Finding business partners the eHarmony way.

So much for the quiet long weekend.  I got into a fairly long Twitter conversation with Nichola Bates (@growsalesonline), Chris McCabe (@maxer08), Jackie McGonigle (@whatsonni), Lyra McKee (@LyraMcKee) and Mary McKenna (@MMaryMcKenna) about something that really makes me tick… data!

Well I was looking at the data angle of it I’m pretty sure the rest were looking from another angle.  It was triggered by a blog post that Mary did a few days ago about having two pros of having two heads at the helm of the business (you can read it here).  The question then was raised, how do you find the perfect match of a business partner?

There are some sites out there like LinkedIn and Collab.ie which do provide a start but nothing that could actually predict anything.  The key to all of this are two simple things: rules and knowledge.

eHarmony works in the same way.  The questionnaire when you sign up is the key bit, it’s the data gathering that figures who you are and what you are prepared to put up with.  The next key is figuring out what you are actually looking for.

The following is an actual advert (why they listed on Gumtree I’ll never know but there you are, each to their own and all that).

We are an angling retailer based in manchester. We are a new breed of retailer, with a great USP. We have a vision for future growth and are now looking to grow the business.
We are looking for a partner/Investor/Mentor. Preferably someone who has an interest in angling. The ideal person is someone who would like to take an hands on approach. Experience in the retail trade and IT.
We have been trading since June 2009, much work has already been done.
We have a website already up and running, ecommerce site, 200+ Customers.
Business name, brand name and trademarks have already been registered with IPO.
This is a great opportunity for the right person.
Ingoing is 10K.
Quick return is predicted and all targets are seen as highly achievable.

So the jump out points:

• Hands on investor in sales/IT
• Min invest of 10K
• Likes angling (call it active interest in the investment)
• Based in North West of England
• Early stage startup
• Retail experience

You could network your brains out for six months getting to every event you could, shaking loads of hands, doing lots of meetings and it could all come to nothing.  Or you could go the eHarmony way plough all your wants and needs into the system and let the site whittle the list of eligible partners down for you.  That filters the wheat from the chaff.  Then it’s a case of meeting them all (pink carnation and a newspaper job) and doing the rest from there.

Obviously a system like this is only as good as the data it has from potential plenty-of-fish-in-the-sea business partners.

Weekends off, who needs them?

Data, Data, Data: Why would Subway run out of my fave bread?

I hope my doctor isn’t reading this…..

My morning commute to work involves me passing a Subway store.  As I have the Subway card (500 points and you get a free 6 inch sub, or £50 for a sandwich) I’ll use it pretty regularly to get the points. My breakfast is pretty much like clockwork, a 6 inch white sausage bacon and egg sub.  Simple, nothing on it.

The point of sale (POS) system uses an internet connection back to a server to add the points.  The interesting fact though happened when I walked in one day and they didn’t have white bread.  Now let’s remember, I’m English and quite set in my ways (Corn Flakes, THEN THE SUGAR, then the milk) so for someone to run out of white bread I’ll not really go for anything else, I like my routine.  It gave me opportunity to ask a few questions though and the big surprise for me, the POS doesn’t take into account the bread that’s being purchased.  It knows the name of the sub, cost etc but not what type of bread is being used.

Worse case scenario is that the manager over makes on a type of bread that will not sell. This leads to wastage.  If you can track the bread then you can start reducing overheads against a period of time.

And the perception on the customer is bad, I don’t really like the taste of the other breads. So I have the option of getting second best or coming back (by which time I’m at work so it’s too late).  Subway has less that 2 minutes to get my attention and it all starts with white bread.  The can then compound to me not returning the next day under the perception that the store might not have the bread in stock again.

Ultimately, if Subway could track the bread type transactions they’d potentially save money in the long run and keep the customer happy.

Points loyalty systems are pretty useless unless there is some correlation between the requirements of the customer and the knowledge of the retailer.  It’s one of the main reasons that the Tesco Clubcard works so well and the Sainsbury Nector card doesn’t.  One can do something with the data and the other can’t.  WalMart/Asda look through transactional data from the POS to find changes and patterns based on location and date.

Getting the data is easy once you have seriously defined what data you want, then what you are wanting to gain from mining that data.  An exchage of points for fractional money value is all very well but you don’t really learn anything from your customers.

You’re only as good as your network says you are.

I think it’s fair to say, in reflection, that 2009 was basically spent trying to find my centre of gravity. Towards November I was starting to sound like a bit of a personal pity party so something had to change.  Thanks to my network, finding out the technology landscape and talking to good people I could put myself in the right place at the right time.

There were a few things that happened that did help it along.

Open Coffee and other network meetings do work

You can’t beat face to face networking.  There was a time when I didn’t have to do this, the work was streaming in during the boom times.  Skills are plentiful and it’s a case of being able to sell yourself.  From Open Coffee I’ve managed to show my face once at XCake as well.  On the online side I keep up with Digital Circle and the usual stream of info on Twitter.

Speaking

I don’t think it does anyone any harm to publicly speak once in a while.  I loved doing Barcamp Derry last October.  Prospective customers, investors, employers and collaborators can instantly see what you are like and what drives you.  From the Barcamp experience I would really like to do some more speaking in 2010.

You’re friends

Considering that I moved to Northern Ireland in 2004 it’s taken a good five years to find my networking feet.  There’s a couple of factors in that, partially to do with the existence of technology like Twitter.  I always had a LinkedIn account but I did my searches by sector, not location.

Through the likes of Open Coffee I’ve met some great people.  Even better that most have them have become good friends and are on speed dial if I really need them.  The help, advice and provision that these people are willing to give is also available to you, all you have to do is to make yourself available and willing to show your face.

Write

I have an “articles” section on this site.  These aren’t articles that I just wrote for the fun of it, they are important networking tools to prove your knowledge.  The likes of Java Developer’s Journal, IBM developerWorks and the Belfast Telegraph have given me the opening to write articles on a wide range of technology subjects over the last nine years.

So, to summarise, with this mix of activities I’m just starting to shape and form what 2010 is going to look like, I’m really excited for 2010.  There’s some big things to happen.

Name Generator – The much needed tool

Chris McClelland tweeted about a wonderful tool called Fake Name Generator. When testing sites that contain user based info I always like to have real names in the fields, it just makes the site look more real that “TestUser_23423″.

The real drag is creating that data, until now…..

Fake Name Generator will create all the user data you need in a variety of output types (including sql) and then email it to you. You can create up to 50,000 names via their tool if you want to define your types of users. If you just want users you can download their 1,000,000 users dump. Perfect.

Belfast Telegraph article on location based applications.

It’s my turn for the Belfast Telegraph web watch column, this month it’s on location base applications.  If you want to have a read you can visit the BT site here.

Yes I’m still on the planet.

The last few weeks have been manic but soooo good.

First of all working for a new client.  Secondly startup is coming on well for a full launch in the new year. Thirdly, another Belfast Telegraph article due for publication on Tuesday.

I never knew that 19 hour days could be so fun.

New Article: Belfast Telegraph – Jobs are scarce, so it’s time to go online and make it happen.

As this week is entrepreneurship week my Web Watch article is about starting up. You can read it here.

The Bootstrap Diaries – Part 1.

There are just days when you have to go it alone.  For those who don’t know I’m bootstrapping a company from scratch.  I thought it might be a good idea to chip in some blog posts along the now that I can talk about some of these things.

Since my last job finished at the end of June I’ve been wondering the best way to take things forward.  Ask anyone who really knows me and I can have a list of ideas that are ready to be coded.  The most interesting thing for me is that this is first start up where I’ve been asking a lot of opinion of the product I’m doing (it’s still in stealth, there’s only a chosen few who know).  

So here we go, the bold pointed things to keep in mind.

Writing it down on a one pager – It’s vitally important to write down on one page what your product is going to do, who the target market(s) are and what the total size of the market is.  From there you’ve got focus and what you think it’s all worth.  Ignore this step at your peril.

Blag, steal, borrow and blag again – If you design, get a good back end coder.  If you code then get a designer.  This also goes for business advice.  Some of the people I hold in high regard are willing to chip in and keep me on the right path.  Finally, don’t forget a polite thank you goes a long way.  

Crap code is fine – Product first, coding refactoring later.  There’s no point going over the finer detail of SCRUM or Agile methods if it’s not generating revenue. 

Market share or revenue? – In the initial stages it’s all about generating revenue (especially if you are a service company).  If you’re hellbent on creating a brand or a world changing-everyone-has-to-have-this iPhone app then market share is your aim.

What time do you realistically have? – If you are already working then it’s extra hours. I know some that are up at 5am and work through ’til 9am. I know some who do the late shift.  There are times I do both and within time I suffer for it.  Also, if you have family they will only put up with your Branson like enthusiasm for so long.

Learn to do a basic cash flow forecast – Yeah it’s boring but I bet if I asked you now you wouldn’t have a notion what your costs are for the next 12 months.  A simple spreadsheet is fine.  There are a loads of good cashflow templates out there on the internet.

Get an advisory board of people you trust – Ultra important this one.  I have three people that I bounce stuff off in various parts of the world.  I also have a number of industry contacts who I bounce ideas off.  I have one friend who I can just cyberly puke on when I’m having a bad day (and they with me if needed).  

Don’t over do the networking while you are developing the idea – Any networking event the obvious question is, “what do you do?”.  When you are just about to beta test fair enough.  From day dot without a single jot of code, forget it.  You could be using your time on better things.  One thing I’ve noticed over the last five months is that there are an awful lot of people who can talk the talk but when you really press them…. you pretty much know it will come to nothing.

Some of the above I actually covered in my talk at Barcamp Derry in October but they still ring true whatever the time of year.

The separation of social.

There was a time, in days gone by, when we Tweeted a bit, checked our Facebook and then did some serious work with LinkedIn.  The race seems to be to merge three (and many more) separate mediums into one platform of information.

Personally I’m doing a good job of keeping them as separate as I can.  First of all you have to define who you really are and for me that causes some interesting crossovers.

• In York folk really know me as a musician and a software developer.
• In Limavady folk know me as a photographer and then a musician.
• In Belfast everyone knows me as a software developer.
• In Derry everyone knows me as a software developer.

So, where to start.  LinkedIn is for my professional work connections, I’m still less than amused that LinkedIn introduced status updates I rarely use them because I feel that potential contacts aren’t that bothered about what I am doing right this second, more they are interested in what I have done in the last week, month, year etc.

Twitter is Twitter and if you ask ten people what it is to them you’ll more that likely get ten different and valid answers.  For me it’s a broadcast medium for those who really want to listen.  My network on Twitter is generally NI based and geared on software development.  No worries if you are a photog or a muso, you can still listen.

Facebook….. more social than anything else.  I certainly don’t spend most of my time trying to get any business links through it.  It’s for friends (and one member of the family).

The three simple rules of software development.

For anyone who doesn’t really know, I’m a bass player. Not a bad one to boot according to others who want to use me on the odd album, tour or session. In 1987, or there abouts, I read an interview in Guitarist magazine. I’d not heard of the guy up until that point but he was just compelling to read about, the bassist was Doug Wimbish.

At the end of the article there’s the usual end of article cop out of, “Doug do you have any advice to other bass players?”. The response was pretty what I considered off the wall. “Share anything about your playing to anyone and don’t go around thinking that your sh*t doesn’t stink!”.

In photography we now have the likes of Dave Hobby, Joe McNally and Chase Jarvis and a legion of other great photogs willing to share. They’ll give you the whole nine yards on lighting techniques, shooting techniques the lot.

Lastly I’ve been busy organising the first Open Coffee Coleraine meeting. There’s no real forum for businesses to get together and just share, so I created one and Starbucks willingly offered a venue. Networking never used to be an issue to me, my network was pretty much online but that technique has reduced vastly over the years. Showing your face and personality has become important again. It’s not about programming, it’s about branding, the brand called You!

So, the three rules of software development:

1. You are only as good as your network says you are.
2. Be willing to share anything with anyone.
3. Don’t go around thinking that your sh*t doesn’t stink!