Paul Walsh, the Irish Opportunist

Robert Loch and I are hosting a fireside chat with Sarah Lacy on November 7th. Rob and Paul Carr will conduct the interview, so it’s likely to be very entertaining to say the least. We’re also hosting an after party. More about the event here.

Leave a comment here and explain why you should get a ticket and we’ll give a free pass to each of the 3 replies we deem most deserving - I’ve no idea what ‘most deserving’ means right now, so feel free to suggest something. We’ll announce the winners on October 26 30th.

Good luck

In true walshie-style, I’ve made a last minute decition to hit San Francisco with my (free) pass for the TechCrunch50 in hand. I’ll be there from September 7th to September 13th.

I’m not even going to try to name all of the people I’m likely to hook up with.

There’s a great post on TechCrunch that will benefit even the most seasoned entrepreneurs who demo products regularly. Keep it simple and get to the point by showing your product within 60 seconds is my favourite tip.

Speaking of which, I was driving behind a car tonight which displayed some kind of advertisement. I couldn’t even read the ‘big’ text when I was almost bumper to bumper. They should have made one point to grab my attention and a phone number.

Mike Butcher from TechCrunch has started a campaign for a central hub for startups in London called TecHub.

Rather than reiterate what Mike has in mind, here’s what he has to say, in part:

So I am hereby serving notice that TechCrunch UK is going to start campaigning for a Digital Hub for the UK.

The working title for this concept is “The TechHub”.

Unfortunately this is going to sound boringly London-centric. But I think it ought to be in London. Why? Simple really. Money, access and the networks inside London. Startups can make use of the amazing access to the wealth of mentoring, venture capital and talent here. I know there is an argument for creating other centres around the UK. But the classic clustering effect created by Silicon Valley would be replicated by concentrating efforts on one geographical area.

Read his full post.

I read from the update he posted that a guy called Ian Forrester disagrees and thinks it’s a waste of time. I have to say, for someone who runs and attends a lot of events, I have never once seen Ian. I’ve heard he runs good events himself but it’s time to support others and the ecosystem. His opinion is typical of the BBC; try to build innovation in-house.

I’m up for supporting this initiative, even if it doesn’t happen. Why? Well because it’ll get a lot more people connected and potentially introduce more budding entrepreneurs to the scene.

I’m delighted to see Mike take it by the horns and state London as the location of choice. It makes perfect sense to try to cluster people where the numbers make sense and they’re supported by the business, telephony and transportation infrastructure. I’ve been saying we need to cluster for a while, so it would be nice to see something more solid happen.

I read a post by Nic Brisbourne entitled ‘Small boards are usually better’ and it reminded me of numerous, frustrated conversations I had with a few Founding CEOs over the past couple of years. I’ve often heard them say “I think it’s a brilliant idea and I really want to do it, but my board isn’t sure because they don’t get it”.

I tend to hire people who are much smarter than me, mainly because it makes my job much easier, the team much stronger and the company more likely to be the best in its field. And naturally, they’re much more motivated. So, I get the importance of listening to the team and going with the majority. Most of the time anyway.

But, when you feel very strongly about something, I personally believe that as CEO, you should go with your gut feeling and ‘just fucking do it’. I make no apology for swearing by the way - I recently heard that it’s the same motto held by one of the few people I look up to, Richard Brandson. So if he can say it, I can say it.

Meanwhile, back at the Brisbourne ranch and his thoughts about the size of an ideal board…

I was on a call yesterday with a subset of one of the boards I am on and one of the directors was talking about how difficult it is to add value on boards.

I agree with that. It is definitely difficult. Also definitely possible, but it usually requires a lot of care and forethought.

I should add at this stage that the director in question has been brilliant for us, and that he has an awesome track record of entrepreneurial success behind him.

One of the reasons I favour small boards is exactly because it is hard for NEDs to add value. Despite their best intentions many fail, and it is also common to see people destroying value by chewing up management time precisely because they are trying to help.

Read his full post here

I totally agree with Nic. ‘Decision by Committee’ for everything just doesn’t work. You either get very little done or you’re too late to deliver. That’s why we created working groups in BIMA. By creating working groups, appointing a Chair of each one and importantly, giving them the responsibility to make decisions without reverting back to the 12 Executives, it means the ship is much more productive. There are lots of other benefits but I don’t want to go too far off topic.

Instead of having 12 Executives making decisions about everything, it now has 9 working group Chairs with teams of no more than 5, making the decisions. Moreover, each team is focused primarily on areas in which they truly specialise. Not only does this mean they’re likely to deliver based on their expertise and experience, they’re less likely to cause delays where they’ve got less experience than others.

What are your thoughts?