Lessons Unlearned: The Lame Startup

Some of the following examples are the kinds of things all bad startups do. But a few of them are particular to European startups. Let’s see…

I come across a lot of immaturity in the startup market in Europe. Some of it is accidental. Some wilful ignorance, created because people simple won’t inform themselves.

So here, dear reader, is your cut out and keep guide to how not to do a startup in Europe.

Let’s start off with money.

Stay really dumb about money. Don’t read anything. Subscribe to no blogs about how venture capital works. Next up, confuse venture capital with startups and assume you simply must have an Angel round. Avoid working out a business model which may actually bring in revenue. Cashflow always beats taking investment — but you’ll ignore that.

What MIT thinks Mike Butcher is

What MIT Personas think “mikebutcher” and “Mike Butcher” is: “Personas is a component of the Metropath(ologies) exhibit, currently on display at the MIT Museum by the Sociable Media Group from the MIT Media Lab. It uses sophisticated natural language processing and the Internet to create a data portrait of one’s aggregated online identity. In short, Personas shows you how the Internet sees you.”

Ideas in Mobile at Good Ideas Salon London

PSFK recently held a Good Ideas Salon in London bringing together commentators (including me) to discuss key areas steering innovation and opportunity. PSFK’s Piers Fawkes moderated a panel that included Dan Hon (Six To Start), me, Matt Jones (Dopplr) and Jonathan MacDonald (Ogilvy) on how the ever-presense of mobile is unveiling new, interesting ways for us to explore, work, and play. Themes: People, not technology. Applications and tools. Individual needs

My Red Nose Day

So yesterday I did a fundraising stunt for Red Nose Day / Comic Relief. In order to confirm the widely-held belief that most bloggers blog in their pyjamas, I tried to blog on Waterloo Bridge in said pyjamas. In Winter. It was cold, I can tell you. So far I’ve raised a pretty decent £785, just by asking for donations on my Twitter account. You can still sponsor me here.

I don’t have Work/Life Balance. I have Work/Life Hum.

Many moons ago people used to talk about Work/Life Balance. You know the sort of thing: don’t work so hard that you can’t have “a life” as well. I little idea about what they actually meant in practice, but I imagine it involved having some kind of separation between work and living your life outside of work. Well I may have had something approaching that a few years ago, but