StartupCafe

The Float Yard, an Edinburgh-based startup building a SaaS cashflow tool for small businesses, enrolled its first paying customers yesterday. The online software, dubbed “Float”, is still in private beta, but co-founders Colin Hewitt and Philip Roberts say a public launch is now imminent. This marks a major milestone for the company, which has been [...]

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This August marks the inaugurual Turing Edinburgh International Technology Festival. Intended to be “an emerging technology event, bringing together the cream of the world’s technology-based innovators and entrepreneurs with Scottish web, broadcast and mobile talent,” the new festival is a sort of experiment, with big plans for the future if all goes well. Confirmed speakers include [...]

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Next Wed and Thurs (29th and 30th June) is the place to be if you’re in the creative industries and need some IP help. Although registration fees are a little steep at £199, there are some quality speakers. You can check out the conference at: http://digitalspark.abertay.ac.uk/   In the knowledge economy, intangible assets can account for [...]

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It’s rare that I find myself in a situation where I read something at work, and feel the need to reply right away. Posts like the original rallying call and the reply to it, is simply rehashing the same arguments over and over again; more importantly, it’s doing something that I hate – playing the [...]

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Our colleagues at Startup Digest and Social Penguin recently posted a call to action for the Scottish startup community, in which they identified the failure of universities to promote entrepreneurship, a disjointed startup community, and the predominance of risk-averse investors as obstacles that must be overcome before entrepreneurship can flourish in Scotland. I appreciate the sentiment of [...]

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The other day we received a message on our Facebook page: “Hey, I’ve just graduated from Glasgow university and want to get into the startup scene. Getting involved with a current startup seems to be what is mostly advised on the web as a good way to start, but I’ve been researching on the internet [...]

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I met Dave Black when I started as a Studio Manager at Leith-based, creative design and marketing agency Digital Face where he was the Creative Director, and a generally entertaining guy. Most days he would bring his Dalmatian, Poppy, into the studio and she would potter about the place endearingly, occasionally letting out a huge [...]

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Scottish entrepreneur Fraser Doherty, of Superjam, has launched an iPhone app that is ‘jam-packed’ (his words) with recipes for all sorts of jammy treats. The app contains videos, stories and photographs of the recipes. Doherty (aka Jam Man to his friends) has been extremely busy of late; in April this year he launched his second book [...]

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Interested in joining us for the Social Innovation Camp Show and Tell this weekend? Here are the details: Time: 2-4pm Sunday 19th June 2011 Venue: Informatics Ventures Forum, 10 Crichton Street, Edinburgh, Midlothian, EH8 9AB

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Developing a new product is all about the pivot: making sure you speak to real customers to find out their real problems, and then changing development direction to ensure your product soothes one of these pain points. Sam Collins—long-time entrepreneur, ex-Edinburgher, recent Londoner, and founder of the Edinburgh Tech Meetup—understands this well. In the past [...]

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