RookieOven

As I highlighted in my last post it was Engage Invest Exploit ’12 at the University of Edinburgh last week. EIE aims to put promising Scottish tech companies in front of potential investors. The event is a typical affair with exhibitors, pitches and speakers and this year they had an utterly awesome keynote speaker – Sir Jackie Stewart.

You might be wondering why a man famous for driving a car round in circles was the ideal speaker at an event for entrepreneurs and investors but Sir Jackie has achieved so much out with his amazing motorsport career. Having dyslexia and whilst at school being labelled as “thick” (to this day he still can’t recite the alphabet) hasn’t stopped Jackie from achieving in all walks of life.

One of the biggest things to take away from the talk was Jackie’s story of breaking his nose, surprisingly it wasn’t through crashing in a glamourous location such as Monaco or Monza but instead it was just off the high street in Dumbarton. Whilst at school and being classed as “thick” Jackie fell in with the wrong crowd who one day set about him resulting in the broken nose. It dawned on him he was hanging around with “crows”, which are vermin and are shot. The lesson Jackie shared was:

“Hang out with the crows and you may get shot, hang with eagles and you will soar”

Surround yourself with the best and you will be better for it. Being perhaps a tad modest Sir Jackie said the mechanics, engineers and designers in the team at Tyrell were better at their jobs than he ever was at his. He achieved his 3 Formula One World Drivers’ Championship titles thanks to surrounding himself with the best, a lesson I feel is highly relevant to startups.

Jackie spoke of his attention to detail being a key factor in his success. Before his days in motorsport Sir Jackie was a champion shooter, in this sport there were no second chances. If you missed a shot the best you could score was 99/100, not good enough. This attention to detail stayed with Jackie through his career in motorsport into his business career and is noted by him as being one of the keys to his success. He paraphrased the old proverb look after the pennies and the pounds look after themselves; in business at first the scale of the task at hand is huge but by focusing on the details the larger picture will take care of itself.

Integrity and Care - photo by @MurrayBuchanan

Another thing to take from the talk was Sir Jackie’s motto – “Integrity and Care”. Jackie has represented some of the largest organisations in the world – Ford, Rolex and RBS to name a few – and in all cases Jackie acted with integrity and care. This has let to long lasting relationships such as the one with Ford that lasted for exactly, to the day, 40 years.

For me, as a massive fan of F1 fan, it was fantastic to be in the audience but aside from the amazing motorsport career Sir Jackie is a fantastic businessman, patriotic Scot and international icon. Not bad for a guy classed as ‘thick’, wouldn’t you agree?

Last Thursday (the 10th May) was Engage Invest Exploit in Edinburgh. I was lucky enough to be able to attend the event which puts investors in front of a range of high quality technology prospects.

For me the stand out pitch was RecommendedBy, a social shopping companion aimed squarely at the student market. Founder Cally Russell was first up and opened with a bold statement – £100 million exit in 4 years time. This went on to be a bit of a contentious issue throughout the day with advice given later from speaker Deborah Magid, of the IBM Venture Capital Group, being not to mention exits as investors want to see entrepreneurs build a sustainable business. Regardless of that Cally was confident, concise and had clearly taken the lessons from Bill Joos to heart. Another stand out of was the design of the deck, uncluttered, clean and with nice graphical effects and attention to detail.

Great start to the pitches

Another standout pitch was by Sofant Technologies who aim to improve smartphone antenna performance (and therefore battery performance) whilst reducing the number of antenna required. The presentation by CEO Sergio was a bit dry but the technology is interesting and anything that can improve the battery life of my phone I’m all for.

Another few companies with talented people behind them that I’m going to be keeping an eye on are:

• Insight Arcade – Founded by Allan Lloyds, Insight Arcade is an online platform for learners aiming to connect with learners with peers and enable the discovery of training opportunities such as classes, courses and workshops and provide a framework for lifelong self directed learning.
• theCADcube – I liken theCADcube to a kind of GitHub for designers and architects. Providing a library of 3D CAD models from leading and niche manufacturers.
• PureVLC – pitching on the day and on a stall with some impressive demos PureVLC are the creators of Li-Fi, a solution to the radio spectrum crisis. They use visible light for high speed wireless communication using standard LED lightbulbs. They were demoing a world first – text messaging via light.

EIE12 was full of plenty more cool startups including seeu.at and Plantedd from Jamie McHale and David Wong who have written for RookieOven. Big thanks to Informatics Ventures for organising, hopefully next year will have some more startups there.

Been rather busy of late, University, Startup Weekend Glasgow and a few other things in the works have meant I’ve not had the time to add content to RookieOven. So I thought it would be a good idea to share some cool events coming up in the weeks ahead:

• Think Business with Biggart Bailie: free event to discuss a variety of issues facing new and established businesses in the current market. There will be lawyers on-hand to talk about business matters including intellectual property, employment, doing business on-line, debt recovery, structuring your business, leasing or buying property, negotiating with the bank, finance and litigation. Hosts Damien Bechelli and Chris McLeish, Partners in the Biggart Baillie Corporate and Property departments plus other experts, will be on hand to discuss your specific questions or concerns with you on a one-to-one basis.
• Engage Invest Exploit 12: I’ve already sung the praises of EIE a few weeks back but it really is an excellent event. It is an annual showcase of high-quality companies spinning out of Scotland’s world leading Informatics and Computer Science departments and startup companies in our wider entrepreneurial ecosystem. Taking place on the 10th May in the Informatics Forum in Edinburgh, Jackie Stewart is the keynote speaker of the event. Impressive list of exhibitors such as Seeu.at, RecommendedBy, Float App and Insight Arcade.
• RookieOven Meetup: yip it’s that time of the month again. RookieOven meetup will again be taking place first Monday of the month in Glasgow. From half 6 onwards come along to the Bier Halle Hippo Lounge on Sauchiehall Street. Chat with other founders and enthusiasts over a few beers and some free pizza.
• Startup Weekend Glasgow: The first Startup Weekend to take place in Scotland is at the end of the month (25th-27th). Excellent opportunity to meet fellow startup enthusiasts, pitch a new idea, work on an MVP and see where things go. Tickets are available from the Eventbrite page and cost £40.

Any other events coming up you think startups should know about? I’m always looking for great events not only to attend but to add to the Scottish StartupDigest which is a free weekly mailing list highlighting the best events going on across Scotland.

Being a startup founder isn’t easy and you need all the help you can get thankfully for Scottish tech startups there are lots of excellent resources. As with anything there are a lot of dubs out there but some of these resources every founder in Scotland should be aware of. Here are, in my opinion, 10 essential tech startup resources:

1. StartupDigest Scotland - this weekly email is something I curate. Comes out every Monday morning and highlights the best events in the week ahead and provides a recap on the weekly happenings in the Scottish startup scene. Free to sign up to and unobtrusive.
2. TechMeetup Mailing List – Jobs, discussions, announcements and a bit of banter all happen on this great mailing list. Currently sitting at 656 members the list is a great place to find out what is going on in Scotland.
3. Edinburgh Lean Circle Mailing List – another brilliant Google Group. These guys arrange some fantastic events so well worth signing up for these alone.
4. StartupCafe RSS - Although a bit quiet of late Startup Cafe still produces great content for startups and has a great archive of posts.
5. Start It Lean Mailing List – Blog by non-technical founder Scott Torrance. Focusing on his journey developing his idea using lean methodologies and lean thinking.
6. Informatics Ventures Mailing List – Keep up to date with the work of Informatics Ventures. Some awesome events take place in Scotland thanks to these guys, the likes of the Bill Joos pitching workshop and Engage Invest Exploit each year.
7. Entrepreneurial Spark LinkedIn Group - One of the most active LinkedIn groups I’m a member of. Lots of great content and discussion going on.
8. Edinburgh2 – simple yet effective site. You can quickly see what regular meetups and user group meetings are meeting each month in Edinburgh.
9. Glasgow2 - There is now also Glasgow2 which serves the same purpose as Edinburgh2 but for, you guessed it, Glasgow.
10. Dundee Web Standards - a monthly social gathering of like-minded individuals in the creative industries based in and around Dundee. Be sure to keep an eye on the blog and the twitter account.

Here are some other important resource you can sign up to, although I’m maybe a bit biased:

• RookieOven RSS
• RookieOven on Facebook
• RookieOven on Twitter
• RookieOven on Google+

These are the resources I think Scottish tech startup founders can’t afford to not to be aware of. Can you suggest some more?

At LWS I met up with My1Login, a Glasgow startup who aim to change the way we store and use our online passwords. Having secured £250,000 in funding they are taking the service worldwide.

The website allows users to securely store usernames and strong passwords in the My1Login online vault. They can then get 1-click access to these sites easily through the web-based interface. The passwords are encrypted, so not even My1Login has access to your data.

My1Login are based in an incubator space in the West End of Glasgow, provided by Digital Enterprise Glasgow, who are funded by Glasgow City Council. Their £250k in funding has been raised from Scottish Enterprise. You can find them at www.my1login.com and @my1login.

It’s great to see Scottish tech startups doing well!