered a new use (at least for me) of YouTube: Music player while working.
I usually listen to my last.fm widget on my facebook page. But I have to say that there is not a lot of music by Luciano Pavarotti (1935-2007).
So I really needed to find out a solution!
Finally I found that there are so many performances of Pavarotti on Youtube. After further examination, I discovered I could use the "Playlist" function to play one video after another automatically. This way, Youtube can be converted in a CD player to listen while working! I may be stupid but for me it was a discovery.
The same can be done with DailyMotion and probably many more.
In fact greatest inventions are just finding a new use of something. Aren't they?
Luciano Pavarotti, who died two weeks ago, was the best tenor ever. I have to say that I don't buy a lot of music but the first CD I have ever bought was the concert given by the Three Tenors (Carreras, Domingo and Pavarotti) in 1994 for the Football World Cup Final.
As Woody Allen said, when I listen to Pavarotti I feel like invading Poland creating a successful startup! (Well, Woody Allen was talking about Wagner and somebody with moustache who invaded Poland in 1939)
Nobody has ever sung "Nessun Dorma" (Nobody should sleep") like him. RIP
I see two fundamental problems with companies that I call startups for startups (SFSs), i.e. startups like Cambrian House, Cofoundr, Spigit, Startup Addicts etc that exist apparently to help other startups or people with ideas for startups. Typically, these companies (usually websites) enable their members to post business ideas online and have other members comment on and rate those ideas. Others want to help you find investors or partners etc. The problems I see with them are:
Lack of Intellectual Property Protection: As much as people say that” ideas are cheap”, “it’s all about execution” and ”don’t keep your ideas to yourself”, people still do keep their really good ideas secret or reveal them only on a need to know basis. There is a big difference between revealing your business idea to one or two people who can help make it real and posting it to an online community with thousands of members, knowing that some of them have the skills to take your idea and run with it. The effect of this problem is that you seldom find really good ideas posted on these websites.
No End Product: Most people who join an SFS do so because they lack the time, technical skills, business experience or funds to turn their ideas into real businesses. What they really want is for someone to say - “hey this is a really cool idea, I’ll implement or fund it for you”. Unrealistic as this expectation may seem, it is not difficult to imagine a system that would encourage and facilitate this sort of collaboration. Cambrian House comes close to doing this with its “Turn your idea into a business” feature but I don’t think it goes far enough.
So how might an SFS go about solving these problems? Well, here’s one idea: Continue to offer a free and public ideas forum but in addition offer a premium service that invites really good ideas under non-disclosure agreements and for a fee, has them assessed by an expert panel; conducts patent searches; provides feedback and submits the really good ideas to partner angel/VC investors. A group of ”venture technologists” could also be formed from the member base to help implement good ideas that do not qualify for funding. Basically, a service similar to BoggleIt in the U.K but with a social network wrapped around it.
I am reading a very good report on Angel Investment from MIT. The only problem is that the report comes from 2000 and some statistical data may not be up to date.
Angels vs. Early Stage Venture Capitalists: The motivations and operations of experienced angel investors are typically different than those of early stage venture capitalists. First time entrepreneurs can benefit from approaching experienced angel investors, prior to meeting early stage venture capitalists, when seeking early stage funding. This study outlines the differences.
The "Network of Trust": An angel"s personal network of contacts is a key element in screening deals, conducting due diligence, negotiating terms, adding value after the investment, securing additional rounds of funding and executing the exit strategy.
"Not All Angels are Alike": It pays for entrepreneurs to understand the type of angels they need and the role that the angels will play in building their company. We have categorized angels into four groups: Guardian Angels, Operational Angels, Entrepreneur Angels and Financial Angels. We describe how these various angel types operate and how they provide different value to emerging ventures.
Systemization is on the Rise: Experienced angel investors are becoming increasingly systematic in their operation. Systematic evaluation and analysis help reduce risk, improve returns, and increase the number of deals considered.
The Need to Clarify the Angel Investing Process and Terms & Conditions: We found wide variation in the way angel investors conducted the investing process, in particular, regarding the specific terms and conditions (T&C"s) of the term sheet. We devote a chapter to understanding the angel investing process and explain some common terms and conditions.
The Rise of Angel Groups: We identify and describe the recent rise in angel groups. Angel groups are an important new development in venture creation. These groups provide the fastest way for entrepreneurs to find angels and provide a way for angels to leverage their combined skills, time, expertise and networks. We outline four types of angel groups and define a framework for growing and managing angel groups.
Becoming an Angel: Finally, we explored how wealthy individuals become successful angel investors. In our survey, we sought advice from experienced angels on this topic and summarized their thoughts.
Today I read an excellent article on ReadWriteWeb called "10 Future Web Trends". According to this excellent article, which I recommend you to read, the 10 trends for the next 10 years will be:
1) Semantic Web: As Alex Iskold wrote in The Road to the Semantic Web, the core idea of the Semantic Web is to create the meta data describing data, which will enable computers to process the meaning of things. Once computers are equipped with semantics, they will be capable of solving complex semantic optimization problems.
2) Artificial Intelligence (AI): In the context of the Web, AI means making intelligent machines. In that sense, it has some things in common with the Semantic Web vision.
3) Virtual Worlds: like Second Life, Chinese second-life clone Hipihi and a very large family of applications
5) Attention Economy: The Attention Economy is a marketplace where consumers agree to receive services in exchange for their attention. Examples include personalized news, personalized search, alerts and recommendations to buy. The Attention Economy is about the consumer having choice - they get to choose where their attention is 'spent'. Another key ingredient in the attention game is relevancy. As long as the consumer sees relevant content, he/she is going to stick around - and that creates more opportunities to sell.
6) Web Sites as Web Services: More and more of the Web is becoming remixable, the entire system is turning into both a platform and the database. Major web sites are going to be transformed into web services - and will effectively expose their information to the world
7) Online Video / Internet TV: Not only online video sharing like YouTube and company but also Internet TV like Joost, Babelgum, Zattoo.
8) Rich Internet Applications: (According to Wikipedia) Rich Internet applications (RIA) are Web applications that have the features and functionality of traditional desktop applications. RIAs typically transfer the processing necessary for the user interface to the Web client but keep the bulk of the data (i.e., maintaining the state of the program, the data etc) back on the application server. RIAs typically 1) run in a Web browser, or do not require software installation 2) run locally in a secure environment called a sandbox
9) International Web: Of course not only US anymore. Not only Europe or China but also India and African countries
10) personalization: Not only netvibes but also any other application like last.fm and many more.
Today I would like to post 5 graphs of this study which illustrate the current panorama. The only problem is that graphs are in French. So review your French notes... Don't be afraid: Technical french terms are quite similar to English.
Venture Capital Investments in Web2.0 Sector: Raised amounts (Million Euros) - US, Europe, Israel, China
Venture Capital Investments in Web2.0 Sector: Number of Deals - US, Europe, Israel, China
Europe: Investment per Countries: France, UK, Finland, Germany, Spain, Sweden, Estonia, Ireland
Average Valuations
Example of Acquisitions of Web 2.0 companies in 2006
I am going to reproduce most important parts. You can find the whole article here.
Global Venture Capital Investment in Web 2.0 Companies on the Rise
Nearly US$850 Million Deployed to Web 2.0 Deals in 2006, According to Ernst & Young/Dow Jones VentureOne Data Released at Annual Web Ventures Conference.
San Francisco, 21 March 2007—Venture capitalists continued to favor the innovative activity of Web 2.0 companies, deploying substantial sums in the segment throughout 2006, according to the latest data released by Ernst & Young and Dow Jones VentureOne at the Web Ventures Conference in California. The global research showed that US$844.4 million was directed into 167 deals last year, more than twice as much money and nearly twice as many deals as occurred in 2005.
The research demonstrated a continuing trend that has seen the amount of worldwide venture capital invested into Web 2.0 practically doubling in size every year since 2002. However, most of the growth remains centered in companies based in the US and Europe.
[..]
The research shows that on a global basis, Web 2.0 is still in an early stage and there remain relatively few liquidity exits for companies in this space, although there have been particularly noteworthy ones like Google's (NASDAQ: Goog) US$1.65 billion acquisition last year of YouTube.
[...]
This is just one illustration of Web 2.0 moving beyond the realm of a social networking or blogging operation and into true business applications. In fact, among the largest Web 2.0 deals that occurred in the US last year, there were many more commercial applications for Web 2.0 including client/server connection software and commercial services in areas like online real estate, travel, news, and entertainment content.
On a geographic basis in 2006:
The US dominated the Web 2.0 market, with 126 deals and US$682.7 million invested, an 83% increase in deals from 2005 and a 136% increase in capital.
On a sub-regional basis, the San Francisco Bay Area was the busiest region in the US for Web 2.0 deals and was home to more than half of all financings last year. The New York metropolitan area, Southern California and New England also saw tremendous growth in deal flow and investment over 2006.
Europe has also shown significant interest with 20 deals in 2006, up from four deals in 2005. The amount invested in Europe, US$100.5 million, is more than a 200% increase from 2005.
Within Europe, France posted the most activity with seven deals and US$39.3 million invested in 2006.
Five Web 2.0 deals were completed in the UK last year, raising US$23.4 million in investment capital.
China posted 21 Web 2.0 deals. This was the same number that occurred in China in 2005 — indicating a flattening of that market. Investment declined by 26% to US$61.3 million.
Israel had two venture-financed Web 2.0 deals in 2006 and US$22 million invested, a jump from one deal and only US$1 million invested the year before.
The most active investors in Web 2.0 on a worldwide basis are Benchmark Capital, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Sequoia Capital, and Omidyar Network.
"Business Week discusses about the return of a trend that used to be popular not long time ago: the roll of the corporations acting as Venture Capital Investors providing seed capital for start-ups, sometimes in exchange for high-priority rights of acquisition.
This is, in fact, an R&D outsourcing approach: Corporations outsource certain R&D projects and supervise their developments.
Although the article names Google in the title, in fact it also speaks about other companies, which totally injected about 1300 million US dollars in about 390 financing agreements during first half of the 2007, an increase of 30% in comparison to 2006.
Companies like Intel, which has a long term tradition in this approach, Motorola, Novartis, Johnson & Johnson,Cisco, Qualcomm or Yahoo! are offering start-ups an alternative route to Sand Hill Road (a street with a notable concentration of VC companies). One of the reasons is avoiding to have to buy later much more expensive.
However companies as Dell or Boeing have completely stopped funding start-ups after the experience of the late nineties. Others, like IBM, Microsoft or HP have reduced their performances in this sense. "
This approach of outsourcing R&D is nothing new. It is described in many books. I read "The Valuation of technology" by Peter Boer. He describes very well this phenomenon from a historic perspective
The first lists contains 15 commandments and the second one contains 10 commandments more.
They are all very sensible but I have highlighted my favourite commandments
15 Start-up Commandments
1. Your idea isn't new. Pick an idea; at least 50 other people have thought of it. Get over your stunning brilliance and realize that execution matters more.
2. Stealth startups suck. You're not working on the Manhattan Project, Einstein. Get something out as quickly as possible and promote the hell out of it.
3. If you don't have scaling problems, you're not growing fast enough.
4. If you're successful, people will try to take advantage of you. Hope that you're in that position, and hope that you're smart enough to not fall for it.
5. People will tell you they know more than you do. If that's really the case, you shouldn't be doing your startup.
6. Your competition will inflate their numbers. Take any startup traffic number and slash it in half. At least.
7. Perfection is the enemy of good enough. Leonardo could paint the Mona Lisa only once. You, Bob Ross, can push a bug release every 5 minutes because you were at least smart enough to do a web app.
8. The size of your startup is not a reflection of your manhood. More employees does not make you more of a man (or woman as the case may be).
9. You don't need business development people. If you're successful, companies will come to you. The deals will still be distractions and not worth doing, but at least you're not spending any effort trying to get them.
10. You have to be wrong in the head to start a company. But we have all the fun.
11. Starting a company will teach you what it's like to be a manic depressive. They, at least, can take medication.
12. Your startup isn't succeeding? You have two options: go home with your tail between your legs or do something about it. What's it going to be?
13. If you don't pay attention to your competition, they will turn out to be geniuses and will crush you. If you do pay attention to them, they will turn out to be idiots and you will have wasted your time. Which would you prefer?
14. Startups are not a democracy. Want a democracy? Go run for class president, Bueller.
15. You're doing a web app, right? This isn't the 1980s. Your crummy, half-assed web app will still be more successful than your competitor's most polished software application.
10 More Startup Commandments
1. You will have at least one catastrophe every three months.
2. Outsource effectively, or be effectively outsourced.
3. Do you thrive on stress and ambiguity? You'd better.
4. The best way to get outside funding is to be successful already. Stupid but true. But you, cheapskate, don't need money, right?
5. People will think your idea sucks. They're even probably right. The only way to prove them wrong is to succeed.
6. A startup will require your complete attention and devotion. Thought your first love in High School was clingy? You can't take out a restraining order on your startup.
7. Being an entrepreneur requires a healthy amount of ignorance. Note I did not say stupidity.
8. Your software sucks. So what. Everyone else's does also, and re-architecting is the kiss of death for a startup. Startups are no place for architecture astronauts.
9. You do have a public API, right?
10. Abject Terror. Overwhelming Joy. Monstrous Greed. Embrace and harness these emotions you must.
With the help of a Chinese friend of mine, who lives in Paris. I have got a more clearer picture of the start-up funding sites in China.
I still have to make a lot of research about these 3 sites that I am listing below. They are all generalist sites which aim to finance any kind of start-up in any sector.
According to Alexa the clear winner in China is tz888. By the way did you know that Chinese associate the number 8 with fortune and wealth because their pronunciations in most Chinese dialects are quite similar? On the contrary 4 means death for the same reason.
I need to investigate much more but this is a good start.
I would like to talk about an application called Angelsoft. Angelsoft is not a Start-up marketplace as those described in my previous posts. Angelsoft (founded in 2004) is a software for angel investors
Features
Angelsoft's features are very simple:
Create a badge on your web site, where entrepreneurs can submit their applications online
Receive applications in your mail
Manage deal documents
Manage meetings (for due diligence)
To sum up, most of Angelsoft features (except the first one) can be handled with Microsoft Office
Business model
Angelsoft provides free software, angels provide anonymous data, and we aggregate that data to provide meaningful metrics about the angel industry to governments, economic development groups, and financial institutions.
Industry standard
Angelsoft is exclusive software provider for the European Business Angel Network (EBAN) and for the British Business Angel Association (BBAA), among others
I cannot concentrate properly in several things at a time. Some brain studies suggest that women can. I might need to get more in contact with my feminine side. 
Crowd investing is about selling equity of a company (usually a start up) to a large number of investors, who will invest each a minimal amount. Crowd funding or crowd sourcing may also refer to the same concept in some contexts.
In the last 2 weeks I have had the chance of meeting 3 very senior people (CEO or staff like that) here in Hong Kong. 
There is a grate number of examples who entrepreneurs who gave up studying to implement their dream. Just to name two of them: Bill Gates and 
The other day I discovered a new use (at least for me) of YouTube: Music player while working.
I am going to copy literarily a post from an excellent blog: 
I am reading a very good report on Angel Investment from MIT. The only problem is that the report comes from 2000 and some statistical data may not be up to date.
I have read a very interesting post in the 
15 Start-up Commandments
10 More Startup Commandments
I would like to talk about an application called Angelsoft. Angelsoft is not a Start-up marketplace as those described in my previous posts. Angelsoft (founded in 2004) is a software for angel investors
