<p>Startups:
own vs spinouts
Dreams, failures & salvation
Manoj Ranaweera
3rd May 2014
Tech City Manchester
Startup Myths
1. Don’t bother if you are not technical
2.
It’s a young man’s game
3. You must raise external capital
4. No need for early revenues – let someone else
figure it out
5. Must be a lean startup
6. And don’t forget to fail fast
Life is a journey!
Education:
• 1987 Royal
College
• 1992 B.Eng
(Hons)
• 2005 MBA @MBS
Employment
• 1992 Parsons
Brinckerhoff
• Control Systems
• Power
Generation
• Electricity
Transmission
• Sewerage
Networks
• Light Rail Transit
Startups:
• 2004 MI – Investor
employee
• 2004/06 ebdex
• 2006/12
Techcelerate
• TwiCRM, CRMthis
• Foresight North
• 2007 edocr
Spin outs
• 2013 LiveStax
My Startup Adventures
n Since 2007
n Over 150,000+ Users from 200+
countries
n 1 million+ prospects have discovered
50,000 professionals and businesses
through Documents
n £21m turnover (2012)
n 250+ staff
n Offices in UK, Middle East and India
n Market leader in Construction
Industry
n 3 dedicated developers + 1
commercial
n 4 part timers + parent company
Software Efficiency Drift
¡ Life of existing software investments can be greatly extended by
surfacing information via easy-to-build disposable Apps
Efficiency
Drift
Recovered &
improved outcome
Efficiency
Gain
Ef
fic
ie
n
c
y
Time
Actual
outcome
Expected
outcome
Addition of
LiveStax
What is LiveStax?
LiveStax surface the RIGHT Information to the RIGHT
Employee to do the RIGHT Job at the RIGHT Time, via
easy to build Apps, Pages and Spaces, which surface
information and functionality from legacy, on-premise
and SaaS software, reducing employee frustrations
and improving business productivity, whilst giving back
control of IT to CIO.
Comparison 1 - Opportunity
¡ Your itch vs looking for a problem
¡ Product or feature
¡ Scaling
$1bn
$100m
$10m
Lifestyle
¡ Customer challenges
¡ Own Challenges
¡ Market Trend