jbsh

Capt Tim with London Tea Towel

On a dark and stormy Tuesday morning, with tales of economic melt down on R4, I wasn’t sure if anyone would turn up to Open Coffee.

I shouldn’t have worried, Bristolians are made of stern stuff. We even had a friendly bank manager type along to see what the excitement was about.

In addition to Andy, we had Peter Weeks from Business Link and two entrepreneurs Dave Cropley and Chris Keegan from newly formed evans & finch (holding website). Joel Hughes was back hoping to show his new social canvassing app, along with Sam, Nigel, Craig, Tom, Melissa, Mark, Janice, and apologies to anyone I’ve missed!

A fresh pot of finest ground coffee and some gluten-free chocolate cake kept everyone talking and mixing until after I had to leave.

From the conversations I flitted between there was a common thread that, while the impending financial apocalypse will hit, for most businesses it’s not here yet. The exception, as Andy admitted, is for those trying to raise or extend bank finance. Survival planning was largely around three themes that also came up at a Bristol Enterprise Network event a couple weeks back (Growth Opportunities in a Recession).

• watch the cash flow (and reduce it everywhere)
• provide an excellent customer experience (keeping existing customers is easier than finding new ones)
• innovate

These last two in particular are being exemplified by 3 Bristol companies. Mark and Tom at The Web People are using their new SWiM service-as-a-service management software to provide excellent customer experience and innovating by licensing it to other web development and management companies. Nigel at Katugas Research Services is providing excellent service through analysis reports and multi-lingual support, and innovating through budgeting approaches that help both their client’s and their own cash flow. Dave and Chris at evans & finch are also planning both consolidation of cash flow through longer term client relationships and a new service that is still under wraps.

It may be grim out there, and things will probably get worse before they get better, but there are still some great business opportunities out there.

Uploaded on May 12, 2006 by JosephH

Another great Open Coffee despite the weather’s attempts to keep folk away. After gathering downstairs with our chosen caffeine drinks, a number of discussions quickly established.

Nigel Legg came along and we discussed the analysis of those pesky free text boxes on customer surveys. The rest of the form is automated but the free text stuff needs to be transcribed, coded and then analysed using specialist software. But the benefit from those short bursts of direct feedback from customers and clients can be critical, and that’s what Nigel provides. He’s managing a team across the UK and beyond and providing his service to the market research companies as an added value proposition.

Janice Gjertsen Caillet (Founder & CEO, Coaching Circles) also joined us for the first time to find out what happening and interesting in Bristol. As a relatively new citizen to Bristol (after 10 yrs in New York and then 4 in Paris) she’s brought her executive coaching and business mentoring company with her. Lots of great ideas about shaking up the scene and competing on the global stage.

Andy and I also had a bit of a chat about business development and financing growth in the current financial climate. As the Bristol Enterprise Network event tomorrow night will explore, there are growth opportunities in a recession, but its hard(er) work. Having been through the last dotcom boom Andy knows his stuff so it’s reassuring to hear him planning for growth, even though he does touch wood every time he mentions it. I’m hanging on to my desk as I write this.

Peter Livingston from Clarke Willmott joined us towards the end of the discussion with some thoughts on IP and the value of a good legal brief in tough times. Although neither Andy or I have retained legal counsel there is definite value in the particular focus and discipline that a lawyer’s training brings to business analysis and process refinement. This is probably especially true in a creative business where the ‘normal’ business practice is less logical and articulated and more spontaneous and freeform. Great for creativity and innovation, trickier for compliance and contract management.

All in all another good morning, and apologies to those I only got to say hi to briefly.

Uploaded on November 6, 2006 by Luis Alves

Bit slow off the mark on this post but it’s been a busy couple of days.

We had a really good morning on Tuesday with new faces and new coffee to try. Jack had popped up from the Temple Meads branch of Starbucks to mix some fresh brew for us using their Organic Ethiopian blend together with some cinnamon pastries to bring out the spicy aroma and flavours. We hope to have Jack back with his coffee tasting table.

Over the fresh coffee a couple of new faces joined the familiar ones. A twitter link brought Rick Hurst along for the first time. We also welcomed Jamie Dyer all the way from Plymouth and only just back from Canada, kudos! Just as I was leaving I saw Jamie and Mark Paney deep in discussion and it sounds like there could be another partnership arising from OpenCoffee, great stuff!

It was also good to see Peter Livingston, Tom O’Neil and Nick Sturge along providing the professional business services side of things.

Joel Huges was also along having developed his platform but missed the Seedcamp deadline. Have to see if there is a business development / funding opportunity there, hopefully there’ll be something to demo shortly.

Chris Garrett & Craig Hellen from BexMedia were along as was Rachel Carney; apologies to anyone I missed.

The next OpenCoffee will be on 26 August, from 8.30am at Starbucks on Park St as usual. See you there.

Really good turn out at this morning’s Open Coffee with plenty of new faces and old friends. Sam Machin and Tom O’Neil both back after recent breaks, Sam even took time out from his Honeymoon to find an incubation centre in Dublin next to the Guinness factory so he could report back to us, that’s dedication (or at least that’s what he told us, mind you he also showed up with a brand new Acer sub-notebook).

New faces included Simon Jacobson, Joel, Melissa Kidd and Peter Livingstone.

Craig and I had a chance to catch up and agree some ideas to push Carrotmob Bristol forward a bit more and he also took the opportunity to show their latest mobile video project with Anglia Ruskin university providing a video map of the campus.

Peter, Tom, Matt Anderson and I had a good catch up on business confidence from our various perspectives. While a couple of industries have seen a down turn (or at least a hesitation) there are still plenty of growing technology businesses and great opportunities out there.

All of which bodes well for those starting and growing their businesses, and for those of us supporting them.

Apologies to those that I didn’t get to talk to but I’m greatly heartened that more people are turning up than I can network with in 90min (which is saying something). Thanks to everyone for supporting Open Coffee and look forward to seeing you all (and your colleagues, business partners, etc) at the next Open Coffee on 12 August.

Cheers

John