StartupCafe

The search is on for the most ‘exciting and innovative’ startups in the UK, and low and behold two of our friends were selected to represent the nation. Amanda Jones of Red Button Design and Richard Burton of Hoodeasy do us proud, and we need to rally behind them if we want to see a young entrepreneur from around here make the finals. It was Craig Smith who got voted through to the next round on Scotland’s behalf, so congrats to him, but the wildcard spot is up for grabs! Let’s show the rest of the UK what we’re made of and rally behind Amanda and Richard. You can see their pitch videos HERE and rate them by clicking on the stars below.

Red Button Design is an internationally award winning (and Dragon’s Den appearing!) design house founded by Amanda and her partner-in-crime James Brown, developing products exclusively for the aid and humanitarian markets. Their first product is an innovative water transport, purification and storage device designed to bring relief to the 1.2 billion people across the world without access to safe water.

Richard runs a company that sells custom hoodies to students in the UK and USA. Hoodeasy is a revolutionary way for groups to order Continue Reading »

I’m always amazed to see the number of people who still do not use a feed aggregator (also knows under other names). Those are usually people who have not tried one, or do not know what they are. Maybe we should call that the “Twitter Effect”, that being when there is a service available which has been proven successful (and sometimes useful), but still a majority of the population does not understand it. Or maybe it is what Geoffrey Moore already described as the Chasm.

Aggregators have been around for quite some time now, and we were even lucky to have one of the early adopters talk at the Edinburgh University Business School E-Club a few months ago: Mark Fletcher who founded Bloglines. I personally recommend Google Reader, not because it is Google, but because it simply does the job. All you need is to sign up using your Google account, and then start importing your RSS feed. Continue Reading »

Starting this month, Brian Baillie, Launch.Ed’s new business advisor, will be holding drop-in business advice clinics in George Square! The clinics will take place on the last Wednesday of every month from 13:00 to 16:00. Students or recent graduates of the University of Edinburgh can pre-book a 45 minute meeting with Brian by emailing brian.baillie@ed.ac.uk.

This is the perfect opportunity for George Square groupies to get feedback on their Business Idea Competition application, to learn more about business support and funding at Edinburgh, or to chat about a business idea they’ve had with an experienced entrepreneur and advisor.

This month, the clinic is on Wed., 28 October. There are only a few sessions available, and they will go quickly, so anyone interested should book far in advance.

Changing to Thursday due to another meeting coming up on Wednesday. Apologies for the switcheroo!

I am a market research jackpot. I will speak with you about your needs. 1 in 6 of my users are startups… What am I?

I am SCOTBIS, the Scottish Business Information Service at the National Library of Scotland (George IV bridge across from the central library).

If you’re already signed up and have made use of the resources, then pat yourself on the back and let us know what you thought. If you’re in the dark, here are 10 reasons to check it out:

1.  No more swearing when you find the perfect report online that wants to charge you £3000 to read it – you just might find it free!

2.  ‘This is the motherload. Everything is in here’ – anonymous SCOTBIS enthusiast, a real person who has used it for his MBA dissertation Continue Reading »