StartupCafe

Welcome back to our first 60 second interview for 2010! Our first victim interviewee this year is Andrew Mitchell from Informatics Ventures! As part of the IV team, Andrew helps to deliver a range of support for entrepreneurs around the High-tech space: including the MIT Workshops, the annual Engage Invest Exploit showcase, plus supporting a whole load of local events such as Techmeetup.

Andrew started his career in entrepreneurial education back in Cambridge – working for University of Cambridge’s Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning where he designed, built and delivered educational programmes on behalf of the Cambridge-MIT Institute Limited (CMI). Then he moved to sunny Australia to work in a business incubator, before swapping his BBQ for an umbrella to come to Edinburgh. (more…)

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This week’s willing victim is the lovely Mr Colin Gilchrist, my favourite local social media evangelist.  He’s the entrepreneur behind Tweetabits, a web-based Twitter search interface which allows you to tag and analyse tweets according to narrow search criteria.  Among other things, he used to own a clothes stall in Camden Market, London and has also worked as a fashion buyer for Burberry!  He has recently been invited to blog in The Drum magazine.

What’s your startup/company, and your role? Red Dress (and Tweetabits).  My role is Managing Partner, my adopted title: Social Tailor. Everyone in the team was given a job title by someone else in the company; I provide social marketing strategy for our clients and I studied Fashion Design in the 80’s… (more…)

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This week we caught up with Josh Wilson, an expert in gaming reviews and fine living. Bela and I had the honour of spending four days with Josh in Porto, Portugal for an entrepreneurship conference, and he certainly brightened up our trip. You may catch Josh in his new office at the ETTC or entertaining customers at Last Drop – he’s got a great attitude and we’re excited to watch SquareGo continue to grow.

What’s your startup, and your role?

Fidget Publishing Ltd (We make SquareGo mag and website) I’m MD. We publish videogame reviews that everyone can relate to. Mainly at www.square-go.com.

Give us your company culture in 3 words: Is it fun?

What’s the next big challenge or hurdle the company needs to overcome?

Get the new website up. Get people to it. Make it make money.

What’s the personal dream (in one sentence)? (more…)

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This week’s spotlight is on a wonderful woman with one of the cutest business websites. Christine Gupta is a tech marketing guru, CloudCamp organiser, and excellent person to have in a meeting. She recently cracked me up advising, ‘What you need is a completer/finisher… but I’m expensive.’ Needless to say, we love her.

What’s your Business? The Gupta Partnership – marketing & PR specialists for sustainable & disruptive technologies

Give us your company culture in 3 words: Get in early

What’s the next big challenge or hurdle that the company has to overcome?
How to cope with all the new business that’s coming our way and still work as a two-person business from a home office

In one sentence, what’s the personal dream?

Just to be happy in what I do and with the people who matter to me.

What do you do for stress relief? (more…)

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This week’s spotlight is on Jennie Lees, a jack of all trades in the developer and startup world. You may have crossed paths with her at Tech Meetups, Informatics Ventures happenings, Appleton Tower 6th floor parties, or other awesome events in London and San Francisco. She’s also an insightful blogger (trendpreneur) and much loved tweeter (@jennielees), and if you know about her company, you know she may just be listening to you as well.

Name: Jennie Lees

What’s your startup, and your role? Affect Labs, though we’re probably best known for FestBuzz (http://www.festbuzz.com). I’m anything, depending on what’s needed – from the suit to general dogsbody. Most of the time you’ll find me knee-deep in code though, as my ‘official’ role is CTO!

Give us your company culture in 3 words: Laid-back, quirky, connected

What’s the next big challenge or hurdle the company needs to overcome? (more…)

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Our interrogation this week targets Dave Sapien, a friendly gaming developer with a unique and intriguing focus. I don’t have any babies on the way (much to my dad’s disappointment), but Me and the Giants is a lovable Glasgow startup and we are excited to see where these guys wind up! Perhaps we should call this one a 120 second interview, couldn’t fit Dave’s enthusiasm into a single minute =).

What’s your startup, and your role? Me and the Giants is a development studio centred round making games for young children, founded by myself, Will Adams and Rory Lowe. Our aim is to make great games that help improve the cognitive abilities of young children while augmenting communication between (more…)

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This week, we wanted to get hold of Aaron Bassett – the web designer that confessed to creating the ingenious and very funny website – BoycottScotland. Aaron is an award winning web developer by day, and a part-time web technology columnist and blogger (plus full-time twitterer) by night! (He’s a really busy guy!) Aaron is based in Glasgow.

(more…)

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