RookieOven

I thoroughly enjoyed EIE11 which was yet another one of the quality events put on by Informatics Ventures, in fact one of the first posts I put up on RookieOven was to highlight some of the startups that caught my eye at Engage Invest Exploit (EIE11). By a long way it’s one of the best events for tech startups in Scotland and the good news is EIE is back for 2012 and will be taking place on the 10th May.

Applications are open for exhibitors and I would encourage every startup to apply. Not only do you get excellent exposure to investors and press on the day but in the lead up to EIE Informatics Ventures have various training workshops and seminars for exhibitors. Exhibiting also allows you to meet fellow startups from across Scotland.

The benefits above aren’t even the main reason to attend, the real reason is the keynote speaker – none other than 3 time World Drivers’ Champion Sir Jackie Stewart. I personally can’t think of a better keynote speaker, a patriotic Scot who fought adversity (being an undiagnosed dyslexic) to become world champion of one of the most dangerous sports in the world. He campaigned tirelessly to improve safety standard in motorsport and become a successful businessman running the Stewart team in the late 90′s. If listening to this man can’t inspire you I don’t know what will.

Applications for exhibitors close on Thursday 23nd February. Are you going to apply to exhibit?

Location based collection game WallaBee is now on the App Store. Built by a varied team from across the UK, including Glasgow based Alan Shaw, the app has been in development over the past 6 months.

The history of WallaBee is closely aligned to that another location game – Gowalla. In 2011 Gowalla removed the item collection element of the service to the dismay of many users as CEO Ben Dodson explains, “We built WallaBee as we realised there was a huge amount of disappointment when Gowalla announced they were removing items from their service. We felt their assertion that only 0.5% of their users were using items in their app was based on spurious figures and the research we did showed there was a huge number of fans for such a game”. With Gowalla being acquired by Facebook you have to think there is scope in this space to create a business.

Wallabee is first and foremost a game, not a check-in service. The aim of WallaBee is to forage at locations and pick up one of the many items in the game. These items are kept in your pouch and can be combined and traded with the aim being to obtain the best sets. Strong social features are tied into the game, including Twitter and Facebook integration and the Apple Game Center service, allowing uers to compete with friends and against the leaderboard.

Exciting times for the team, not only are they launching their app into the App Store but they’re also taking WallaBee out to SXSW in March. I’ll be sure to follow the progress of WallaBee as the guys go out to Austin. Also of note is the WallaBee API. It’s nice to see a startup launch their product with their API in place. The guys have listed some suggested implementations with the data but I think there could be scope for some really interesting apps built on top of the data.

Currently available only on iOS, WallaBee is a free download and free to play. However, users have the ability to buy in-game currency via in-app purchases or to upgrade to a Pro Account which has a number of perks. Check it out and give the guys some feedback – Alan is always open to suggestions for improvements to the game so give him a tweet or maybe catch him at one of the RookieOven events.

At the start of the week I attended the Pitch Presentation Workshop with Bill Joos ‘The Pitch Doctor’ organised by Informatics Ventures. It was fantastic!

Bill Joos was co-founder of Garage Technology Ventures along with Guy Kawasaki and previously held senior positions in Apple and IBM. The aim of the workshop was to improve our ability to pitch to investors and was split into 4 sessions:

1. Top Ten Mistakes in Business Plans
2. Perfecting You “Short Building Elevator” Pitch
3. Perfecting your Pitching
4. The Power of an Advisory Board

Now I wont go into detail on the hole workshop, not least cos it lasted a whole day, but I want to highlight a few of the ‘Ah Ha’ moments from day. Bill had a guarantee of at lest 6 ‘Ah Ha’ moments where the content was immensely important to pitching, of these the biggest ‘Ah Ha’ was - long is easy, short is hard.

KISS – Keep It Simple Stupid

This was the core message of the day with Bill using this quote from Mark Twain to encapsulate it:

“I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.”

To nail down what you do and why you do it succinctly is a lot of hard work but essential. This ties into yet another ‘Ah Ha’ moment from the day, the how is pretty much irrelevant. The fact you’re using Node.js with a MongoDB backend means little to an investor in the pitch, what the business is doing and the pain it solves is the information relevant to investors.

7 Words or Less

To be brief is difficult but not impossible. Even with the most complex business you should aim to describe it in 7 words or less. Bill gave a short example with the Ig Noble Prize 24-7 lectures, first the speaker has 24 seconds to describe their subject area then they have to do the same in only 7 words – world economics, theoretical chemistry  and quantum physics are all boiled down to 7 words anyone can understand. Can you do that with your business?

It’s only 50% content

When pitching it’s easy to pour yourself into the content after all it is the meat of the pitch but don’t forget the delivery – it’s the essential garnish. Bill said it’s typical to spend 70% of your time focusing on the content when it should really be 50/50. Practice, practice, practice and get your timing nailed, know the order of the slides and give yourself a good transition from one to another. It’s simple advice and it’s advice I’m sure you’ve heard before but never followed. Well, take it from Bill and give more time to your delivery!

The day really was fantastic and I’m grateful Informatics Ventures brought Bill over, I’m sure the benefits of Bills workshops will be evident at the Engage Invest Exploit (EIE12) conference in May. I hope Informatics Ventures can bring Bill back to Scotland next year, if they do I highly recommend going.

So what next for RookieOven? Well firstly there is the RookieOven meetup in Glasgow on the 6th February. This will be the first one of 2012 and I’m looking forward to catching up with familiar faces and hopefully seeing some new ones too. The meetup will take place in the usual place (Hippo Lounge Sauchiehall Street) from half 6 onwards tho get there sharpish if you fancy some free pizza.

Secondly, you may have noticed I’ve not been updating the site too regularly and it’s basically because I’m snowed under with work. Now I’m under no illusions, all the RookieOven stuff I’ve been doing is small fry but I do feel that through the blog and meetup I’ve had a positive impact on the local startup community. For me at least I’ve regularly met people who inspire that are successful and making money through the internet, then there’s the talented developers, the lawyers into their tech, excellent designers and I’ve met the people behind some awesome products and services.

I currently don’t have any ads or affiliate links or any funding for the site or meetup and I intend to keep it that way, nice and impartial, but what I would like to see change is the content on the site. Up til now it has mainly been my wrambling but I would like to see more content from around the community.

I’ve always been open to folk posting on the site and in fact Jamie McHale of seeu.at has written excellent posts on several occasions. If a local startup has something to share I’d love them to put it on RookieOven. So if anyone wants to post about their experience in anything startup related then get in touch. I’m really open to almost any type of content as long as it’s startup relevant – tips for development, clever ways to monitize, experience obtaining funding, experience hiring or being hired, marketing tips or maybe something you would like to callout. So if you have something to say that will help tech startups in Scotland get in touch.

As I was saying RookieOven in the grand scheme of things is small fry and I don’t think the site is going to rival TechCrunch or The Next Web anytime soon (ever) but I feel there are enough eyes coming here for it to beneficial on many levels to have a mix of content from a range of people in the community.

Agree? Would love to hear your thoughts…

If you’re thinking about applying to UK accelerator Springboard London as the title suggests you better snap to it. The application deadline is on the 29th January for the 13 week programme beginning in April this year.

So why go to Springboard? Well to start there’s the awesome list of mentors, with the likes of Immad Akhund of HeyZap, Danielle Morrill of Twilio and Alex Barrera of Inkzee. There is also the funding and support, with £5000 per founder (up to three founders) in funding for 6% of founders shares per startup and office space, legal services and a range of other important services for startups. If all that wasn’t incentive enough the Springboard 13 week programme ends with an investor day where the teams pitch to angel investors and venture capitalists.

This short video was made at the end of the last programme and gives a taste of what is on offer:

Springboard has a host of partners from the tech industry who are providing a load of swag for a startup goodie bag for applicants to the London programme with a value of over $500. Providing contents for the goodie bag are Microsoft, Rackspace, SendGrid, Twilio, Google, 99 designs, Pivotal Tracker and Edinburgh based FreeAgent.

Closing date for applications is the 29th so if you’re going for it get your application in now.