Seed funding situation in the UK 2014 Q1

According to Beauhurst's Equity Investment Review (free part), in 2014 Q1,

there were 72 deals at the seed-stage and investment amounts were disclosed for 46 of these, totaling £52m.

 

So the simple average was £1.13m per seed deal, which seems a quite reasonable target for us after a year or so. What's more, 14 deals were done by Crowdcube and Jenson Seed EIS Fund, managed by Jenson Solutions. I am not familiar with those guys, so I should follow up those two key players.

Other VCs, including venture or growth investment players, mentioned in the report are Business Growth Fund, Index Ventures, Albion Ventures, Balderton Capital, Accel Partners. The Cambridge MBA programme had exposure to Index Ventures and Accel Partners, if I remember correctly. Not too bad.

What's different between entrepreneurs and turnaround managers?

As I worked in a boutique consulting firm which is good at a hands-on turnaround of a distressed firm, I have witnessed successes and failures of several turnaround managers. Now I step into an entrepreneurial world, I just summarise how I learnt would be beneficial to my entrepreneurial career going forward.

Entrepreneurs and turnaround managers appear quite different; however some important characteristics would be shared: especially, both of them have to demonstrate strong leadership to face and overcome difficult situations.

What is different?

• Obviously, entrepreneurs are those who make one from zero, while turnaround managers are who turn minus into plus. Especially in the initial phase, turnaround managers would focus on streamlining existing operations and cost bases, while entrepreneurs try and error how to make revenues.
• In other words, turnaround managers have to decide which existing business, products, and customers to be terminated; whilst entrepreneurs have to figure out where to start its business.
• Entrepreneurs can do hands-on management on everyday operations as the size of the team should be small; yet turnaround managers usually have to manage multiple layers in the organisation which could have several hundreds or more employees. How to mobilise the organisational, or internal, resources  is a key for successful turnaround managers; while how to leverage external networks of different expertise is required for successful entrepreneurs. 

What is shared?

• Sooner or later, business development, or how to make revenues, is essentially crucial to grow the company (for the first time, or again), which should deliver a good momentum among employees. Without such a momentum, initial enthusiasm will be fade out or worn out.
• It is all about how to attract, engage, and motivate people involved; both entrepreneurs and turnaround managers have to make stakeholders believe that the company will become successful in a short time-frame. Thus a deep understanding of the nature of stakeholders are necessary to be successful.
• Both are financially restricted very much; so a well-balanced control of money is beneficially to the firm, whetherever it is in the early development phase or distress.
• Everyone is neither perfect nor a superstar, therefore a team of management, especially how top two or three people interact and communicate, would determine the success or failure of the firm.

This view should be changed after my entrepreneurial journey, which I look forward to experiencing now!!

I hope I won't die like this, after working too hard and long :-p

Who do we think we are?

When I was in Japan, I used to watch plays at theatre every two to three months. Yet this was for the first time in the UK. This opportunity came from a network of my high school; one of the actors is my senior, senpai, who is very attractive and charming; I want to be like him after 30 years.

The play is about different lives from 1914 to 2014, the period when people experienced a bunch of cruel wars, ideological conflicts, changes of social cultures. It was like condensing 10 stories of 100 years each (or 1,000 years in total) into just 2 hours. For example, it featured WWI (trenches in France, Siberia camp etc.), the communist revolution in East Europe, WWII (the ghetto by Nazi, atomic bomb at Nagasaki, India and Gandhi etc.), Woodstock, Apollo on the moon, Vietnam war, and even dementia issues at NHS. It gave me a real touch of the world's 'history'. Maybe only lacking viewpoints were about Africa and China.

While seeing it, I just wondered what my great-grandfathers and great-grandmothers was doing in 1914, when the WWI commenced. They should have been doing something alive, otherwise I won't be able to be here now:-p I have to question my parents and uncle/aunt about it.

The poster of 'Who do we think we are?'

Most useful tags in HTML

A memo from Tech Society session; most useful tags in HTML:

• <a> link to other pages etc
• <link> link to an external style sheet
• <ol> ordered list
• <ul> unordered list
• <li> each bullet in the list
• <p> paragraph
• <div> division
• <img> load an image
• <script> use other languages such as Javascript
• <form> declare a form such as to send information
• <input> an input for a form

talks.cam is one of the best tools to find peculiar scientific talks in Cambridge

Thanks to talk.cam, I joined a lot of talks on scientific talks. This is highly recommended to those who want to join a lot of talks in different colleges in Cambridge, or even when you are fed up with your course readings. You will get new ideas of the world, or even may encounter an entrepreneurial opportunity.

How easy to register? Very and actually open to everyone, not exclusive to Cambridge studetns. Just make your own list from here and subscribe it via ical/vcal in the list page: http://talks.cam.ac.uk/list/new
and add talks you find interesting through the search engine: http://talks.cam.ac.uk/search
and/or add (Like Follow in Twitter) other's list. For example, I've followed:

• Humanitas lectures
• Cambridge Society for the Application of Research (CSAR)
• SciSoc – Cambridge University Scientific Society
• Lady Margaret Lectures
• Zangwill Club
• Cambridge Philosophical Society
• Manufacturing Research Forum
• Hitachi Cambridge Seminar Series
• Summer Seminar Series
• CERF and CF Events

Cambridge is definitely a cluster of creativity.

Moved out of Cambridge to London; whatever you end up doing, love it.

Whatever you end up doing, love it. (Cinema Paradiso)

Open air cinema organised by The Nomad Cinema: 'Cinema Paradiso', the best loving movie with fantastic musics. 

And our new life started here in London:

The entrance of our new accommodation in London.

Six key entrepreneurial opportunities in Cambridge

Three very important, at least to me, communities you should try all if you pursue entrepreneurial course and three more stimulating events for networking.

Opportunities to work as a team:

i-Teams: every term (Michaelmas, Lent, Easter) 3-4 teams of 5-6 postgraduate students each are formed to develop a strategy on how to commercialise a cutting-edge technology that is developed in Cambridge. This was where I met the inventor and my co-founders. The final presentations are open to the public, and thus there comes local angeles. Note that you have to go through the application process with submitting your CV and cover letter.
http://iteamsonline.org/

CUE (Cambridge University Entrepreneurs): there are famous £100, £1K, £10K competitions for which entrepreneurs try their ideas, business concepts, and business plans. These competition allow entrepreneurs to make a good pace of developing an idea into a solid business plan. You may submit an idea as an individual, but for business concept and plan you will need a team.
http://www.cue.org.uk/
http://iteamsonline.org/congratulations-to-our-1k-winners/

Accelerate Cambridge: even it is quite new to the history of Judge Business School, the accelerator has gained good attention among entrepreneurs. Theirs training sessions as well as free coachings have been quite helpful to get start-ups in very early phase. They may provide a seed funding up to £20K. This is not open to everyone as you have to pass an interview by the coordinator.
http://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/faculty-research/centres/accelerate-cambridge/programmes/

Opportunities to join exciting talks and discussions:

CUTEC (Cambridge University Technology and Enterprise Club): its Technology Venture Conference is one of the biggest tech and entrepreneurial events in Cambridge. As ARM is the main sponsor of this club, there should be a talk by Hermann Hauser (ARM co-founder), which I highly recommend to join if any.
http://cutec.org/

Silicon Valley Comes to UK: this holds a three-day event where entrepreneurs and venture capitalists from Silicon Valley conduct a bunch of talks and sessions for entrepreneurs as well as students in Cambridge and London.
http://www.svc2uk.com/

Innovation Forum: it was new to Cambridge last year. The one-day event was interesting and a good opportunity for networking.
http://innovation-forum.co.uk/

The Cambridge Phenomenon: a great guidebook to understand the Cambridge cluster further in depth.

The Oxbridge ways / オックスブリッジの流儀

The Japanese series about 'Oxbridge ways' are now on the Internet here.
I may be able to contribute in the future.

現代ビジネスのオンライン企画として、「オックスブリッジの流儀」という連載が始まりました。Cambridge MBAの同期もさっそく原稿を書いています。「友がみなわれよりえらく見ゆる日」でもありますが、ワタクシも実世界で何かしらの花を咲かしてからしたしもうと思います。
http://gendai.ismedia.jp/articles/-/40295

The Cam River and Silicon Fen.

Get busy living

The feeling of disappointment, out of unsuccessful MPhil/PhD applications, has gone in a few days, implying I might not have been utterly serious about it. Anyway, I couldn't make it on the way to academic research of management, which I felt like doing so for months. This, notwithstanding, surprisingly yet ironically encouraged me to do my best in the management of real businesses; a startup with Cambridge PhD guys.

Life goes on; I will keep moving to 'get busy living' rather than 'busy dying'.

What would I carve after all? Probably nothing other than my name and what I love.

Done!! and moving to London soon

Today 2pm, the final assignment for Cambridge MBA has been done. In two weeks or so, we will move to London. Nevertheless, it has been absolutely unique and great fun to live in Cambridge.

I won't forget the room and house where I stayed with my partner while Cambridge MBA.