The RookieOven Meetup will be running as usual on the first Monday of May (which will be the 6th) after a hiatus over Easter. The RookieOven Meetup once again will be in Vespbar which is a short walk from either Glasgow Central or Queen Street Station. It has a great selection of beers and they do pizza by the metre. We will be in the upstairs section but any problems finding the venue on the night tweet me (@_MDHayes) or the RookieOven twitter account.

The meetup is a platform for the Scottish startup community to interact on a regular basis. At the meetup there are no talks, presentations or set agendas just great conversations between Scottish startup founders, employees and enthusiasts. There are only two rules for the meetup:

• No sales: this isn’t an opportunity to sell to startups
• No stealth mode: Talk! Share your idea’s and experiences with fellow Scottish startups

This month I hope to see a good crowd of people passionate about tech in Scotland. If that’s you then come along and grab a beer. After all what better way to kick the month off than to come together with your peers for a few drinks?

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I’m happy to announce that RookieOven will be the official bloggers at this year’s UX Scotland conference. The event is taking place over two days at the Dynamic Earth centre in Edinburgh on 20 and 21 June.

We’re looking forward to reporting at UX Scotland and finding out what the latest developments are in user experience design. The conference will be keeping things practical. It’s a UX event after all! Come along to meet designers and others who are interested in UX and learn how to design better user experiences. And feel free to say hello if you’re there and want to have a chat – hunt me down on Twitter (@daviddobleve).

The keynote speakers are Jeff Gothelf and Giles Colborne. Full details of other speakers and workshops will be published soon so stay tuned.

Keep an eye on #uxscot on Twitter to get the latest info about UX Scotland. Follow @RookieOven and @UXScotland.

Tickets are now available on Eventbrite.

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The question crossed my mind a few days ago when I read an article that was on the front page of Hacker News. Its title was “Want to Help People? Just Give Them Money” and it was written by Google’s Director of Charitable Giving about GiveDirectly.  GiveDirectly are a charity that help the poor in Kenya by transferring money to households in need and they do so without stipulating how the people should spend it.

There’s maybe something a little counter-intuitive about this approach that can provoke an initial scepticism. Perhaps it’s because people are used to their donations going towards the provision of food or shelter or medicine. Or because there’s a risk that recipients could spend the money on drink or gambling, or some sort of worry that it breeds a ‘dependency culture’. However, there’s evidence to suggest that transferring donations directly to people can be more effective than traditional help and GiveDirectly are carrying out their own randomised controlled trials to measure the impact of their work.

Google have backed GiveDirectly to the tune of $2.4 million so that they can test out their model in other countries.

What if the likes of Scottish Enterprise or Enterprise Ireland did this with startups? These government bodies have a constellation of different schemes and funds and grants and programmes and competitions. To paraphrase the article, what if every government organisation that focused on supporting businesses had to prove that they could do more for the entrepreneurs with a pound or a euro than the entrepreneurs could do for themselves?  In this world, cash transfers could play a role like index funds play for private investors. They could be a sizeable share of these organisations’ budget and a benchmark used to evaluate more expensive, “actively managed” investments. We’d learn more about which programmes need additional funding and which are falling below the “direct to the entrepreneurs” mark.

I’d be confident that I could do more for my startup, Plantedd, with whatever equivalent amount spent by government organisations to pay consultants to help us with marketing or IT or training. I might very well choose to spend it on these things, but there are any number of other areas that could help the business.  I’d be entrusted with the faith that I can decide for my own business whether marketing would make more of a difference than say, optimising the product pages of the website.

This would also be a more cost-effective way to distribute financial support to startups. There’s no need for panels to convene and decide on the awards because selection would be randomised (a lottery, effectively). There would still be an initial appraisal, of course, to make sure that startups are eligible but apart from that, the process of determining which startups actually receive the support would be random.

I imagine that the criticisms of such a system would echo some of the criticisms of GiveDirectly. It all boils down to the fact that it’s a lot harder for a startup to misuse the time with a marketing agency, for example, than to misuse money. The risk exists. No form of support can be guaranteed to be entirely effective, but to fixate on that would be to miss the point. The crucial consideration is to look at what the relative impact is when you compare the different ways of supporting startups.

So is it worth trying this “direct to the entrepreneurs” method?

I’m not suggesting that this is a silver bullet for achieving business growth in the UK or anywhere else. The issue of stimulating entrepreneurial activity is one of wider economics, so there are many component parts.

However, as far as targeted support for startups is concerned, I think this is at least worth a pilot programme because it’s potentially a more efficient and effective way to do it – both for the government to administer and for the recipient to spend. This could arguably unlock time and resources that are currently tied up in the paperwork and processes that characterise any application.

Will it ever happen though? Well, apparently entrepreneurs are extreme optimists.

Join the discussion on Hacker News

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We checked the data gathered, which backed up the assertion that Facebook sign-in can be a problem. There was a significant fall-off in the number of people going through the Facebook sign-in funnel. We adjusted our permission requests, and monitored for a while longer. Still a problem.

So what to do? Well, we could change Seeu.at around – but that would require a fundamental re-write of the way we handle the user model and permissions.

Instead, to test, we have launched SayWhere.co to provide a similar tool – but this time using the principle of gradual enagement and anonymous usage. We hypothesise that people will be more likely to use the service and engage with it once they see what the functionality of the site does. We can compare this to Seeu.at usage, to run simultanous tests, tackling the same problems from a different angle.

Our key metric will be the level of sharing. Are people engaged enough to want to pass it on? One people have created a poll to share and vote on places to go – do they go on to share it with friends? Do their friends click through and interact? We have the data for Seeu.at – now we’re gathering data for SayWhere.co

We launched a few days ago – with a quick posting on Reddit to get some traffic. The feedback has been positive. People are stepping through the plan process – and giving us valuable data on our funnel of engagement. We have already make some tweaks to our process – and will continue to do so as more data arrives.

So please do take a look at www.saywhere.co – and feed back on Twitter to @saywhere

We will update RookieOven with details of our funnel tweaks, and the comparison between the two sites.

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The Glasgow Pub Summit, cohosted by RookieOven, will take place tonight (4th February) in Vespbar, Drury St, Glasgow from 6.30 onwards. To get your ticket apply here. Tickets are complimentary. Simply RSVP and invite 3 friends.

This will be followed by the Edinburgh Pub Summit on the 21st of February and it will be cohosted by the Float team, Colin Hewitt and Philip Roberts, and TechCube. Again; attendees will need to register for a ticket.

Pub Summits are informal and give a chance for people to unwind with a pint and meet fellow foudners and enthusiasts. It’s very much in the spirit of the regular RookieOven Meetup which takes place each month in Glasgow.

The Pub Summit events are an excellent opportunity for the Scottish tech community to connect with other tech communities around the world. The likes of London, Berlin, Madrid, Paris and San Francisco will also be hosting Pub Summits in the coming weeks.

Will you be there to represent the Scottish tech community?

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photo credit: Βethan

When starting a tech startup it is often easy to get going on a limited budget. The tools that you use to code are free. A domain is pennies, and starter hosting can cost virtually nothing. You can make considerable progress on limited resources.

But time is a finite resource too. You have limited hours in the day and “the arrow of time moves in one direction”. Are you trading your time for money saved?

With my startup Seeu.at we’ve been able to get by on very limited resources. We built bits of the product, tested them out, spoke to potential customers and to potential users. We launched a trial version of the site – that allows people to plan nights out with their friends and find local offers. We shouted about it on Facebook, Twitter and Reddit.

A trickle of users came in. Enough for us to subjectively learn what worked, and what didn’t work. Often it was fairly obvious in retrospect! But now the product is a little more refined, and we need to test with a larger volume of users in order to get a higher quality of data. We needed to start being objective about our decisions.

We can, and will, continue to build our presence on social media, blogs and with word-of-mouth marketing. But that will take time. The longer we go on, the longer we may be heading down the wrong route.

We know what we need to learn.

Our business model has variables for which we only have guess-timates. So I asked: “what are we waiting for?”

That’s why we launched a Facebook and Google AdWords campaign last week. The dynamic of our efforts has changed now – we know that every click costs, and optimisation is at the forefront of our minds.

Nothing focuses the mind like spending money!

But we know that time is valuable too – so why does it not provide the same personal incentive as money? It’s all to easy to justify a little more time to yourself. We are good at rationalising time spent. Particularly time developing the product!

In the long-run, it’s better to put your money where your mouth is and get the idea tested quickly. So take the plunge – set out an advertising budget. How much is finding out about your users worth to you? How much is your time worth to you? If you are serious, spend something!

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These aren’t my New Year resolutions, I never manage to stick to them anyway, but just improvements for 2013 that will help us make Mallzee as successful as possible.

The Past is the Past

Life’s too short to worry about what’s gone before, who’s wronged you, who said what or any other bull. If you focus on the past then you’ll never create the future you want. That’s why I’m not worrying about any of the things from 2012. The web developers who wronged us, who said what about our efforts, not winning an award or anything else. 2013 is about the future and putting all thats gone before aside and focusing on being the best company we can be.

Global Ambition

I love Scotland. It’s a great country and we’ve given the world some of the greatest inventions ever. In 2013 lets keep changing the world! We’ve got all the resources if we’re willing to work for it and I know with some of the awesome startups we have here that we can make 2013 a global year for Scotland.

Work Together

In 2013 I’m going to work with as many people as I can. Not just to benefit myself but to try and help others as well. The more we collaborate – the better we’ll all become. I’ve learnt some great things from others this year and I’m sure you will have as well. Lets keep it going, open doors for each other and work together.

Focus on the Customer

In any startup they are the life blood and this year put them at the heart of everything you do. In the case of my startup, that’s why we released a very early stage beta to a small group of users just after Christmas. The feedback we’ve had from them is astonishing and has already helped us develop. To make sure we keep getting this feedback we’re going to keep ship, ship, shipping.

Awesome People

This year is all about meeting awesome people. In 2012 I spent time in the Dublin, London and Tel Aviv start up communities and I met many awesome people in the process. In 2013 I’m going to meet even more. By connecting, collaborating and even just being around awesome people you improve and grow. With this in mind I’m also going to go to as many events in Scotland as possible and meet every awesome person I can. (Apologies for the use of the word awesome).

Learn and Move Forward

In the first half of 2012 I had my eyes and my ears shut. I didn’t learn cause I thought I knew it all. In 2013 I won’t be making the same mistake. This year I’m going to learn something new every day and not make the same mistakes as I did in 2012. In the last six months we’ve moved forward a lot and this momentum is something we’re not going to let stop.

Thats my (kinda) New Year resolutions, wither you agree with my choices or not it would be great to hear what areas you’re going to focus on in 2013 and why in the comments below.

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Having that association can be powerful in regards to marketing but how about when it comes to business? Can your association with partners and associates drive your success? Can it aid in raising investment and attracting customers?

Lets look at YCombinator. Through having an association with the most successful accelerator program in the world alumni and participants will undoubtedly find it easier to gain investment, get customers and users and ultimately create a successful business.

Most investors would love to have a YCombinator company in their portfolio, customers will sign up so as they can tap into that deep and diverse YCombinator network. Sure there are a lot of other factors that play into it (first class mentoring, advice and support) but having that association undoubtedly helps.

However what happens when there’s a negative association, what then?

Look at the companies who were once proudly associated with the likes of Tiger Woods and Lance Armstrong drop them as the negativity built around them in recent years. This was out of a fear the association would lead to the negativity having an impact on their brand and performance.

At a personal level I now know I will never use certain service providers, who incidentally are positioning themselves as startup specialists, for their services through the association they have with their clients. That is a direct way in which a negative association has had a detrimental impact on a business I have dealings with.

And to look at the inverse of YCombinator. As a startup an association with a derided and looked down upon accelerator will almost certainly make it even more challenging when raising investment, attracting customers and ultimately being successful.

I suspect an investor would not want the negativity to leach into their portfolio. I also suspect companies would be unwilling to do business due to the fear of the negativity seeping into their brand and turning their customers away.

As with YCombinator the same factors apply outwith the association (lack of quality mentoring, advice and inadequate support) however I strongly believe the negative association here can be terminal to businesses.

My advice, no matter what your company’s size, pick and choose your partners and associates carefully. It seems there’s a new accelerator or incubator opening up every day. Just because you get accepted to *an* accelerator does not mean it’s the right accelerator for your business and therefore your business should not be joining it. Look longer term and think of the damage it could be doing.

Everyone can make wrong and ill informed choices (I’ve made more than most) but be quick to retract and rectify the situation before the association damages your business.

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Firstly it’s illegal. In the UK data protection and privacy is governed by the Information Commissioners Office and specifically in regards to email marketing the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003. This protects individuals from receiving spam which is defined as:

“Spam emails are emails sent to you without consent. It is email that you don’t want and didn’t ask for, and its content can cause embarrassment and distress. However, it’s worth remembering that the sender generally doesn’t target recipients personally. The same spam email can be sent to millions of people at the same time and the addresses can often be guessed.”

On three occasions in the last week Scottish startups that I don’t use and have never subscribed to started to send me marketing emails. It’s disappointing to see and is not only illegal but also entirely unprofessional.

Privacy and data protection is of the upmost importance for any organisation but especially so for a startup which needs to build trust with their users and customers. If I’m receiving spam from your startup what makes you think I would go on to to entrust you with more valuable data? Fat chance I’ll ever give you payment details if you’re already misusing my data.

How did these startups get my email address in the first place? It’s certainly wasn’t in anyway where I had given explicit consent. In the case of two of the companies I suspect I know how they obtained my email address. One of them; the founder was a subscriber to a mailing list I do, the Scottish StartupDigest, and had added my to there marketing campaign. Subscribing to a service I provide does not equal consent to subscribe me to your mailing lists.

The second startup was more distressing. I had connected with one of the founders on LinkedIn, just because I’m a connection in a personal capacity on a social network does not give you the right to add me to mailing list.

As ever I won’t name the companies publicly, that’s entirely unfair. But I do hope this post will be of some use and prevent others from making the same mistake.

For more information on spam and how to make sure you’re not spamming people check out the ICO.

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The venue for the RookieOven meetup is Vespbar which is a short walk from either Glasgow Central or Queen Street Station. It has a great selection of beers and they do pizza by the metre. We will be in the downstairs section but any problems finding the venue on the night tweet me (@_MDHayes) or the RookieOven twitter account.

The meetup is a platform for the Scottish startup community to interact on a regular basis. At the meetup there are no talks, presentations or set agendas just great conversations between Scottish startup founders, employees and enthusiasts. There are only two rules for the meetup:

• No sales: this isn’t an opportunity to sell to startups
• No stealth mode: Talk! Share your idea’s and experiences with fellow Scottish startups

November was a busy month in the Scottish tech community. In regards to events there was Startup Summit and Startup Weekend Edinburgh just days apart in the middle of the month. Many startups launched new features or versions such as WallaBee, Seeu.at and FreeAgent and TechCube unveiled their website and an excellent video overview of the Edinburgh startup community. So plenty to discuss and evaluate over a drink and some pizza.

For the final meetup of 2012 I hope we not only reflect upon the prior month but also the whole year. The likes of EIE12, Startup Weekend Glasgow and the Turing Festival have provided first rate events for our community and OpenTechCalendar and the Scottish StartupDigest are great resources for keeping tabs on such events. We’ve seen exits, plenty of launches, exciting startups emerging and a fair few talking points throughout the year. All round it’s been a positive year for Scottish startups but one that I feel is really laying the ground work for what will be a humongous year in 2013.

More immediately looking ahead to December we have the Edinburgh Startups Christmas Party/TechCube Launch party on Thursday the 13th December, TechMeetups, the return of Girl Geeks Scotland and I’m sure plenty more fantastic events that I hope to be able to attend plus there’s plenty time left in 2012 for more startups to launch and start generating revenue.

See you all on Monday.

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