Pure Play

Glamour in Gatwick

Myself and Fintan (dbTwang co-founder) went to Gatwick yesterday to meet up with Jamie Crompton. Jamie is an ex-rocker (does the hair give it away?) and himself and Fintan swapped tales of Reading Festival in the early 80's when Fintan was in the audience and Jamie on stage.

Jamie spent years working with Fender Europe at senior level and at the moment he interviews big name guitarists for Guitarist magazine while assembling a TV project with his business partner. He has been advising dbTwang since last year and will be putting industry partnerships together for us.

Really enjoyed meeting him for the first time (Fintan had met him last year) and we had a relaxed, fun and productive couple of hours together. It's a pleasure to be with people who know their space in such depth and who are so passionate about it.

keith

WTF - Irish Businesses Turn down Cash Management Training

I was speaking to one of the many City and County Enterprise Boards around the country today and they told me that they had to cancel a training session for established businesses on Cashflow Management and Debt Collection.

There is no part of that which makes sense. At all. Whatsoever. This R thing is disconnecting some businesses from common sense.

keith

Free customised blogs for Hotels - limited time only

Jason Roe is one of a number of 20'somethings who impress me a lot. He posts here about an offer he is making to hotels to build customised blogs for them.

If you are in the business or know someone who is jump on this one :-)

keith

Irish Blog Awards - Winners Gallery

Here's to Damien Mulley and all who helped to organise a great event. I met many new faces and caught up with a load more. Great venue.

UPDATE - full size photos on pix.ie click this link: Irish Blog Awards 2009 (some need to be rotated, got bored doing them).

Shortly before it all began.

The same crowd - but all bidding for a night with the DJ

Best Popculture Blog

* rapture ponies

Best Blog from a Journalist - Sponsored by Mamut

 

* Markham Nolan - expad.ie

Best Food/Drink Blog - Sponsored by Bord Bia

* the daily spud

Best Fashion Blog - Sponsored by Spinnakerpro

beaut.ie

Best Arts and Culture Blog - Sponsored by Poetry Ireland

* pursued by a bear

Best Political Blog - Sponsored by Digital Revolutionaries

* cedar lounge

Best Group Blog - Sponsored by DineToMeet.ie

dublinblog.ie

Best Use of the Irish Language in a Blog - Sponsored by Edgecast Media

* igaeilge

Best Technology Blog/Blogger - Sponsored by Bitbuzz

* Justin Mason - taint.org

Best Sport and Recreation Blog - Sponsored by Boards.ie

* The kop blog

Special Award - for helping out year after year

 

Brian Greene

Best News/Current Affairs Blog - Sponsored by IGO People

* Suzy Byrne mamanpoulet

Best Specialist Blog - Sponsored by iQ Content

* irisheconomy.ie

Best Newcomer - Sponsored by Teamworkpm.net

* Trust Tommy

Best Blog of a Business - Sponsored by RedCardinal.ie

* The blacknight blog

Best Music Blog - Sponsored by DownloadMusic.ie

* nialler9

Best Personal Blog - Sponsored by Microsoft Ireland’s Developer and Platform Group

* annie rhiannon.

Best Humour Blog - Sponsored by Beecher Networks

* The Swearing Lady

Best Photo Blog - Sponsored by Pix.ie

* Ryan Whalley glasseyalley.com

Best Blog Post - Sponsored by KRO IT Solutions

* K8 the GR8: “The Secret Fire

Grand Prix Prize - Best Blog sponsored by McConnells

Suzy Byrne - Mamanpoulet.com

Special, Special Legend Award

Damien Mulley

keith

Meet a Dragon in Kilkenny

Copied from email newsletter - no value add here!

Kilkenny Business Women’s Network are hosting a lunch date with female entrepreneur and Irish Dragon Sarah Newman to celebrate International Women’s Day.  Sarah was born and raised in Essex, England and moved to Ireland in her twenties where she set up and ran a internet company needahotel.com.  When she sold her company in 2006 for a reported €60 million she became a dot com millionaire.
 
For the last three years Sarah has concentrated on raising her two young children while still been involved in some projects. Recently she was approached to become the only female dragon on the Irish version of Dragons Den the first episode of which will be aired on February 19th.
 
‘Lunch with a Female Dragon’ is open to all and takes place on March 6th at 12.30pm in The Rivercourt Hotel, Kilkenny City.  To book your place please contact Trish on 087 7565376 or Dee on 087 688 4723.  Lunch is €30.

keith

Congrats to all shortlisted blogs

Congrats to Michele, Maryrose, Sabrina, Matt and Ruth on getting through to the Best Business Blog Shortlist.

"Keith does not blog to win awards, he does it for the love of his business" said a spokesperson for the once longlisted blogger.

Best Blog of a Business - Sponsored by RedCardinal.ie

• blog.blacknight.com
• brightspark-consulting.com/blog
• sabrinadent.com
• curiouswines.ie
• nicedaydesigns-ruth.blogspot.com

Looking forward to seeing you all on Saturday evening in Cork - the rest of the shortlists are here.

keith

Highlighting another batch of Bizcamp Dublin speakers

Time to put up another batch of these. This is done with 2 purposes - firstly to promote the sheer variety of speakers available for free to you at the bizcamp on 7th March and secondly to say thanks to each of them for offering to talk.

For some that is an easy thing and for others it is daunting - I have got to say that talking at bizcamp will be a pleasure for everyone.

In this batch of 6 (pulled in the order in which they were submitted) there is a strong marketing emphasis, a pinch of acronyms, a handful of getting the most out of people and the closest you will get to a pitch at the bizcamp (we hate them more than we hate spam - and we really hate spam) with information on the excellent EPP series of programs around the country.

• Mary Carty “Email Marketing 101″ Email marketing is a very effective (and free) tool for businesses to use - what are the key things to look out for?

• Niall Harbison “Marketing and Growing Your Start-Up” The chef turned entrepreneur (and Dragons Den survivor!) talks about the lessons he has learned in how to effectively promote your business

• Andrew Tobin “Survival is Success - How to make money from the web“  Andrew explores the online V offline arguments and shows how you can secure an ROI with your online presence

• Frederic Herrera “Enterprise Development Programme for the Digital Media Sector in Ireland“ 

(Update - Frederic cannot make it on the day)

• Joy Redmond “Human Capital in a Downturn” It’s a knowledge economy, people are your biggest overhead but your greatest asset so it’s important not to compromise on human capital.

• Seamus Byrne “It’s all about your customer, or users in the case of a website” Seamus talks about the use of story telling as a technique for focusing on what your customers want from you and your website

Full line up here.

keith

PS - for entrepreneurs on the West Coast registration is open for BizCamp Limerick on 21st March.

Learning from others - fundraising panel at BizCamp Dublin

I am one of four panelists (there will be more) talking about our recent successful fundraising experiences. From the bizcamp site:

Successful Fundraising - a panel of non-tech and tech entrepreneurs share their experience of having closed funding rounds in the last 6 to 9 months......confirmed for the panel so far:

• Caelen King - RevaHealth.com - €1.25 million Jan 2009 - detail here
• Niall Harbison - lookandtaste.com (formerly iFoods.tv) - €400k Oct 2008 -  some detail here
• Campbell Scott - IGOPeople - €750k 2008 - some detail here
• Keith Bohanna - dbTwang - 110k Dec 2008 - some detail here

UPDATE

• Ciaran Crean - MicksGarage - €560k Dec 2008 - some detail here

The last time I helped put a panel together was for the 2nd barcamp in Ireland in Waterford Jan 2007 and I was in the audience. I am looking forward to learning as much from this one and thanks to the others for agreeing to share their experiences.

keith

The changing word of marketing - great animated summary

Preparing for a talk next week to a group of hoteliers and came across this 2007 video by Michael Reissinger. Superb intro and worth a quick view.


Scholz & Friends: "Dramatic shift in marketing reality" - aka "A short history of marketing" ... from Michael Reissinger on Vimeo.

keith

Tuesday Push - Why are you all looking at me? The Twitter Mosaic

Via one of the Cork Mafia (Walter Higgins) comes a simple idea which allows you to bask in your own popularity.

1. Go to http://sxoop.com/twitter/mosaic.pl
2. Enter your twitter username
3. Order a mug or tshirt bearing the faces of everyone who reads what you write

ooh - and as one reviewer pointed out yesterday this is a lovely idea which could spawn variants across many social networks.

You can see underneath the people who follow me on Twitter.

keith

Get your twitter mosaic here.

lynx on 10th feb 09

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Want to see what big brands are doing with the socialweb? Have a look at this Mashabe Top 10 listing

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Some popular websites and how they started - my favorite is Amazon. Ross Hill has screen shots here.

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Just because you can doesn't mean you should. Have a look at a one page website and see what I mean. Elliott Kember's home page is here.

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Explain yourself..much better with some lovely charts.

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Zappo's sell shoes online. But really they sell customer service wrapped around shoes. Their CEO talks off the cuff here about that culture. The clip is underneath

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I need your help - freemium conference recommendations required

Looking for your help with this one. dbTwang is based on the freemium model - where you offer a valid service for free to attract signups and then work to convert a percentage of those to paying a recurring monthly premium.

This is growing business model for internet startups and yet only attracts sporadic attention at conferences. If you know of conferences which are substantially dedicated to this topic can you leave a comment here?

And in return - a couple of blogs/posts which are really strong on this topic:

Andrew Cheng
David McClure
Mark McLeod
Sean O'Malley

thanks, keith

bizcamp Dublin - speaker selection No. 1

I am going to do a series of posts which each highlight 5 speakers at bizcamp Dublin and their chosen topics. The 1st 5 are a great cross section - finance, marketing and startup experience with innovation and management skills thrown in. Full line up here.

• Aileen Hannan “Practical Finances for Entrepreneurs”….sales projections, switching from paye to self employed, profit and tax, understanding p&l and balance sheet, doing figures for the bank, that sort of thing.

• Anton Mannering “Networking, how it helps to get your business going“….. Networking and getting your business going when you don’t have much resources.

• Eve Bulman "Our Communication Styles" This short session will provide an overview of the 4 Communication Styles, their Strengths & Weaknesses, how they serve us as Entrepreneurs and facilitated discussion on the topic.

• Chris Byrne “Startup advice from a serial entrepreneur” ….Starting your own business, email marketing, online research.

• Johnny Beirne "The story of how one business innovates" Johnny Beirne talks about how his business constantly innovates their service to develop new markets and also shares the story of the Leitrim Business Network

Thanks to everyone who has offered to speak to date - 22 in total so far.

keith

dbTwang landing page - improved in response to feedback

Quite a few comments (thank you) following on from my series of posts on Facebook ad performance about the lack of text on the dbtwang.com page - specifically no information at all about what people were signing up to a beta of.

Fintan has just improved it with just enough to hint at the possibilities:

dbTwang is the new place for all things guitar. We're not just another tab site, we're into the heart and soul of a guitar, whether it's the wood, pick-ups or the custom finish. We're about what makes your guitar your guitar!

If you're into what we're into send us your email to apply to participate in the dbTwang beta program launching in March 2009 and be among the first to see the website built exclusively for you!

Wait and see if it has an impact on the signup conversion rate (consistently 25%)

keith

UPDATE @ 9th Feb

Richard Hearn (who works on stuff like conversion rates with his clients) left a comment for us and posting here as people may miss it otherwise.

Honest, shooting-from-the-hip, feedback on that landing page.

Apologies, but I think it's pretty terrible.
1. Try to read the test, then turn off the background image. Which is easier to read?
2. Main CTA (keith: call to action)is below fold. Why waste all that whitespace high up?
3. Label for input is "dbTwang beta:" - what should I enter there? My beta key?
4. Far too much text - people wont read that they'll scan and probably see "your guitar! and "you".

If I was re-doing this (which I might just do if I get some freetime later today), I'd remove background image from behind text, put everything up on the page, make better use of fonts, colours and font-size, try to focus attention on main CTA. Few other things also...

So we have sooo much to learn about this - really appreciate that Richard.

Amazing Stuff from Mason, Hayes and Curran

I received a 48 page document from MH&C on Thursday evening and sent a response back to them this evening 17.23. I received a revision at 19.52.

This is Saturday evening.

The solicitor concerned (Robert McDonagh) has been on autoresponder since Thursday evening (he is on holidays for a week and should be packing).

If any of you need professional, responsive legals (expensive but bloody good) Mason, Hayes and Curran are worth a call.

keith

PS - bizcamp plug - Dan Barry from MH&C is doing a talk at Bizcamp Dublin on Legal Issues Facing Startup Businesses

lynx on 7th feb 09

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[via mulley.ie] EConsultancy wrote up the minutes of the Jan 09 MeasurementCamp. Here they are. (PDF)

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New iPhone app for delivering you full access to your Google analytics account. It is really well presented. Analytics App website here.

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Google post on some eyetracking results which use a video clip (underneath) and screenshots to help us understand user search behaviour. You can see the full post here.

dbTwang Facebook ads metrics @6th February 2009

In my last post on this topic I mentioned that I had split out adverts that were running to all M&F in 18 plus by gender and more defined age ranges. So each ad went from 1 variant (can you have a single variant!) to 8. That was easily done - Facebook gives you the option of Build Similar Advert and pre-populates it.

Overall stats in bold with last week in brackets

• 420,329 (304,574) impressions across 29 ( 8) adverts
• 274 (154) click throughs (the ads range from .42 (.08) of a percent to .02 (.02) of a percent click throughs)
• e53.31 (e32.72) spent to date
• 68 (39) of those visitors signed up to be notified 25% (25% )
• Therefore each of those has cost us e.78 (e.83)

Learnings from this:

• You can see adverts improve dramatically in their click through rate with this kind of segmentation
• Our signup rate has not changed - we will be making a small change to over the weekend to add a hint of what we actually will be offering. The 25% signup is for an unspecified service which is a bloody miracle. (the signup rate, not our existance!)
• The highest clickthrough rates was 45-65 Males in the UK at .42%.
• This is also the demographic which we are targeting with our subscription service (so some validation there) and they are the smallest segment on Facebook (a younger profile overall) so even with a high CTR the numbers are small.
• Our name and logo have been shown 420 thousand times to a targeted audience for the price of a small advert in a local paper.

FYI some detail from the Ad Manager in Facebook below. You can see some of the ad wording here.

Commentary and feedback welcome please - going through a steep learning curve with this and all tips helping a lot :-)

keith

UPDATE @ 8th Feb:

Working out the metrics for just the signups since the week before (as opposed to the aggregate total). This is more meaningful in terms of tracking weekly performance and the impact of changes on the cost per conversion.

• 115.755 impressions across 29 adverts
• 120 click throughs (the ads range from .42 of a percent to .02 of a percent click throughs)
• e20.59 spent to date
• 29 of those visitors signed up to be notified 25%
• Therefore each of those has cost us e.70

Communities and how to build them

Had a great conversation with Paul McAvinchey (www.diddlyi.com) today about building communities, the various approaches to growing an online business and the platform options.

Coming out of that conversation I was reminded to post this - Kathy Sierra at FOWA London on the topic of growing and nurturing your community.

I really enjoyed watching her. FOWA Dublin tickets still available - it is on March 6th.

keith

Innovate Europe - pre workshop pitch

Robin Blandford (also longlisted for blog awards) happily shares his pitches with his blog readers.

Here is his one minute for the Innovate Workshop which happened today.

Innovate:Europe Elevator Pitch from Robin Blandford on Vimeo.

I wonder did he need more than one take?!

keith

lynx on 3rd feb 09

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Mixpanel is a service for startups which helps you analyse your conversion metrics. Their home page is here.

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Comprehensive source of statistics on operating system use, browser market share etc with some nice trend graphs. Handy if you need to convince someone that they need to work with Firefox!. More here.

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Enjoy these night time shots of London. 28 of them here from Jason Hawkes.

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While the Irish based Putplace are in development with their Mac client Apple users have to go elsewhere for our peace of mind backups. Syncplicity is out of testing and available with 2G free of charge. Click here for their site.

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Laois - Promoting Your Business Using the Internet

Know anyone in Laois - or are you living there yourself?

I am doing a one day training workshop with Laois CEB next Tuesday 10th February covering topics such as:

• How to promote yourself online using basic search engine optimisation and other methods.
• Various other methods of getting traffic to their website
• Basic good practice in website design 
• Tracking your website visitors using the free tool Google Analytics 
• Legal guidelines to be aware of

Give them a call on 057 8661800 for more information, CEB training is always heavily subsidised ;-)

keith

Free event - BizSpark Acelerator

I have just received, and within 3 minutes signed up to, details of this event on the 24th February.

Some great speakers and topics:

Steve Collins - Dr Steve Collins co-founded Havok in 1998 and has recently announced a new venture, New-Game Tech.

Sheena Clohessy - With over 28 years of HR experience, Sheena is a strategic HR advisor to many Irish indigenous companies. 

Siofra Flood - Siofra has over 10 years experience with Irish software companies, formerly holding the role of Corporate Counsel at Havok, and Legal Counsel at Silicon and Software Systems and IONA Technologies.

Ronan Geraghty - Ronan runs Microsoft’s BizSpark Program aimed at delivering software, support and visibility to Ireland’s tech Start-ups. [ed: Sponsor slot!]

Chris Horn - The co-founder of IONA Dr. Horn is a non-executive director of a number of privately held software companies and business associations and advisor to a number of venture capital firms.

Felim O’Caoimh - Felim works with Eversheds O’Donnell Sweeney who regularly advise indigenous owner-managed companies as well as international and multinational companies, banks, financial institutions and public organisations.

Paul Rellis - Managing Director of Microsoft Ireland, Paul is also Chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce, a board member of IBEC, the Irish Management Institute and the National Digital Research Centre.

Mary Ryan - Founder and director of Product Innovator Ltd., Mary recently won the Dublin City Female Entrepreneur 2008. Mary has over 17 years experience working in the finance and software industries. 

Gordon Wilson - Gordon Wilson works as a Director of Corporate Finance and IT Development with Hilary Haydon and Company.

more details:

When:  9.30am to 6pm, Tuesday February 24th Feb . Entrance is free of charge.

Where: the Radisson SAS Royal Hotel in Dublin’s city centre.

Register to Attend here:  http://short.ie/innovaccellreg

Event Schedule and Speakers here: http://short.ie/innovaccellsched

See you there?

keith

Irish Blog Awards - longer (than short) lists are out

I have made it through to the long list from an initial 34. It is unusual for me to get even this far away from an award so I am going to enjoy it briefly. There, done.

Back to the day job now with the thought that there are some stonking blogs in this list - an honour to be in your company.

For your reading pleasure the other 19 are:

Best Blog of a Business - Sponsored by RedCardinal.ie

• IIA Blog
• Puddle Ducks
• Icecream Ireland
• Krisha De
• Tast.ie
• iFoods.tv
• Sabrina Dent
• Peter Donegan Landscaping
• Robin Blandford
• Curious Wines
• Worldwide Cycles
• eWrite Cork
• Fortify Your Oasis
• Brian Honan Consulting
• Blacknight Blog
• Niceday Designs
• Brightspark Consulting
• Nononsense Blog
• Argolon
• Cybercom

Thanks to Richard Hearn for sponsoring this category. The other categories can be seen here.

keith

2 Open Coffee's in South East this week

Kilkenny Open Coffee happens tomorrow (Wednesday) at 11.30 in Kilkenny Cafe, Market Cross.

Waterford Open Coffee happens Friday at 09.30 in the Tower Hotel.

See you at the Kilkenny one

keith

bizcamp - my take on what it and and what to expect

16 takes this time - putting my "50take" reputation at stake :-)

keith