Paul Walsh, the Irish Opportunist

This gave me a great laugh, thanks Steve.

Can you explain what your business does in less than a minute? I can, but it has taken me more than two years to learn how to explain what the hell Content Labels are, what problem they’re solving and why I think they’ll gain mass adoption, all in under a minute.

Ok that’s not true, I can explain what enabling trust on the Web using labels is, in under a minute but I can tell the entire story in under two.

Think about it, if you were to explain what you or your business does to one of my Indian chefs, would they get it?

I hosted a networking event last year called Curry 2.0 in one of Dublin’s finest eateries. I say obviously because my partner and I own Jaipur. I invited a bunch of likeminded people to watch startups pitch to a waiter in a minute. Thanks to Joe Drumgoogle I was reminded of the videos that were captured. Check out the 1 minute pitches.

I’ve also republished my original post below in case you didn’t read it on the Segala blog.

I’m very sorry for inflicting Robert Loch upon you like this. I should have given prior warning. The picture was taken on our way back to the UK after Curry 2.0, where Rob gave his pitch about a new idea called Jokaoke (a bit like karaoke but for people who really can’t sing, rather than pretend they can’t before getting up and singing like a pro).

What started as an idea to entertain a few people over dinner, turned out to be a successful ‘networking event’ crammed with cool people who between them, traveled a few thousand miles to take part in some idle banter over a curry and glass of wine. We had folk fly in from the UK, Spain and the People’s Republic of Cork. My sincere thanks goes to everyone who attended but a special thanks is extended to those who collected air miles just for a curry (Jaipur only delivers within a 500 mile radius, sorry).

Left to right, Paul Walsh and Farzad Jamal.

I started the evening with a few games of pool with Dennis Howlett, Robert Loch and Farzad Jamal. I won, naturally.

We then moved onto Jaipur where we were greeted with some of the delights of Stormhoek wine. Whilst getting familiar with their surroundings, everyone sipped the only Rose wine specifically made to serve over Ice. Full fruity style, yet dry on the finish when served over ice, Stormhoek’s Couture Rose 2007 was a fresh start to the evening. It was also the beginning of my steady decline into a slightly inebriated state. For which I am (almost) sorry given that it’s captured on video thanks to Paul Campbell. I refuse to watch any video footage of myself so feel free no to comment on my performance

I introduced the evening’s entertainment as just that, entertainment; a time to sit back, relax and enjoy good food, wine and company. As the evening pressed ahead we got to taste more of Stormhoek’s offerings, which I may add, isn’t bad at all. The Sauvignon Blanc was my personal favourite. I won’t pretend to know anything about wine. I simply know what I like and dislike. I leave all that stuff to my restaurateur business partner Asheesh (oops, just realised we haven’t included a profile for him on the site!).

I’m hoping this will be the first of many similar events in Dublin (and other parts of Ireland should anyone wish to use the term Curry 2.0).

Left to right, Christ Smith Paul Walsh and Dan Teodosiu.

I spent some time chatting with Dan Teodosiu, Microsoft Director, Windows Live Europe. Very cool guy. He now wants to host some events at the Microsoft office. So, please leave a comment if you have any suggestions. Perhaps we could do something with the Blue Monster.

I didn’t hear this from Dan himself but Farzad filled me in on a (not-so) funny story. Apparently Dan went to college with Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. The sore point is that Dan was offered a job which would have made him employee number 3! How sorry is he for not accepting that job offer. He’s not doing too badly though, as he sold his venture in the Valley to Microsoft and is now heading up Live. I look forward to working with him on a future event, or two.

Left to right, Paul Walsh and Brian Caulfield.

I’m pretty confident our worthy waiter purposely absconded just before the pitching session started. So, who better to replace our 100 meter sprinter than Sanjay, Head Chef. Brian Caulfield of Trinity Venture Capital was my independent adjudicator. It took Sanjay no time at all to decide that James Kennedy of SmartNote was the easiest pitch to understand. I don’t have a video clip of this particular pitch to hand so I’ll write a separate post and explain why I personally feel he deserved his place on the podium.

First up on the pitching session is a buddy of mine, Philip Wilkinson, Founder of Crowdstorm. This was a little different because Philip previously recorded a video clip especially for the occasion, which I ran on a laptop connected to some loud speakers.

It was good to have Maxim Kelly, Business Reporter for the Sunday Tribune (the first Irish newspaper to write something about me) at the table. I put Maxim on the spot by introducing him as one of the pitching companies. I love doing stuff like that. He did a fantastic job given that he had less than 5 seconds to prepare. I think I said something like ‘so, why should we read the Tribune Max?’ to which he had no choice but to respond.

Not only did Chris Smith from Stormhoek provide the wine for the evening, he also flew over from the UK to team up with Julian Alubaidy,from Bubble Brothers. It was good to get a pitch from Chris as it gave him the opportunity to further promote the brand. So Julian, what date are you launching Stormhoek in Ireland so we can start to stock it in Jaipur?

I spoke to Hugh MacLeod on the phone this morning and he has kindly agreed to sponsor the wine at a new event that Robert Loch and I am running (email me if you want to be invited, it’s invite only).

We even got a pitch from Dan Stevenson from Microsoft. I think this was a nice touch because it’s not exactly a startup. It does however, demonstrated how Microsoftians can hang out in the same playground with the rest of the kids.

I won’t run a commentary on each pitch. You can see them for yourself below thanks to Paul Campbell. The picture and sound quality isn’t great but I think that only adds to the character of the evening and demonstrates how impromptu it was. I’ll write a separate post which will include the winning pitch.
Thanks to Dennis Howlett for the pictures

It’s not actually Ben Childers pitching for Microsoft as it states on the YouTube video, it’s Dan Stevenson.

I’ve witnessed Enterprise Ireland’s inability to grasp Web based business models first hand. One of the two advisors employed by them to evaluate Segala was asked to leave my office after he hit the last nail in his coffin with the following carpet bombing statement.

… but Paul, I can’t possibly see how companies can make money from the Internet without having loads of sales people knocking on doors. How can you expect to make money from advertising or using partners?

The other advisor brought into Segala owns a US based company. The CEO of that company asked me for advice on how to franchise Segala’s certification programme. The owner of the company asked his CEO if we had a viable business model. Sounds a little rich if the CEO is asking me for advice, doesn’t it? Again, another so-called Enterprise Ireland expert that didn’t have a clue about Web based business models.

Enterprise Ireland love enterprise business models. They love companies that can sell a one £1m product per year. However, any mention of selling three million products for £1 and they run for the hills.

Enterprise Ireland better take the finger out of their Enterprise ass and learn how to connect to the Web. It should spend more time on helping to build the ecosystem for home grown companies and spend less time pretending to sponsor and support events and companies. They should put their money where their huge mouth is, by actually paying for their logo to go on everyone else’s event!

Here’s an article I picked up from the Sunday Tribune, putting all of this into perspective.

THE organisers of Paddy’s Valley, a delegation of 26 Irish technology entrepreneurs and consultants who have just wrapped up a weeklong trip to Silicon Valley, have decided to discontinue their partnership with Enterprise Ireland for future visits to the high-tech mecca after concluding they were “let down” by the state agency.

Sources within the delegation told the Sunday Tribune that Enterprise Ireland’s conservative networking approach was a hindrance in Silicon Valley’s relaxed corporate environment and that the group was able to achieve more under its own steam than with the agency’s assistance.

“We got two billionaires to meet with us on our trip, as well as the most senior people in web companies nearly every single day, ” said Paddy’s Valley organiser Damien Mulley (also a Sunday Tribune columnist).

“Enterprise Ireland couldn’t even get our nametags right at the one evening event they organised for us.”

The Paddy’s Valley trip was arranged by Mulley, web entrepreneur Conor O’Neill and consultant James Corbett. The trio arranged a series of meetings and networking events with top international web companies, including Yahoo and Facebook.

Enterprise Ireland asked to be involved with the trip and their contribution was to pitch an event with Silicon Valley venture capitalists last Tuesday.

In the course of the week the group met, amongst others, Ross Mayfield from Social Text, Mark Andreeson from Ning (who recently sold Opsware for $1.8bn), and Yahoo’s chief executive Jerry Yang. The group took part in a pitching event at Yahoo Brickhouse. All of this, the organisers say, was arranged by grassroots networking independent of Enterprise Ireland.

“After this week I know that we can get the heavy hitters ourselves and we don’t need Enterprise Ireland, ” Mulley said. “To be honest, I think they let us down. They did get some very important people in the room for their pitching event but we felt like they could have made more of an effort to make introductions. Instead it felt like they were guarding their address book.”

He added: “EI wanted us to change our name, wanted us to have a proper website instead of a blog, and sometimes appeared to be looking down on the whole endeavour. The Yahoo executive we invited to the pitching event said that they had never seen so many suits in one place in his whole life.”

A spokesperson from EI said: “This was not an Enterprise Ireland event and we provided support as requested and as appropriate. We provided support to the companies and to the Paddy’s Valley event organisers in advance of the trip and from our Silicon Valley offices when they arrived there.”

Source Sunday Tribune

We’re looking for a volunteer to design a one/two page flyer for the BIMA Facebook Debate event which takes place in a few weeks. So, time is of the essence. Check out the Facebook event page here.

This invite is open to agencies, freelancers and students. All we ask is for you to put your name forward along with a few examples of your work. Nothing long winded required and no formal pitching will be requested.

We’re not entirely sure how the winner will be picked. What we do know, is that it will be very informal and very quick.

So, please volunteer now and get your brand noticed by the huge audience that’s talking about the event. We’ll promote your work on the flyer so everyone will know who designed it!

We’ll also give you 2 guest passes and 2 limited edition t-shirts. The event is completely sold out and the t-shirts haven’t even been designed yet.

Please get in touch by emailing paul@segala.com