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Some Interesting Discoveries

During the past two weeks I have come across several interesting discoveries on the Internet – new sites that are either in BETA or have only just launched (some of these you will not yet be able to sign up to without an invite):

Here’s a 10 second overview of each one and why you should check it out:

Datasift

Take all that data out there on Twitter, blogs, LinkedIn and loads of other social services, then “sift” and extract only information that is useful to you. Quick Example:

“Datasift can present you with a stream of the Foursquare check-ins at every Starbucks around the world, and then filter them down to everyone with a Klout score of 50 and saying something positive.”

Suddenly social media becomes much more measurable, useful as a quick market research tool and data from various sources can be combined to tell one story.

Memolane

Take you entire social media experience and document it on a timeline, which you can then quickly scroll through to find: trips, posts, photos, tweets, videos and links you have shared in the past.

A fantastic tool for storing, sorting and quickly finding anything you have ever shared.


About.Me

One page, a snappy bio, your picture, cool url & all your social networks in one plae. Its the perfect link for your e-mail signature to replace having all your social networks listed.

Think of this as “the profile” – a virtual snapshot of you.

My profile: http://about.me/nivoda

Quora

While the above sites are pretty cool, Quora has so far been most useful. This is a site for asking and answering questions and while there are now a few such sites out there, Quora is perfect if you want to find answers for very specific kinds of questions.

All the early adopters and techies that basically keep sites like Twitter going are on here, answering questions about start-ups, e-commerce, entrepreneurship, funding and other related topics. This site is heaven for anyone interested in technology related businesses and innovations.

Within one day of asking, here are the answers to my first question.

North West Fund

There is nothing technically interesting about this site – just the message its putting across. After a long recession and funding cuts to the North West Development agency (NWDA), the North West is once again providing funding for entrepreneurs in the region. Unfortunately no more grants (like the amazing Innovation Voucher) but still, good to know the taps are open once again. Time to submit the business plan!

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Fail Fast, Fail Often

For a long time I thought my entrepreneurial motto should be, “good is the enemy of great”. I believed that the key to business success is that extra yard, the unique selling point, the value added. I still believe this to be true, but I think what’s more important to me, at this stage of my life, is to get in there, stick my head in, risk, risk and more risk.

So the motto has changed, although the goals remain the same. Coming straight from Silicon Valley:

“Fail Fast, Fail Often!”


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Back in Black!

Good old blogging, back in business!

So, summer has finished and my last year @ uni is about to hit me. Things have changed… oh how they have changed.

I decided to stay, for the greater part, in Manchester this summer. Why? Well the weather is shit, United were not playing, and I had to watch all my friends enjoying their summer in exotic locations around the world… oh wait, those were the reasons why I shouldn’t have stayed. The REASON why I did stay is because I decided it is time for me to start doing what I’m going to do when I graduate… run my own business. But that’s such a broad statement. It’s like saying, when I grow up I’m going to have a career… it says nothing. What business? What industry? What market? These are the questions I asked myself.

So to begin with I got myself some office space at Manchester’s business incubator for graduates: Innospace. I then decided to start a company which does what I had been hired to do for the past two years, only I planned to do it better and be my own boss! Here’s my elevator pitch for this business:

“I am running a marketing agency which specialises entirely on campaigns which target the student community. My potential clients are any business or organisation which wants to reach the student community with their product, service or social activity, and wants to do so using a variety of traditional and innovative marketing approaches.”

So its not a big business and my market is a tiny niche, but I am very good at what I do. I have 3 clients so far of which one has already given me some repeat business. My website, if you’re curious, is www.nivoda.com.

So, this is how I have decided to begin but I am already taking on other non-related ventures as well. Summer has been hot, business hot, and some of my ideas are coming off the paper and turning magically into products. Watch this space!