Accepting failure in your start-up. It's part of being human.

The focus in the business world is always on success, especially when it comes to tech start-ups. The whole culture of the industry centres around celebrating success, pushing for success, being successful, showing off how successful you are. But we're human and humans fail all the time. It is impossible to be successful all of the time. To err is human.

I'm currently in the midst of a personal fail and trying to sort it out. It feels like a hot mess and it's unpleasant and demoralising to have to deal with and it's definitely not playing to my strengths. It's not work related, thankfully. But it is still, in my mind, at least, an epic fail. And when you're in the midst of something like this, it's hard to see the wood from the trees and it's hard to see a way forward, or what life might feel like when you've come out of it the other side. And the self-doubt and the self-judging is evident and hard to battle sometimes.

Following my write up yesterday of the interview with Anna Gudmundson on how to take your company from good to great, another article appeared on my radar which seemed to complement it: I failed, what will people think of me? And since I'm in the midst of this hot mess I need to sort out in my own life, it really resonated. Yes, the article is focused on failing at business, but I found the insights helpful in dealing with my own situation. So I figured it might help someone else too.

The author, Wil Schroter, says: 

"In the moment when our startup ship is sinking to the bottom of the ocean, everyone has jumped on the life rafts, and we're wondering what the world will think of us, what goes through our minds?

Whether we fail or not, we've all run through the same scenarios. The only difference is when we fail for real, we get to see what actually happens. We get to see what kind of support we really have and what people will really think about us.

But what's both sad and comforting is how few people will care at all."

Wil goes on to flesh this out..

No one really cares. People are self-absorbed and wrapped up in their own life and work dramas to have any spare capacity for caring about what you're up to.

No one will remember (unless you're Theranos or WeWork ane even that won't last. Boo.com anyone?). Our lives are busy. There's too much other stuff going on to remember about your start-up going under.

The emotion is raw for you. But it won't be for anyone else. This, I can relate to. Friends will empathise, but they won't feel it in the same way as you. And that's good because it means they can support you without being overwhelmed by the situation.

What really matters is what you do next. And this can be an enormous mountain to climb. You'll need to lick your wounds and will have some healing to do. You'll need to reflect on what happened and learn from it. You may need to do some self-development work. But most importantly, you need to carry on. 

As Wil says, 'This is a single chapter in our story, and it's a crazy chapter, but we've got many more to write.' It's really important to remember that there will be many, many more chapters in your life. They won't all be the same and if you have the drive to be part of a start-up anyway, those subsequent chapters are bound to be interesting. Life really does throw some curveballs at you (ill-health, the economy, personal circumstances) but you can overcome them.

You can't change the past but you can work towards a better future. And if you are having a hard time right now, as so many are, hang in there. It will get better. Try to find someone to talk to about it and give yourself time to get over it without wallowing too much. Time does heal. And with the experience comes wisdom and awareness.

Having been in an early stage start-up team and watched that team grow and the product develop successfully, only for it all to collapse in dramatic fashion after 18 months, I know what resilience it takes to deal with that and what upheaval it causes in every aspect of your life. But your entrepreneur's resilience will stand you in good stead for whatever comes next.

Let's see what the next chapter brings.

What do you do when your boss is an algorithm?

I was lucky enough to go to Business of Software's great event in London with entrepreneur and best-selling author, Eric Ries, talking about his new book, The Startup Way. The house was absolutely packed which is a testament both to the popularity of Eric Ries and how well Mark Littlewood and his team organise their Business of Software series of events.

I'm still mulling over much of what Ries was saying and I haven't yet read his book. The question that really stuck in my mind was about what workers will do when their boss is an AI or an algorithm. I've thought quite a lot about working with an AI as a colleague. Arguably, we're already doing that to some degree with our use of online tools such as search, productivity tools, graphic design software etc.

My boss is an algorithm
But what if the algorithm is our boss? Ries cited the example of an Uber driver. Who is the driver's boss? Who do they report to? Who tells them what to do? The answer, to all intents and purposes, is an algorithm (putting aside recent UK legislation about their legal status).

Imagine the scenario whereby a customer uses the app to hail a taxi in a high traffic area where there is a choice of driver. The algorithm decides which taxi driver(s) to show that too. That could be based on reviews (perhaps unverified), where the driver was the previous night, how frequently the driver chooses to drive for Uber, how safely the driver drives, who the driver is connected to on social networks and much more. And in that instance, who do you complain to anyway and what could they do? These algorithms are getting ever more complicated and anyway, this isn't a technical bug, this is an ethical question as much as anything.

I'm afraid, I don't have the answers, but I'm thinking about the implications of this in different aspects of work life.

Free book giveaway
Everyone at the BoS event last week got a copy of The Startup Way. I was lucky enough to come away with an extra copy which will be given away tomorrow evening at Swedish Beers in London as part of the Robot Ping Pong challenge. I do hope you can join us!

Eric Ries' Lean Startup talk & BoS archive
You can see Eric Ries's talk for BoS from 2010 when he'd just written Lean Startup. It's well worth revisiting.

Business of Software has archived all their previous talks and it's a fantastic resource. You can check it out here.

Day 21/30 NaBloPoMo (publishing a little ahead of schedule!)

More mobile news on a Monday morning

I’ve been saving links galore and keeping browser tabs open for weeks now with a view to sharing them or blogging them at some point so here are my Top 3 for the day.

Tech Media Invest 100 – the 2010 list

The companies listed have been picked for their innovation and creativity over the past year in areas as diverse as flirting services, games and music recognition. There are some great companies in there – many of whom I know from the mobile world already like Shazam, Rummble, Flirtomatic, Mippin and Jeego. But there are many others on the list I don’t know and most definitely warrant further investigation. Winners will be announced at the Tech Media Invest 2010 event on 18 October and will receive free legal advice from Kemp Little (who also kindly support Mobile Monday London) and free financial consulting advice from PwC. Enjoy!

Music and mobile

Another one from The Guardian, this article is about the art of building an album as a mobile application from musician, Oliver Blank. It’s an interesting insight into an artist and their take on how to use digital technology, including mobile apps and be creative with it, but also be commercial. Sharing is high on Oliver’s list and he trusts his listeners to pay for his music if they really like it. Well worth a read for some forward thinking in both apps and music.

Common sense advice for  experienced and wannabe mobile marketers

Mobile Marketing Magazine editor, David Murphy, has written up a really good article about best practice tips he learned at the recent MobileSquared Roadshow (which I couldn’t attend due to illness). In the article, David shares an in-depth case study about student recruitment for the University of Hertfordshire (I like to think that maybe my lectures there about mobile marketing a few years back helped this along a bit ;) ). But not only that, David also shares InMobi’s, James Lamberti’s, presentation dispelling some myths and common mis-assumptions about mobile marketing:

1. Mobile is just like the desktop
2. Can we talk about what’s new?
3. Do you offer hyper-targeting?
4. Where are your best practices?
5. Consumers are not ready
6. No thanks, I prefer to wait

Rather than diving deep here, I’m going to let you read David’s article instead.

And I also recommend you take a look at the latest issue of Mobile Marketing Magazine’s print and digital edition – a really good read.

Technorati Tags: mobile marketing,mobile music,tech start-ups,Tech Media Invest,mobile advertising

Vodafone Mobile Clicks 2010 are go!

STOP PRESS: The competition is now open to entrants from Spain as well as the UK, The Netherlands and Portugal. The closing date remains the same - 22 August 2010.

And it’s bigger and better than last year and Mobile Monday London is very pleased to be supporting this year’s Vodafone Mobile Clicks 2010 competition. And as part of that, I’m helping to organise again this year and will be part of the UK jury to find the best mobile internet start-up to put forward to the final in Amsterdam in September.

You can read some bits and pieces about last year’s event here.

The aim of the competition is to find the best mobile internet start-up across the UK, Portugal and The Netherlands and reward the winner with Euro 100,000 and the runner-up with Euro 50,000. A pretty decent prize-fund I’d say. And in accepting the prize, you don’t have to give away IP or equity to Vodafone.

The competition opens today and closes on 22nd August at midnight. But please don’t leave your entry until the last minute. All entries need to be completed in English and you do need to adhere to the Terms and Conditions. The actual competition Ts & Cs are only about 6 pages – the rest of the document relates to the Ts & Cs for Vodafone’s Widget platform which you must also agree to. Yes, it’s a long document, but please give it the once over to make sure you’re happy with it. I’ve read it and I can’t see anything particularly nasty in there, but I’m not an expert on these things, nor am I a lawyer so don’t just take my word for it.

The application form is pretty straight forward but I highly recommend that you take some thought before you fill it in. There is limited space, and limited time for the judges to read and take in what you’re writing, so it means you need to to think through clearly what your proposition is, describe the features but make sure you also state the benefits as these are what make you attractive to customers.

You can only enter once and once you’ve entered, you may not amend your entry.

Entry is now open at http://www.vodafonemobileclicks.com/ and you can follow progress of the competition on the VMC2010 official twitter account. And if twitter’s your thing, you can also follow Mobile Monday London there too.

The 5 judging criteria are:

• originality, creativity and innovation;
• technical and operational feasibility;
• economic and financial viability;
• value to end-users;
• and finally, on the quality of the management team.

If you have specific questions or concerns, please get in touch with me and I’ll do my best to answer your questions or put you in touch with someone who can.

Entry Criteria:

• Vodafone Mobile Clicks 2010 is open to any individual aged 18 or over resident in the Netherlands, Portugal or the United Kingdom and to Dutch, Portuguese and UK-based start-up companies, businesses, institutions and all other organisations.
• Participants must be or must have the intention to become a start-up enterprise/ business in the field of mobile internet products or services. Start-up in this context means that the enterprise/business must be less than 3 years old.
• Each participant may submit only one entry.
• Entries from Vodafone Mobile Clicks 2008 and 2009 may resubmit to Vodafone Mobile Clicks 2010.
• There is no charge for entry

There are three stages to the contest:

1. We will collate all the entries and the local jury will review them to get to a shortlist of 5.
2. We will then review the shortlist to find a single company or individual to put forward to the final.
3. The UK finalist will present at the final to be held at Picnic in Amsterdam on 24 September 2010 alongside the finalists from The Netherlands and Portugal.

Last year we were able to put three companies through to the final at Picnic. They were Audioboo, Rummble and Woobius. Woobius came third and walked away with a Euro 25,000 prize. And Audioboo and Rummble have both done very well since last year’s contest, both recently raising funds and growing their respective businesses.

We asked all our UK finalists from VMC2009 what they thought of the competition last year and whether or not it was worth entering.

Mark Rock from Audioboo tells us: "Vodafone Mobile Clicks was one of the freshest competitions of 2009. To have a mobile network operator embrace the start-up community in this way was fantastic. The quality of the judging through 3 rounds was excellent, if a little gruelling, And the support & help given all the way through to being taken to Amsterdam to compete in the finals (we didn't win, by the way) was above and beyond the normal competition process. Vodafone Mobile Clicks is worth the effort"

And Andrew Scott from Rummble said: "Vodafone put considerable energy behind the Mobile Clicks competition which definitely contributed to our profile .. it was also a lot of fun!"

And here’s a couple of pictures of the Woobius team with their prize cheque. Well done Woobius!

So, get the thinking caps on and get entering. The Mobile Monday London team wishes you the best of luck!

The official press release is below.

VODAFONE MOBILE CLICKS 2010 COMPETITION ANNOUNCED

Search to find best mobile internet start-up across three European markets is on

27^th July, 2010. Vodafone today announced the launch of Vodafone Mobile Clicks 2010, a competition to identify and develop the best, most innovative mobile internet start-ups. Vodafone Mobile Clicks 2010 will run across three European markets - Netherlands, Portugal and UK.

The contest is open to any start-up with a great idea for a mobile site, service or application and entrants can compete for the €150,000 prize fund by submitting entries to www.vodafonemobileclicks.com. The competition is open now, and the closing date for entries is midnight, August 22nd, 2010.

Each entry will be judged on five criteria: originality, creativity and innovation; technical and operational feasibility; economic and financial viability; value to end-users; and finally, on the quality of the management team.

The judging will take place over three rounds. Each competing market will draw up a shortlist of their five best local submissions, a winner will be selected from each shortlist and finally all local winners will be invited to represent their country in a live final at the PICNIC Festival in Holland on September 24^th, 2010, where the overall winner will be chosen by a panel of mobile industry experts, including Om Malik, founder of the GigaOM Network, Russell Buckley, VP Global Alliances at Admob, and Rudy de Waele, Founder of dotopen, the Mobile Premier Awards and co-founder of the Mobile 2.0 Conferences in San Francisco and Barcelona.

Launched in 2008, Vodafone Mobile Clicks is a Vodafone initiative designed to accelerate innovation in the mobile internet sector across Europe. It is now the biggest mobile start-up competition of its kind.

“Through initiatives like Vodafone Mobile Clicks and our wider developer outreach programme, we’re finding ways to help stimulate, grow and commercialise the innovation that is at the heart of the mobile ecosystem,” said Lee Epting, Director of Content Services at Vodafone Group. “Vodafone Mobile Clicks is really about empowering ambitious, young start-ups to develop their ideas and accelerate them into market. I’m excited to be judging another year of inspiring entries from entrants across Europe.”

Previous Vodafone Mobile Clicks winners include Layar, an Amsterdam-based company who developed an augmented reality service that allows mobile customers to see information on nearby points of interest – for example houses for sale, popular bars and tourist information – by simply looking through a phone’s camera lens. The service launched in June 2009, and throughout 2010 the platform has seen 20% month-on-month growth. Layar has recently announced a strategic partnership with phone manufacturers LG and Samsung.

For further information about the Vodafone Mobile Clicks 2010 competition, or to enter your company, go to: http://www.vodafonemobileclicks.com

Technorati Tags: Vodafone Mobile Clicks,vodafone,competition,start-up,mobile internet,mobile applications,entrepreneurship