Entries Tagged 'Out and about'

In the UK, there’s no event quite like the Future of Web Apps (FOWA) which is why I was pleased to be there this year representing Blog Friends. As you might expect from a 3 day conference packed with the world’s top web entrepreneurs, technologists and investors there’s far too much to cover here, so instead I’ll point you to the excellent summary by John O’Shea.

So what can I add? Well, since my dinner with Doug Richards a couple of weeks back my favorite theme has been “entrepreneurs’ worst mistakes/best lessons”, so here’s a few great ones from the FOWA presenters:

• Scott Rafer (MyBlogLog, Lookery): blog search doesn’t work (financially).
• Dick Costolo (Feedburner): don’t hire too many people too early.
• Ryan Carson (Carsonified): know when you’re on to a good thing and go with it, even if it’s not what you expected.
• Matt Biddulph (Dopplr): let the people decide how they are going to use your app.

Of course, the best bit was spreading the word about Blog Friends which we did via the magic of our moo stickers. We managed to empty nearly two sticker books at the after-party, including several on Kevin Rose of Digg.com and Alex Albrecht of Diggnation!

Guerrilla marketing at its best! (PS - thanks to the Flexiscale guys for hosting me that evening).

Cheers to Sam for the generous supply of free beers and venue last night for the Blognation Party - well done for launching a China division. It was great to catch up with Huw, David and Sam from Blognation and to finally meet Ewan Spence.

Events like this just go to show how great it is to be in a web startup in London at the moment: at the same event I chatted a wealth of established entrepreneurs such Richard Moross (I felt slightly strange exchanging moo cards with him!), Douglas de Jaeger and Anthony Eckinazi as well as fresh startup like Meecard.com. Thanks as always to Walid and Sokratis of Trusted Places for their hospitality.