Digital diamond hunting

Last night I spent the evening at Wayra in London one of Telefonica's thirteen academies set up to offer an alternative to Silicon Valley and to unearth the disruptive digital diamonds of the day. 

Telefonica provide early stage investment to digital start-ups together with office space in their purpose built, 'state-of-the-art' Academy. Throw in the community, access and exposure to a network of mentors and you've got early site of some game changing offerings. 

Not everything you touch is gold

With the growing number of technology incubators, Google's is just around the corner, Tech city a stone's throw away and the various catapults and campuses it is becoming an increasingly challenging choice for the start-up to determine the best option. They offer an excellent vehicle to fast track you and your start-up but as with all partner selection it’s always worthwhile doing your homework so your choice best fits your objectives and direction of travel.

After the razzmatazz intro which felt more like the unveiling of a premiership footballer, with the host calling out similar stats to those concluded in the recent Connected World report, we got into the pitches of the current cohort.  They represented a wide variety of high growth industry sectors including security, quantified self, e-learning, music and health.

With the now ubiquitous pechakuchesque format the 17 companies had 5 minutes to cover all the bases and give us their ask.

Show me the money! Show me something!

The current intake had only been together under the Wayra banner for less than 12 weeks and were generating revenue and closing deals. I was surprised by the number that didn't offer a working demo to bring the product or service to life.  This will be on the roadmap but if you’re asking for cash from a potential client or investor, be it for a smartphone app or for an enterprise solution the default starting position has to be a demo that brings the offering to life.

Gems in the gaps

If I had to pick a star of the future my shout outs are; dattch’s dating service for lesbian and bisexual and bi-curious women, surprisingly there wasn't a dedicated offering for this group before, and ensygnia's Onescan mobile payments offering.

Riding the wave

According to the Boston Consulting Group’s 2012 report, ‘The Connected World’, the Internet economy's contribution to the UK GDP is at 8.3 per cent, higher than any other G20 nations. The report forecasts that this share will surge to 12.4 per cent by 2016.

By then, almost a quarter of sales in the UK are expected to take place online - more than double the percentage of the projected closest competitor, Germany.  In early 2010 there were 200 technology companies based in east London, by January this year this had exploded to 1300.

High return global races

Great results for the UK and whilst they are reported as best in class this is not just a London or GB based phenomenon. The creation of technology based innovative digital businesses is a global race that corporations, governments, investors, incubators and entrepreneurs are all placing their bets on.  With projected annual growth rates of 8 per cent for the next five years, these are some serious numbers.

Picking the right wave

With all this happening it could be argued that there isn't a better time to be a start-up to ride the wave as if you need help it’s out there.  The challenge for the entrepreneur with this all this activity is picking the right set and most appropriate support to ride it from. This isn't easy as even the support networks are becoming global.

Getting the fundamentals right

The Internet economy is a global game with highly competitive rules, but it comes down to doing all the fundamentals brilliantly and getting the right support in the right place at the right time. The winners will be those that view the Internet as a compliment to, not a cannibal of traditional ways of competing. 

Elon is the new Steve

Last year I met Elon Musk at Economist’s Innovation awards, where he was picking up the No Boundaries’ category. What with Richard Branson calling him out in Time Magazine’s 100 most influential and Iron man 3 with Robert Downey Jr basing Tony Stark on him, there’s no shortage of shout outs at the moment.

As some of you will know I’m a big fan, but have had my doubts on the whole Tesla take up. With the recent launch of Rimac’s Concept_One , coming in at the super car end of the spectrum and the mainstream manufacturers getting their act together with cool offerings such as the Mercedes Benz SLS AMG Electric Drive and Audi with their A3 E-Tron. Granted most are not cheap, but part of the challenge I see a lot when commercialising IP is getting the timing right.  One could argue that the opportunity was passing the great man by as he was focusing on getting to Mars safely.

My faith in the Elon followership (only for Tesla – it never waned on Space X) is slightly restored after reading this innovation story brought to you via @timkastelle  What will your next choice of car be? I have to admit I’m still rather partial to the Tesla Roadster and as the electric vehicle infrastructure is more available, in my home city of Düsseldorf, CGI are bringing this to life, we'll have to see if Tesla is the new Apple.  

Vending machine vs. the application store

Forget top-down control, give citizens data and tools and let them self govern.

At a couple of different events (Shakespeare Review and Innovate 2013)I attended recently  the question of how we can generate economic benefit from opening up government data was explored.  It got me thinking about the shift to government as a platform Tim O’Reilly and others have been writing about this for a while, and point the idea is built on a set of principles that are the exact opposite of the way government traditionally works.  These principles include transparency (open standards and data); simplicity (build a simple system and let it evolve); participation (design systems and programmes to be as inclusive as possible) open mindedness (learn from critics); experimentation (including the embrace of failure as the way we ultimately learn to succeed); and visibility (track all participation to be able to learn from data mining about aggregate behaviour). Governments that are able to adopt and act on these principles are going to be able to mobilise enormous economic and social power in the service of addressing problems. There will be governments who are not afraid of their own societies but rather seem to empower their citizens.

As resources for government as a vending machine fall and the speed of change makes government as control tower ever more difficult, government as platform will become ever more attractive. It is the very nature of platforms that it is possible to prescribe or predict how and where citizens will decide to use their newfound powers of participation and innovation.

In my world I’m beginning to see this come to fruition with an appetite for platforms such as the Government G cloud and interest in how the business application stores like AppWave can tap into the social elements of work.