May 18, 2012
Ben Reid
In General
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Presentation from Startup Conference 2012 a few weeks ago: Lean startup, Lean VC

This is an interesting presentation by Dave McLure from the recent Startup Conference in Silicon Valley a few weeks ago. An accelerated model for early-stage venture capital: do hundreds of $50-$100K deals and then fail most of them fast. Apparently it works. (Thanks to @benbodley at @teknique for the link).

[Question is: does this approach ever yield anything more significant than a smartphone app that makes it slightly quicker to find a plumber...?]

Silicon Valley 2.0: Lean Startup, Lean VC
View more presentations from Dave McClure

April 20, 2012
Ben Reid
In General
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You don’t need to be in Silicon Valley to do a startup: top 25 startup ecosystems in the world

More interesting data published from Startup Genome project on startup ecosystems throughout the world. (See my previous blog post Startup Genome Project: ESSENTIAL reading for Internet Startups).

From the data gathered so far, the top 25 places to build a startup are listed below. Each ecosystem has its own defining characteristics, for example:

  • Silicon Valley: Biggest throughput. Strong early stage funding ecosystem. More mentors. Most Ambitious. High Risk.
  • New York City: Diverse. Niche Focus. Marketplace and Social Network focus. High risk.
  • London: Well educated. Bet big on perceived proven winners. Project Management / E-Commerce Focus. Low Risk.
1. Silicon Valley (San Francisco, Palo Alto, San Jose, Oakland)
2. New York City
3. London
4. Toronto
5. Tel Aviv
6. Los Angeles
7. Singapore
8. Sao Paulo
9. Bangalore
10. Moscow
11. Paris
12. Santiago
13. Seattle
14. Madrid
15. Chicago
16. Vancouver
17. Berlin
18. Boston
19. Austin
20. Mumbai
21. Sydney
22. Melbourne
23. Warsaw
24. Washington D.C.
25. Montreal

(Original story on Techcrunch here and on Startup Compass Blog here). Christchurch’s Startup Genome listing is here.

April 4, 2012
Ben Reid
In General, New Zealand, Software Business
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Christchurch EPIC Campus gets a green light – Memia a founding tenant

It was with great pride that Memia yesterday attended the official launch of the  EPIC (Enterprise Precinct and Innovation Campus) development in Christchurch. After over a year of exceptionally hard work by EPIC co-founders Colin Andersen and Wil McLellan, which from the sounds of it has involved herding cats and pushing boulders uphill, the first stage of the EPIC project, the “Sanctuary” building, was announced in full fanfare. Memia is one of the 17 earthquake-displaced technology businesses who form the founding tenant group. The building will be open in Q4 of 2012, and believe me it will be great to have a permanent city-centre office again after the disruption of 2010-2011. (See my earlier blog post for details of our previous offices).

Yesterday tenants, sponsors and others associated with the project were joined by worthies including “Super” Minister for Science and Innovation Steven Joyce and Christchurch Mayor Bob Parker. To add a touch of comedy, we were all required to wear hard hats and hi-vis vests, even though the site is currently totally cleared. Perhaps they were expecting that the sky would fall in… ;-)

Some news coverage here:

IT Hub Set for Central Christchurch (Stuff.co.nz)

Government commits $1.8M to Christchurch Tech Hub (Idealog)

Christchurch IT Hub Welcome Boost (Voxy)

IT Technology Hub for Christchurch (NZ Herald) (Video)

Mr Joyce performed a credible job driving a digger to “break the ground”. (there are plenty of jobs going in the Christchurch reconstruction if he ever feels like a change of career…). Now it’s over to construction subcontractor Timbercore to build the Sanctuary building in record time. All going well, we move in during August.

Once again congratulations to Colin, Wil, and thanks to all of the public sector agencies (MSI, NZTE, CCC) and sponsors (BNZ) and advisors (too many to mention) who have made this happen.

We now have the tangible opportunity to confidently grow the Canterbury tech sector and create an international-level Technology and Innovation Precinct in the new Christchurch, to grow our nascent tech industry and, equally importantly, attract in more talent and venture capital. A great day for Canterbury’s future.

March 26, 2012
Ben Reid
In General, New Zealand
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RIP Paul Callaghan – watch him once again at StrategyNZ 2011

Sad to hear over the weekend that Sir Paul Callaghan, 2011 New Zealander of the Year, world class scientist and advocate of a smarter New Zealand, lost his long battle against cancer. Click here to read his obituary on Stuff.co.nz.

If you haven’t watched his talk from last year’s StrategyNZ conference, take this opportunity to watch him again. Inspiring, factual and irreverent – a great presentation.