Technology Strategy

Focus on the development process The biggest problem is not money or resources, it is lack of knowledge in undertaking the development process. Effort should be focused on creating an "open-source" development process for web-start-ups with a complete series of artifacts for them. Process Model Most web-start-ups that get past the concept phase, fail not due to lack of resources, rather they are unable to use the resources they have effectively. Most software projects are problematic, and for start-ups the problem of getting software developed in a efficient, painless way is a major problem. Little time or effort is spent in the specification phase and hence what is developed is often not what is required. We should develop an open-source framework which guides the development process. ...

Recently, I designed a circuit for a home project. It got me thinking about the differences between circuit design and hardware design. In hardware design, we operate with a set of discrete components, furthermore our design is constrained by: time, money, space, availability and power. Based on these constraints we would find well defined functional building block (components) and function by function construct a device that produces the desired output, given a particular set of inputs. This process is iterative, the design of the system follows the same process and any of the sub-systems. In some ways the constraints and the fact that inputs and outputs are well defined (making system design the same as that for sub-systems) makes the design process uniform and relatively easy. I was amazed at how deterministic my circuit design was as compared to software design. In software design, we have become overwhelmed by the number of components, the complexity of the inputs and ...

Most people I speak to, seem to think that it is obvious that entrepreneurship is one key to economic growth. This is a very modern view-point in that the entrepreneur was never really considered in neo-classical economic theory.  I don't however believe that the answer to this question is as obvious as most people may think. Economic growth is measured by a nations Gross domestic Product (GDP) which as the name suggests measures the economic output of the nation. So there must be some production or output for this domestic product to grow, this implies that the workers of the nation are adding value to some resource which previously had a lesser value (if any). This might be digging a huge whole and extracting diamonds, which are then polished and sold, or it might be using intellect and some intellectual property which is then sold around the world. Either way, no matter how you look at it, something has to be created or some value added. If a nation has a large percentage of...

There is always a debate whether one can predict the future looking at the past or whether the past simply constrains our future thinking. I think both future looking and analyzing the past are useful activities in prediction. Thinking about my career working as an engineer with mobile technology, starting in 1997 with the Motorola M301 A number of key technological elements have improved significantly over the last 15 years: Battery The m301 had a stand-by time of a few hours and talk time of about 20 min, the battery was large and heavy and had memory - charging a not-fully-discharged battery would lead to loss of performance. The official specs quoted the battery as " Included NiCad battery gives 12 hours standby or 70 minutes talktime ".  NiCad batteries soon gave way to NiMh which had twice the capacity of the Nicad. Then came the Lithium-ion which produced the same capacity with about 30% less weight. These technologies all served to increase the battery perf...

A new term that is bouncing around the start-up world, is the term "pivot" which basically means to change direction or concept. Most entrepreneurs will change their initial ideas in some way at some time - this is in general part of the process of realising an opportunity. As one starts in the quest to develop a business, all the answers cannot be known prior to starting, for if they were known it would be easy - like following a recipe. Alas for most of us this is not the case, we have some notion of what things will look like and then embark, perhaps with a degree of ignorance on a journey. Lately, I have had a number of clients or colleagues ring me up and exclaim with great exuberance, " we have pivoted !". I must say that this alarms and surprises me, changing direction should be part of the entrepreneurial process, but not an end in itself. The goal is not to pivot, the goal is to make your business a reality and if you should have t...

The question of how to monetise a website often comes up. In most cases my clients have interesting content and have gained reasonable traffic in the order of 30 - 100 k unique visits a month. The issue then arises, how to take the next steps to monetize the website (generate revenue). I categorize monitization into a series of categories, each building on the previous in terms of time and complexity to achieve and manage: Lazy day, dream away Here one the website generates revenue simply by placing adverts from one affiliate network or something like Google AdSense. Once the correct code has been added to the website and the account set-up there is little or no work (aside from maintaining the content - and making sure one gets the traffic). The returns here are typically low. However, one can expect to generate 100`s of pounds a month, if not more. Lazy day, optimize With some work on making sure your adverts are as relevant as possible to yo...

Many blog posts I read and forums on entrepreneurship are filled with hype and half-truths. In many ways it reminds me of stories of gold digging over 100 years ago. Lured by the promise of fortunes, thousands of young men (and I assume woman) trekked in search of riches. Myths became reality, and the very few success stories soon fueled an entire industry around prospecting. Suppliers, transport, gold-exchange etc. In many ways, I see the same thing happening around me - there are pitching events, workshops on how to attain funding, buzz-words and book-lists. The hype also elevates otherwise ordinary people to god-like status - a twenty something VC worker, a pitch event organizer etc. I recently saw a post asking for the best book on start-ups. Thats like asking what is the best TV program in the world. For one thing, the conception of what a start-up is and in fact what an entrepreneur is differs from person to person, from economy to economy. If you trawl the academic literature ...