For the last few months I have been talking with Manoj Ranaweera and Ivan Pope of Snipperoo to create a series of entrepreneurial networking events outside of London. I am pleased to say that on Thursday night the first NW Startup 2.0 event took place in Manchester and over 30 people attended.
I was going to write a post on this but one of my fellow speakers David Terrar of Twinfield and the Enterprise Irregulars (a must read if you are interested in Enterprise 2.0) has done such as sterling job that I will let him tell you more. Below is an edited snippet from David’s post.
I met some really interesting people. I spoke with Stephen Tominey, the MD of acrticPigs. He told me all about the interactive, 3D animation that his company does, particularly applied to the education sector. Philip Hemsted and Anish Kapoor are the founders of Yuugoo. Phil and Anish have just secured VC funding for the next stage of their company from Rising Stars. Their product allows you to collaborate with IM, VoiP and to share screens instantly, and working in and out of the office through firewalls and across different platforms.They seem to be addressing the issues for the enterprise and platforms in a way that the guys at Blogtronix are too – they should get together. I met Ian Eddison, who works for Chamberlink advising business in the North West. I met David Thomas, Director of D-Geo, who have a product that helps a potential innovator through the key steps of analysis in evaluating their idea – i2m. And I also met Steve Livingston of KPMG. Steve get’s a special mention, mostly because KPMG were kind enough to pay for the food at the event.
Like David I enjoyed speaking with several of the people mentioned above. I also spoke with Chris Leigh from RealTime Race’s. One thing I would take away from the evening was the fact that it felt a bit like London in 2005. There was lots of positivity and lots of energy but most of the entrepreneurs were still struggling to find a good Angel or VC i.e one who could understand their opportunity and not talk to them like a banker with one eye on a short term ROI.
But most of all they were keen to talk to fellow entrepreneurs, create a community and learn from each other. This first event hopefully will facilitate that.
Finally regarding the next event, it is already in the planning and will hopefully take place in Leeds early in the new year. There will also be a similar event started in Brighton called SW Startup 2.0, the details of which will be announced here shortly. I am also working with other people to start similar events in Edinburgh, Dublin, Belfast, Bristol and Cardiff – “from an acorn an oak tree grows”.
I would like to add that these events are not TechCrunch events but I am certainly keen to help the organisers get them started, help promote them and attend if asked. If you would like to sponsor (£500) or host one of these events please let me or one of the named organisers know.