Web 2 Ireland

As part of a project we’re evaluating with some mobile companies, we’d like to get some feedback/insight around Mobile Application Development in Ireland – appreciate if folks would take our very short survey

Mary Meeker, from Morgan Stanley, presented recently at Web2Summit – in summary Mobile is exploding

The Irish Times has a piece on Realex Payments – and their plans for global expansion.

Led by Colm Lyon (who is also the key man behind Alliance/IGAP), Realex are hitting some great numbers.

- YTD Realex has processed over €6 billion in transactions
- €726 million in payments processed in September alone
- 3,500 clients
- Tier 1 clients like Virgin Atlantic, Vodafone and Aer Lingus
- Turnover of €6.47 million in the year ending April 2009 (12% up on 2008)
- €721,000 in profits – with more than €2.5 million of accumulated profits.
- seeking to recruit a further 15 people – team is at 70 already

The Sunday Times reported that Web Reservations International (WRI), owner of the Hostelworld.com and boo.com, were planning to sell for £275m after hiring investment bank Morgan Stanley to manage the process.

Potentially nice pay day for Ray Nolan, Tom Kennedy, Paddy Holohan and Paul McGuinness

In Ireland we constantly hear that we don’t have enough skills/resources @ product management.

Here is some useful tips, resources, etc to check out.

The Role
The role of product manager is to capture the product vision and make it happen. The person is usually a jack of all trades, with a background in Computer Science/MBA. They normally work with small, agile engineering teams.

Initial Idea – Product Vision
Initial product requirements are captured – usually on a wiki – from a variety of sources [powerpoint, napkin, funding documents, etc]

Check out some useful wiki services – such as Google sites, Socialtext or Confluence.

One useful trick is to apply the Working Backwards model – as used in Amazon, Microsoft, etc.

The Lean Startup
The Lean Startup is a practical approach for creating and managing a new breed of company that excels in low-cost experimentation, rapid iteration, and true customer insight.

Check this video from Eric Ries, at the recent Seedcamp

One of the key concepts from Lean Startup is Customer Development – and I would recommend everyone to read Steve Blank’s book on the subject – Four Steps to the Epiphany

Sean Ellis, presented at recent Seedcamp on Customer Development [note: Sean is participating in IGAP Programme]

Once you have a plan/idea documented, you can start to build stuff. Currently most teams work to an iterative Agile process like Scrum. Some great tools that support these methologies are Jira/Greenhopper – great for small teams, who maybe located all over the world, who want to ensure transparency on what’s getting done.

This video is good at explaining Scrum

Most VCs and Angel investors, are preaching the power of Lean Startups – check what Ron Conway and Mike Maples have to say in these videos.

Product/Market Fit
Original product designs are usually minimalist – Product Management conduct some user studies, with a focus on asking lots questions – What does user really care about?

With lots of experimentation – a focus on low fidelity prototyping. Tools such as balsamiq make prototyping UI very easy.

In a lot of cases – releasing an early version into public domain, to see if users respond well.

Bottom Line – you’re looking for Product Market Fit.

Analytics
Finally analytics play a critical part in product management. The goal is to make the product better over time from feedback, from metrics, etc.

Dave McClure is one of the best guys at articulating Startup Metrics – amongst others like Andrew Chen, Scott Rafer, etc.

Check out a recent presentation from Dave at FOWA

Start-up Metrics that Matter by Dave McClure from Carsonified on Vimeo.

Summary

1. Work Backwards
2. Lean Startup
3. Customer Development
4. Product/Market Fit
5. Analytics

Those involved in the technology industry, who are constantly asked to help family and friends to help them with digital things, may want to check out i-cando – so they can point their family members, etc to this site.

I-CANDO is an Irish start-up based in the Digital Hub and it created a programme that could help people. It is an e-learning programme that uses a blend of classroom lending. The best way to describe it is a next step beyond the European Computer Driving Licence Programme (ECDL) for the 21st century.

where they can learn themselves how to use a computer properly, upload a digital photo, use a digital video camera, iPOD and apps like Skype, Twitter and Facebook.

The winners at the recent Smartcamp Final in Dublin were

Treemetrics – A Forestry Management Company are the overall SmartCamp winner. They will receive a three month mentorship program with IBM to help them build an 'investor ready' proposition. They also receive entry into the NDRC program with also includes funding of up to €25,000.

HeyStacks – a social search company also received entry into the NDRC program

Green Diamond – An Energy Efficiency Management Company won the Vodafone mentorship and and investment offer from AIB Seed Capital Fund will €50,000 .

ResourceKraft also received an investment offer from AIB Seed Capital for the same amount – both of these are subject to normal diligence.

Congratulations to all the winners, and also to Martin Kelly and his colleagues at IBM Ireland for a great event.

It’s been a quiet year for many people on the conference front but there is one event that many of us just can’t miss, and that’s Le Web. It’s not just the brilliant speakers that Loic and Geraldine manage to get, it’s the battery recharge we need to prepare us for the new year.

Despite the venue hiccups last year, I still find myself referring to Le Web 2008 regularly. Marissa on the importance of local to Google, Dave Morin on Facebook Connect and Christine Lagarde on startups in France.

Just check out this year’s speakers and tell me you’re not excited by that line-up. It’s the style of event where you can easily chat to many of these people and meet them year after year. Apart from the learning and general networking, Le Web is a place where deals are done.

We’ll be covering the full two days on Web2Ireland and let’s hope we don’t take down Twitter with the volume of updates!

If you are interested in going, make sure to use the discount code BLOG09 to get 10% off.

The Final 5 companies for Smartcamp have been selected

SmartCamp day will take place on the 15th Oct in Dublin.

The NDRC will select 1 of the 5 SmartCamp finalists to enter its new 3 month programme, which includes funding of 25k, to focus on commercial validation of web and mobile proposals.

UPDATE
In addition to NDRC Grant,

- IBM is offering the winning candidate of their choice, a three month mentorship course at its Dublin Innovation Centre to help them build an 'investor ready' commercial proposition in order to secure funding.

- Vodafone will offer a 3 month mentorship course to a candidate of their choice.

- AIB Seed Capital Fund will make an offer of investment of €50,000 to each of two candidates of their choice subject to normal diligence.

Companies

1. Cloudsplit Dynamic Infrastructure Analysis

CloudSplit offer a real time view on what is happening on your Amazon grid from a cost perspective

2. Green DiamondWaste Management

Green Diamond provide cost-efficient green solutions for the environmental industry

3. Heystacks–Social Search

HeyStaks helps you and your friends to benefit from each other’s search experiences.

4. ResourceKraft-Energy Effiecency/management

ResourceKraft supply highly sophisticated energy cost control systems – saving money and carbon

5. TreeMetrics-Forestry Management

Treemetrics optimise value recovery in forestry

What’s the Irish for “football”? Find out in seconds with Get the Focal, now available on your iPhone or iPod Touch.

‘Get The Focal’ is a 12,000 word Irish language translator which can be installed on modern mobile phones. A new version of the application has just been released with extra translations and the ability to translate words from Irish-English as well as from English-Irish.

The company behind, Get The Focal, Maithu are releasing a mobile Irish translator for the iPhone in April and Samsung are also including a version of the application under the name the Gael Fón Dictionary on new handsets.

13 Enterprise Ireland supported companies recently attended CTIA Wireless event in the US

Companies attending

Accuris
Altobridge
BitRabbit
Dial2Do
dotMobi
MobileAware
NewBay
Openet
Tango
Taoglas
VistaTec
Zamano

Some Highlights

Dial2Do nominated for Mobile Excellence Awards

NewBay, the leader in digital lifestyle solutions for carriers, announced that over 10 million subscribers are now using its award-winning LifeCache Social Networking solution and also announced LifeCache Smart Address Book (SAB) 2.0, a converged, telco-grade social address book offering for carriers. LifeCache SAB is a white-label address book that syncs, merges and updates contacts and dynamic content from multiple sources and stores the data securely in the cloud

Taoglas has announced the first LTE and WiMax antennas for telematics, mobile, telemedical and security markets. The antennas will benefit M2M manufacturers developing LTE and WiMax prototypes for new fourth generation networks