Cardiff is ace. Often, people make the mistake that there’s little to nothing in the way of entrepreneurial activity going on in the Welsh capital. How wrong they are!
I’m Stephen and I’m the founder of Tradebox Media. I’m also proud to be part of a merry band of business folk all involved in Cardiff’s bustling tech scene.
We get up to a fair bit of mischief and, by way of proof, here is the weekly round-up of what we’ve been up to.
This post was originally published on CardiffStart.com on October 29th 2012.
Posted and curated by Stephen Milburn of Tradebox Media.
Catchy title, don’t you think?
We started the week with an update on the group’s incorporation into a CIC. Basically, a CIC is a Community Interest Company and, in order to spend any funding that Cardiff Start may be able to get its paws on, there needs be a legal structure. Part of this legal structure is a board and its associated members. Michelle Davis, Neil Cocker and Rob Lo Bue are currently acting as caretakers for the board positions whilst nominations are finalised. If you want to nominate yourself or another for a position as board member, get your typing action on here. Be quick though, nominations close this Wednesday the 31st of October at 5pm.
Lloyd Fisher is shamelessly abusing Cardiff Start and its members to aid his dissertation research into the rise of knowledge based industries in Cardiff and its effects on the graduate employment market. Even more than just spying on us, he now wants to talk to us. IN REAL LIFE. Chatting over what drove you to start your company and the formation and management of your workforce is a great way to solidify your ideas and even acts as a review of your business’ current state. Help a guy out in his dissertation and do yourself a favour by contacting Lloyd via email here.
¢â‚¬ ¨Ignite Cardiff happened the other week. For those that couldn’t make it, Steve Dimmick pointed us all in the direction of this video (click the image to open).
Steve Morgan linked to an interesting article about why you should aim to build a business, not a start up. Read the article here. The article highlights a conversation that the group had a few weeks ago on the difficulties involved in creating a business and how everyone is now an entrepreneur.
In the middle of the week, we had our third HackDay down in IndyCube in Cardiff Bay. Stuff got done. Cake was eaten. Some n’er do well made some minutes. You can read these minutes here (if you’re that way inclined).
Neil Cocker entered Dizzyjam into The Pitch competition and would really like to go to the final (which is at The Ministry of Sound in old London Town). To get there, votes are needed. Cast yours here and make sure Neil enjoys a night of glow sticks and entrepreneurial success.
If you’re a social startup, then you might be interested in an event shared by Michelle Davis happening in London on November 15th and 16th. It’s the Shine Unconference and details and the like are here. Don’t be afraid if the unconference moniker. As a rule, it means that the delegates determine the flow of the day thus avoiding wasting your time).
MC Motsi (real name Chase) joined the group and opened a whole bag of worms on founders and co-founders. Do you even need a cofounder to secure funding? Chase is a bit worried that as a none-technical founder, he’ll struggle with raising funds. There’s a whole lot of chatter but, as a group, we’ve yet to state our position on whether we favour single-founder models or not. One interesting point raised by Martyn Driscoll was that there’s no need to keep your search for a potential co-founder local. If you need to compliment your team, take the search global and see what you can find.
Chase will be entering for Y Combinator in 2013, so we expect plenty of updates!
James Murray told the group about a “fun” new quirk of Facebook’s policies meaning that if you want to show your posts to all of your fans, you need to cough up some cash. Don’t pay and apparently only 10% of your Facebook fan base will see your updates. Point your browser to the FB group for more.
Warren Oscar Fauvel off of Culture Digital Marketing gave a presentation during the week covering the simplest steps that any non-marketeer can follow in their quest to build and grow their business. He’s been kind enough to share it and it’s now available for all and sundry in Cardiff Start’s Resources section here.
Finally, Gareth Daniel told us all to sit up straight at our desks:
