This is a special invitation to all Jamaican bloggers to join us at the next Kingston Beta, this Thursday June 25th, at 6:30 p.m. at Susie’s on the Terrace, Southdale Plaza. It’s Free as usual. Bring 5 Friends, your business cards, wear your Blog Promotional Teeshirt. Wine Complimentary by CPJ (Caribbean Producers of Jamaica). See you there.
Keep reading…
MusicPassNetwork.com is a site where you go to download the reggae singles you bought using the equivalent of a top up phone card. We first got the preview of this online music product at Kingston Beta on April 28th by its lead pitchman Lloyd Laing. MusicPass.com the reggae music card and MusicPassNetwork.com are products from Riddim Jamaica a Kingston-based company that’s also spawned the Reggae News Agency. Watch Lloyd tell you in 3 mins what is MusicPass, MusicPass Network and why it’s important for the Reggae music and Caribbean music industries. He talks about the cost, when it will be launched and what they are doing now.
Then have a look at what the card looks like:
Most entrepreneurs are freelancers. We work for ourselves, but we actually do all of the work. We get so used to the DIY we end up believing that no one else could ever do what we do, at least not very well.
First of all, that’s a fairy tale. As awesome as you are, you are not the ONLY person on the planet who can take out the trash. More importantly, you’re killing your chances for success. Doing all the work simply isn’t scalable.
If you’ve got big dreams for your company you need to start working ON the business, not IN the business. You can accomplish this by building systems that enable other people to perform tasks you would normally handle solo.
Here are the steps:
1. You’ve Got to Believe – Believing you can do it is the foundation for success. If you believe you can’t come up with a system that takes you out of the equation, than you won’t. If you believe you can do it, you will do it.
2. Understand the Task – First, do the task as you normally would—all by yourself. Then, document the task. Break it down into steps.
More
This SiliconCaribe TV video blog is an exclusive prelaunch demo. It’s about a Jamaican startup called Software Architects that is a member of the Kingston Beta community, that has built a mobile phone app that works with even the most basic phone on the market and does things like this:
- allows you to top up on your prepaid minutes from you chosen mobile service provider -LIME, Digicel and send some to a friend too
-allows you to transfer funds between bank accounts
-allows you to pay your bills.
and more to come.
We caught up with them at the entrance of the Digicel Electronics Show weeks go. They were not exhibitors just curious attendees like ourselves. We’ll have more on this Jamaican startup led by CEO Damion Daley pretty soon.
Martin Plaehn presented the following list of ‘Do’s and Dont’s of Entrepreneurship at the University Venture Fund’s annual conference. Pay attention:
Do’s
1. Do ensure for yourself (as founder or chief) that you are addressing a real market and a sustainable one; where the exchange of value is transacted and measured in US currency
2. Do only hire for pre-identified expertise, operating need, and the energy to accomplish excellence; if you get more, great; don’t hire otherwise
3. Do always know your cash level, weekly cash spend and receipt rates, cash-runs-out date, and close-up liabilities amounts; start finding funding choices when you hit t-minus 6 months till operating cash runs out
4. Do money deals with money people (e.g. Angels, VC’s, banks, and credit unions); do product deals with product people (eg. Commercial companies); and do risk deals with risk people (e.g. Insurance companies). Don’t get these confused. If a product company wants to invest in your company, can they afford to take the whole thing? If not, then not.
5. Do ensure that at least one of your early formal investors has the financial wherewithal to keep investing in subsequent increasing rounds many years down the road; do make sure your different investors are really compatible. More
Keep reading…
At Kingston Beta last night, a bunch of us were discussing as to what were the chief reasons for many Caribbean startups in the Tech/Internet/Mobile space startup then stagnate.
The group agreed on these top 3:
At Kingston Beta last night, a bunch of us got to talking about the amazing profits being made by Jamaican porn sites such as smutvibes.com and rudejam.com. So one of my table mates dreamed up a domain name for his potential site. It was pantydrop.com. Thinking this is a very uniquely Jamaican way of a saying, he figured it would have been available. A check via whois.net revealed that it’s being sold on Sedo.com for….ahmm US$10,000. LOL.
Scott Shane has ten myths you should read:
1. It takes a lot of money to finance a new business. Not true. The typical start-up only requires about $25,000 to get going. The successful entrepreneurs who don’t believe the myth design their businesses to work with little cash. They borrow instead of paying for things. They rent instead of buy. And they turn fixed costs into variable costs by, say, paying people commissions instead of salaries.
2. Venture capitalists are a good place to go for start-up money. Not unless you start a computer or biotech company. Computer hardware and software, semiconductors, communication, and biotechnology account for 81 percent of all venture capital dollars, and seventy-two percent of the companies that got VC money over the past fifteen or so years. VCs only fund about 3,000 companies per year and only about one quarter of those companies are in the seed or start-up stage. In fact, the odds that a start-up company will get VC money are about one in 4,000. That’s worse than the odds that you will die from a fall in the shower.
More
PileoJobs.com pitch is what you missed at the last Kingston Beta, you may have missed the post I wrote days after it launched calling this Caribbean job search engine, a simple solution to a real problem. They now have added a social type of site pileojobs.net. Listen to the startup entrepreneur and founder Bill Bailey explain it in his own words.
Related posts
CARIBBEANJOBS.COM NUMBER ONE JOB SITE?
The next Kingston Beta networking event for Caribbean entrepreneurs in the Internet, technology and Mobile Industries will be on Thursday, May 28th at Susie’s on the Terrace, Southdale Plaza, Kingston, Jamaica.
As usual the event is FREE. Bring 5 friends, business cards,blackberries and iphones and a smile.
Time: 6 pm - 10pm or the last person leaves.
Complimentary wine courtesy of Caribbean Producers of Jamaica(CPJ)
Any entrepreneur, startup that would like to be in our Pitch This, open mic segment for great 3 min business idea pitches, Please call Ingrid Riley @ 1 876 864 2440.
Recent Comments