In recent months, as more and more funding sources disappear, it has become more and more difficult for startups and small businesses to find the money they need to grow. To meet this need, BusinessFunding.co.uk has created a continuously updated index of capital sources for businesses of every size in every industry.

Dr Stephen Bence, Founder and Director of BusinessFunding.co.uk, says: “We were often being asked to compile lists of properly-qualified funding sources for a particular project or company. We found these tasks incredibly time-consuming because the information could not be found in one place – not to mention the complexity of the funders’ eligibility criteria. This is our solution to that problem: a comprehensive and detailed database of funding sources coupled with an easy-to-use online tool to help direct businesses towards the sources of funding and finance that are most suitable for them.”

Launch partners for BusinessFunding.co.uk include: Baker Noel Chartered Accountants, the legal firm Vincent Sykes & Higham, the Public Relations firm Presswire and the digital search agency Red or Blue.

For more information about the service, visit BusinessFunding.co.uk.

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While high-tech startups are usually based on some kind of technological innovation, what strategic partners and investors find interesting is the market the innovation can capture. So a proof of concept that demonstrates that a given product, service or methodology has a market willing to pay for it will attract more attention and support as a rule.

One of the most unfortunate things an entrepreneur can say about an innovation is “It has practically unlimited applications”.  Even if this statement is true, potential financial partners will want to hear about a few specific applications, target market, paths to market and marketing strategies that will turn a great idea in to a profitable enterprise.

A good proof of concept doesn’t have to cost much, and if it proves a market and illustrates the potential of a protectible innovation to meet the needs of that market, it will frequently garner the support it needs.

One way to do a proof of concept for a market is to create a website that accurately reflects the product or service you plan to deliver. Using Google, search engine marketing, twitter, facebook and other marketing tools, you can drive traffic to this page and refine your pitch until you can demonstrate that you have defined a product that people will buy.

You then simply need to demonstrate you have an innovation that can be packaged to match the requirements defined on the site.  Note that proof of market, which can be very cheap, may come long before proof of technology.

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Why was IBM Global Entrepreneur founded?

We know that working with startups can drive change. Today, the world’s physical systems are being infused with intelligence, and this opportunity to apply information technology to physical infrastructure opens up vast new markets for the IT industry.  With disruptive, new technologies, this is the perfect scenario for innovative entrepreneurs to play a major role.  With IBM’s unique vision of a Smarter Planet (ibm.com/smarterplanet/uk), we are looking to partner with technology entrepreneurs who share this vision and want to work together to address this new market opportunity.

What kinds of support do you offer to entrepreneurs?

IBM Global Entrepreneur has the products, people, and promotion that can help technology startups extend the size and reach of their company.  The initiative provides support and resources in the areas these startups need most:

1. Product
   • No charge access to IBM’s software portfolio on-site or through the cloud to accelerate software development
2. People
   • Dedicated technical enablement support to help startups develop their product and get to the marketplace faster.
   • Mentors at IBM SmartCamps around the world who can help them grow their business.
   • Industry market intelligence from our top industry experts that can help them understand the enterprise customer and the market opportunity.
3. Promotion
   • Visibility as part of the IBM Smarter Planet agenda to set themselves apart from the competition.
   • Recognition and additional benefits to partners with the most innovative solutions
   • Opportunity to showcase their company in the IBM Global Entrepreneur directory.

When was the initiative started and how many entrepreneurs have you helped?

IBM Global Entrepreneur launched on 31st March 2010, so is very new at the moment. Given this, we are at the stage of raising awareness of what we have to offer, and encouraging participation. We are doing this by engaging with individuals and organisations who are already well established in this community, and we are delighted that School for Startups is working with us as one of our ecosystem partners. Hundreds of startups have shown interest in our new initiative, and I am delighted with how enthusiastic people have been who I’ve spoken to about what we are doing.

How do entrepreneurs participate?

Startups who meet the eligibility criteria can register at ibm.com/isv/startup. On our application form we ask a few simple questions to help us understand a little about their companies, and once accepted they will be contacted by one of our Project Resource Managers (PRM). The assigned PRM will make a personal call  to welcome them, and will guide them through how they can make best us of the resources we provide on a one-to-one basis.

Startups can also apply to participate in our IBM SmartCamp London event which is taking place on 21st July at Imperial College London. SmartCamp is an exclusive event that brings together entrepreneurs, investors and experienced mentors who want to help us build a Smarter Planet. SmartCamp provides startups access to world-class advisors, plus a direct route to seed and venture capital. Applications for the London event can be made from now until 2nd July 2010.

What is your background and how did you come to IBM?

In 1987 IBM launched an integrated degree scheme with the University of Portsmouth, and I was one of the original intake to the scheme of 20 students. The initiative was pioneering as it was the first time in the UK that a company’s in-house training counted as credits towards a degree – a BSc in Computer Science. Our time was split on a weekly basis between our studies and doing a real job in IBM, so a very different model to a traditional sandwich course. The great thing was that we were paid a salary for the 3 years of the course, which certainly enhanced the experience!

Since graduating, I’ve performed a very diverse mixture of technical and business roles in IBM, both in the UK and across Europe. In 2005 I took on responsibility for establishing the IBM Academic Initiative (ibm.com/academicinitiative) across Europe, Middle East and Africa, and it was through this programme that I first started engaging with entrepreneurial students in the universities. I still look after this programme in the UK & Ireland, and am very excited about the new opportunities that leading the IBM Global Entrepreneur initiative is bringing. It is such an inspirational community of people to be collaborating with.

Is there a way entrepreneurs can learn more about the initiative online?

Our website is the best place to go to learn more: ibm.com/isv/startup

Additional information on IBM SmartCamp London can be found at ibm.com/ie/smarterplanet/smartcamp

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If your business rises above the pack, you’ll be invited to the national competition where you’ll meet more people who can help you, encounter more business professionals who may be able to support you, and present your business to working angels, venture capitalists and investors. Experts advise you, and you hone your presentation until it just can’t get any better.   If you win the competition, you get crowned ‘Britain’s  Best New Business’ and win a prize package worth £50,000.

If you are thinking of starting a new business, we encourage you to have a look at the Competition Website to see where your regional competition will be held and to download an application form. Entries must be in before 15 June, with the first heat, the South West, taking place in Bristol on 21 June.

Remember that we have a great online and face to face Perfect your Pitch event coming up on June 21. Even if you aren’t going to participate in the competition, you should attend our event.  Every business needs a perfect pitch.  It is the single most important tool you have for acquiring customers, team members, strategic partners, investors and support for your business from the community.

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Can’t make it to London?  That’s OK! Join us online for the full event! You’ll be an active participant in our class.

As an entrepreneur you start pitching your business long before there is even a business to pitch.  You pitch potential team members, customers, industry partners, lenders, investors and members of the community in which you will work.  How you position your business in the minds of others is key to your marketing and sales efforts, your website design, the delivery of your products and services; even your future growth.

Getting your pitch right can dramatically increase your profitability and it can dramatically reduce the time it takes you to get your business up and running.  It can make your business more profitable more quickly.

Why?  Because the right pitch compellingly identifies the value you deliver to those you are serving and to those with whom you plan to work.  That clarity is key to your success.

For complete details about this event, please sign up by following the link below.  If you know others who might benefit, we hope you’ll forward a link to this page.  We think this is going to be one of our most important, and most entertaining events ever.

Why? Because there is nothing more important to learn, and little more fun to master, than the art and science of delivering the Perfect Pitch.  A great pitch delivered well is the closest thing you’ll see to “Practical Magic” in the business world.

For those attending online through S4Stv, the event starts at 6:30. For those attending the live event, registration starts at 5:30.  See You There!

http://www.schoolforstartups.co.uk/2010/05/17/perfect-your-pitch-s4stv-hosted-by-university-college-london/

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Some people say that it is not what you know but who you know.  Truth is, it is both. If you are an entrepreneur running a business-to-business enterprise, investing time into social networking sites like Facebook (www.facebook.com) can seem like a waste of time because it probably is.  There’s little point in delivering your message about photocopiers and courier services to folks discussing dating venues and baby bottles. How can your business posts not seem like spam in that context?

That is why there is LinkedIn.com, a site where business people can talk business to other business people safely.  You really can find a large percentage of the business people you know, and those you want to know, on this website.  Perhaps more important, there are several tools that let you connect to those open to new business proposals and new networking relationships.

Using LinkedIn effectively is easy if you do the following:

1. To create an account, just go to www.linkedin.com.  Provide all the usual data.  Linked in has tools that will mine your email box for friends. If that email box happens to be your business email box, allowing LinkedIn to issue invitations is probably appropriate.  You can pick and choose contacts if you prefer.
2. Once your account is setup, your resume entered, your friends invited, go join some Groups in the business areas that matter most to you. Media, manufacturing, import/export, etc.  Groups are for people that actively want to network through LinkedIn.  Important: Being in a group with someone means you can contact them for free through LinkedIn messages. Because it means you can search for the people you need to know, based on their job title let’s say, and if you find a contact that’s in a group with you . . . you can send him a well written message and far more often than not he will reply. This means you don’t have to pay for InMail messages.
3. You can search for people by company, title, location and other parameters.  This is handy.  If you need to find potential funders for example, try searching for angel investor, private equity, venture capital, private lender, investment manager or hedge fund manager. You’ll get some useful results.
4. Make sure your profile links to your website, and make sure your website has your phone number, email address and Twitter account.
5. Ask questions on the Answers forum if you need help.  Answering questions for others is a great way to create new networking connects and demonstrate special expertise.
6. Post jobs on LinkedIn when you need to hire people.  You’ll be surprised how many well qualified people find you here.  It is also very useful to see applicant profiles, including connections, when folks respond.
7. You can now post ads on LinkedIn, and they offer some useful targeting tools. This may be a great option for straight business-to-business promotion.
8. Within Linkedin Groups, you can post links to news articles and start new discussions.  This is great for your SEO and link building efforts.

One thing that you must remember is that LinkedIn is not Facebook.  So this is not the place to post baby pictures, expose political or religious preferences, or discuss who you are dating.   The negative reactions you receive from such a breach are every bit as bad as you get from “spamming” Facebook with a blatant business message.

LinkedIn is an exceptionally good place to make new business connections and to maintain them for long periods of time.  It is a great place to market your business and promote all your website has to offer.  It really is a fully functional business community, and for business-to-business enterpreneurs it is much better than Facebook.   I look forward to seeing you there.

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The 4 Ps?

Product, Price, Promotion, Place, the Four P’s that historically have defined marketing operations have long been a road map for businesses who want to bring a product to market.

• Develop a product that packages a set of features and benefits
• Determine the proper price for that product
• Decide how to promote it
• Determine how to distribute it.

That’s how you market a product. At least it used to be.

For many businesses the traditional interpretation of the 4 P’s is is misleading at best and toxic at worst.  Online games and iphone apps, open source software and social networking sites blur the line between promotion and product.  Grocery stores now take orders online for home delivery. Print shops let you upload documents that are subsequently printed and couriered to clients. Many schools now consist of students and faculty that never meet face to face. Aren’t we all Internet businesses these days?

Understanding What Has Changed . . .

The reality is that over the last decade the process by which products are brought to market has changed radically and many otherwise competent business professionals are still struggling to cope with new realities.

For example, many software startups still identify their product as being a long series of specific features that let the customer achieve a given set of objectives.   When you ask these businesses to add a form that lets someone invite a friend to use the application, or to create a Facebook widget that lets the product communicate with customers through their favorite social network, these developers say “We need to work on core features first.  Lets save that for Version 2.”

• They see all “code” as a component of the “product”.
• They don’t understand that they, like everyone else in the market, must create the code required to connect their product to customers and their customers to one another.
• They don’t understand that they never get a version 2 if they haven’t integrated their product or service into its marketplace by creating the necessary code.
• They seem to believe, despite the fact that they have no customers and usually haven’t done much in the way of classic marketing research, that they know what the customer wants and it is embodied in their feature list.

The last decade of software successes demonstrates that this is “flawed” thinking. Twitter does one thing very well and everyone that uses it invites others to use it.  There is no clear division between the Twitter service and its methodology. Facebook, Linkedin, Google, Magento, and many other very successful businesses have discovered the same solution.

More traditional businesses face other cognitive challenges.

• Brick and Mortar companies believe they have a “core business” which may be anything from producing cast iron pots to selling accounting services.
• They use the web for this thing called “marketing” which is seen as an auxilliary operation they undertake in order to increase product sales.
• Annually, or quarterly, the marketing budget is calculated. Some money is spent on advertising, some is spent on the website, some is spend on bulk mail. There is no adherence to any kind of specific strategy or methodology for this development which is considered “marketing”. Companies still think in terms of campaigns.

These businesses do not see the Internet and other communication connectivity as a necessary core element to their product or service because they do not see themselves as a “software” or “internet” company. Over the last fifteen years, Amazon, Lulu, Netflix and Ebay are just a few of the businesses that have re-envisioned traditionally brick and mortar businesses leveraging new communication options.

There is a new road map for bring products and services to market because what businesses are now expected to sell is a good “customer experience” that extends all the way from presales, to product adoption, to long term use.  Actually, businesses have always been in the business of selling “good customer experiences” it is just that these days that requires that elements of “marketing” and “software development” be incorporated into almost every successful widely-adopted product or service.

Ship Early, Ship a Little, Ship Fast

Given the changes in how products are developed, priced, promoted and distributed, there has been a concurrent change to how most enterpreneurs should launch their businesses.

• Create a very stripped down version of your product or service with a very small number of features, maybe even just one really great feature.  Ceate all the code required to connect this product or service to its target market.
• Launch the product aggressively, so people who need the tool can find it and share it with friends.
• Wait for the “wall of sound” that comes as customers adopt the product and begin providing feedback. Release new versions of the product based on what actual customers want from the product rather than what they imagine the “ideal feature set” to be.

This methodology for bringing a product to market offers many advantages over more traditional strategies.

• It allows startups and small businesses to start their business with a minimum of debt or outside investment and in a relatively short period of time.  The objective is to create a very elegant, very useful, very simple solution to a given customer problem.
• It lets them leverage the Internet for solution distribution at a minimum cost and for a minimum purchase price at a reasonable profit.
• It lets them refine the product over time based on feedback from paying customers.

The Ship Early, Ship Little, Ship Fast methodology works for almost any new product or service because it jetisons an antiquated understanding of what a product is, how it is promoted and how it will be delivered.

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The School for Startups team would like to introduce Mykel Sprinkles, Entrepreneur Chair for the VCIC 2010, announcing a wonderful opportunity for businesses out there looking to grow and become successful:

I am very excited to bring to the S4S community a great opportunity for entrepreneurs seeking investment capital to take their venture to the next level…the 2010 Venture Capital Investment Competition (VCIC).

VCIC 2010 provides an excellent chance to gain access to top venture capital firms seeking new opportunities in areas as diverse as:

• clean tech
• business services
• energy, consumer products
• social networking
• software / IT
• food & beverage
• telecommunications
• life sciences
• internet & others

25% of all companies presenting at VCIC events receive funding – the average is £6 million.

As Entrepreneur Chair for this year’s European competition, I am responsible for sourcing ten outstanding entrepreneurs to pitch their deal/opportunity.

We are looking for high quality and diverse companies.  VCIC is best geared towards companies that are established and seeking further investment to hit target growth stages.  At the same time, earlier stage companies or those with fast-to-market expectations and/or larger capital requirements are also encouraged to participate.

How it works…VCIC is a global competition in which teams of MBA students from elite business schools evaluate deal pitches. Entrepreneurs submit a full business plan, perform a 10-minute pitch, participate in Q&A sessions, and perform mock negotiations. Entrepreneurs receive candid feedback while VCs evaluating the teams receive direct access to pre-screened deals. Following each event there is a networking session with executives from top VC firms and participants.

There will be two VCIC events taking place – On the 12th & 26th of February 2010.  Both events will be held at the London Business School.

If you would like to receive an application or if you have any questions, please contact Mykel Sprinkles at msprinkles.mba2011@london.edu  or telephone +44(0) 755 468 4717.

-Mykel Sprinkles

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