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Posts Tagged Angel investment

Lightning Lab startups ask – ‘where’s the money’? Peter Kerr May 21

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Lightning Lab 2013 saw nine startups pitch their digital products to would-be investors last week, seeking expansion capital for ideas that 12 weeks before mostly existed on paper.

The Wellington Demo Day saw highly polished presentations, with clear development plans and just as clear ‘here’s how we and our investors are going to make money’ to about 300 people at Te Papa’s Soundings Theatre. About half the audience were financiers.

Any investment secured goes to the next stage of development and expansion into global markets.

My initial underlying thought was jealousy.

Why? Because the participants have obviously learned so much.

Tui Te Hau, CEO of Wellington startup incubator Creative HQ up summed this rationale better than I can.

“Lightning Lab is turning out 30 entrepreneurs with a harder edge and keener and smarter drive to succeed than many. How far they go is up to them, but these companies are 12 weeks old and they already have more scars than most get in several years.”

These nine companies were whittled from 87 applications to LL late last year, and each received $6000 per head from a set of founding investors. By being part of a three month intensive acceleration programme, their digital concepts have been validated, built and established with early customers.

The startups have been mentored by local and international advisers, faced hard deadlines in growth targets and a structured model for accelerating early stage business growth based on international best practice.

When Te Hau talks about scars, she’s not exaggerating – but obtaining them so quickly and with the ability to ask advice such as “what should we do now” in such a concentrated manner – is something so valuable it really can’t be priced.

What is patently clear is that the 30 participants, and their wider networks, have had such an injection of entrepreneurial spirit and possibilities that multiplier spinoffs and benefits can only result for Wellington and New Zealand.

Put another way; this programme, with its hand-holding, arse-kicking and question-asking intensiveness will create a virtuous circle of increasing wealth.

And sure, like all of us, these startups have, and will make mistakes.

But, they know what needs to be done to get back on track, or alternatively how to fail-fast (and then get on with another project).

Because the Demo Day was asking for money, what can be reported publicly is limited.

Suffice to say that (and you’d have to imagine that the mentoring has been also strong in this area) the investment dollars being asked for by the startups seemed reasonable and appropriate.

Many of the companies had potential exponential growth rates, but realism ruled.

It is now up to the individual companies themselves to reveal if or what investment(s) have been made in them – and as this becomes known Lightning Lab will have its own raison d’etre validated.

For the record, those presenting were:

LearnKo – delivers online learning programs to English language organisations in Asia, harnessing Australasian tutors, training them and providing them with content to deliver through an online classroom

Publons – platform for crowd-sourced peer-review of academic articles, where academics build a reputation for their contributions. An alternative to the extremely slow, expensive and closed status quo of the past 300 years of academic publishing

Adeez – specialist mobile marketing platform, enabling brands and their agencies to increase their ROI on mobile marketing

Expander – tracking and analytics platform that protects brands by providing them with powerful tools to combat counterfeit, while connecting manufacturers and consumers

teamisto – turn a typical business sponsorship donation to an amateur sports club or team into an effective advertising channel with measurable results

Questo – works with organisations by providing a platform to create activities with incentives and rewards to engage their visitors. A mobile app and analytics engine provides the ability to track, measure and evaluate their visitors’ behaviour

promoki – social media platform that gamifies photo and video contests. Help brands co-create advertising campaigns with their audience and distribute crowd-filled media across multiple social networks

Kidsgomobile – software device to help parents teach their children to become responsible users of their first smartphone. Tool that notifies parents if their child engages in potentially risky phone behaviour and helps them resolve these issues

WIP – platform that enables professional video makers to share their work-in-progress videos with their team and clients to gather precise and meaningful feedback

Without doubt, some of these startups will go on to become much larger businesses. Without doubt too, most of them would not have got to this ‘go’ position without Lightning Lab.

The learning has been immense, and a thumbs up to those investors and sponsors who put their hands in their pockets from the get-go to kick the whole thing off.

Applications for the next Lightning Lab 2014 will open in September this year.


Email sales tool allows companies to ‘dress to impress’ Peter Kerr May 07

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On the face of it, creating clever emails with embedded graphics and other gee-whizz stuff that acts as a smart sales tool should be pretty easy.

But (apparently), there’s only three companies around the world have pulled off the feat – including Auckland-based LiveLink Connect.

The three-year old six-person entity (you can hardly call it a start-up now), was incubated through The Icehouse and has had two angel funding rounds for a total of about $450,000 invested.

Its founder and managing director Jason Roberts (disclaimer….an old mate of mine) had been in sales and marketing roles for a number of years and more often than not found email a terrible sales tool.

“It was hard to share information between distributors, retailers and customers, and, if as a salesman you sent an email, you had no idea if it was opened,” says Roberts.

“As a salesman, you want to ensure your email dresses to impress and ensure the ability to perfectly time your follow up call, so that was one of the things we set out to do.”

Roberts et al have created what they call ‘everything email’, which as well as being robust technology is also able to work with other email products LLC has on a collegial basis.

For example, company logos are rendered properly no matter what type of device the email is read on (and estimates now are that 50% are done so on a mobile device), whether it has been opened, or even if a disclosure document has been read.

The latter ability is especially important for those selling financial services such as insurance or broking other products – and having an electronic proof of a disclosure having been opened is becoming an increasingly important sales tool for LLC.

“What we’ve created, and continually improving is technologically complex, though, being cloud-based means it has to be simple, easy, secure and cheap,” he says.

“The information and data we can provide back to our clients about what actions have occurred as a result of the email makes its an invaluable marketing and sales tool – exactly what we set out to achieve.”

Roberts says LLC’s next major development is a sophisticated and integrated ‘statement stopper’. That is, to halt the sending of letter-based bills such as electricity, and instead has them sent by email.

LLC’s tracking ability indicates whether a customer hasn’t opened a company’s email, and a paper statement can then be automatically sent by snail-mail.

At that stage, Roberts expects to feature on the radar of a larger company looking to expand its offering, “so in five years or less we’re definitely looking to be acquired.”

Given that LLC is export-expanding, and is now trialing its technology with CMC, a division of giant Indian company Tata, that five year window may be short.

Not too bad for a sales tool that seems a sitter but obviously is a difficult one to pull off.


Lightning Labs shows off its first flowers of startup blooming Peter Kerr Apr 10

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Lightning Labs, a lean startup hub of selected neophyte companies located for three months on Wellington’s The Terrace, gave a ‘where we’re at, what we’ve learned’ quickfire talks recently.

The fullhouse (dozens on the waiting list), heard how the nine IT-oriented businesses are going, how they’ve changed and pivoted (or spivoted as Questo described their 360° return to where they began) and how they’re achieving product-market fit.

All are using the lean startup methodology and being heavily mentored in the expectation that many will attract new and additional investment at a formal pitch session Demo Day at Te Papa on May 15.

The nine startups, whittled down from an original 87 applications, have received up to $18,000 for the three month internship cum building platform. LL’s organisers, Dave Moskovitz, Creative HQ and many others describe it as being a means to build a strong entrepreneurial ecosystem across New Zealand, and have modified America’s TechStars model for Kiwi sensibilities.

Lighntning Lab is sponsored by CreativeHQ, MBIE, ninetwenty recruitment, The Wellington Company, Weta Digital, FX Netowrks, TradeMe and CityLink.

It is all part of, in sticK’s opinion, a maturing and reality check on the difficult feat of turning an idea into a product or service that someone will buy. That, or creating a fast-failure so an entrepreneur can get on with another project that does have market potential.

The three month intensive is divided into thirds (with participants currently halfway through):

· First month –validation & mentor bombardment (asking questions, testing hypotheses)
· Second month – build a structure
· Third month – prepare for investment….and beyond

One interesting feature, is a weekly group evaluation of everyone’s progress and ranking (which varies). This ever-changing ranking graphically shows how well teams are considered to be going.

For the record, the presentations and brief explanation of the startups are: (The companies and original market intent can be found here.

A point to note is the change in description of what the startups consider to be their market, and/or problem they’re solving).

Questo! – platform to connect parents and their children and share photos (in particular)

KidsGoMobile – a means to make children’s smartphone use safer by enabling parents to have an overview of who they’re connecting

withPromoki – a collaborative media project to use crowdsourcing to make and tell stories (particularly around brands)

Teamisto – social media platform for grass root sports teams, allowing them to interact with and provide value to local businesses that may wish to be sponsors

Expander – tracking and analytics platform to protect brands, first aimed at NZ food and beverage productsMyBuy – mobile marketing platform particularly aimed at SME’s

Publons – building a way for academics to publish articles without having to use a journal (publication)

WIP – cloud-based collaboration tool for film-making and editing

LearnCOACH – platform to allow one-on-one, conversational english tuition to non-english students

As programme director Dan Khan says, “the lean startup methodology is a set of very commonsense techniques.”

“What is also really important is the importance of a vision – defined in a way that allows a company, when pivoting, to remain within that vision,” he says.

To have such a vision, a company needs a good idea of what problem it is trying to solve, and that there’s a big enough pain point to provide a product that customers will love.

Roll on (and even role on) May 15 – the proof of the (investment) pudding for Lightning Labs first cohort of graduates!


Wellington Startup Weekend well pitched Peter Kerr Feb 26

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According to John Holt, the brainchild behind the San Francisco located Kiwi Landing Pad, the final pitch presentations at the Wellington Startup Weekend were better than 75% of those he’s seen in the USA.

Given that those State-side entrepreneurs are pitching for real money for ideas they’ve been working on for months, the former director of Sonar 6 reckons the fledgling companies in Wellington did a fantastic job of getting their ideas across.

The WSW attendees only had 54 hours to prepare their pitches, from an absolute standing start.

Unfortunately, I missed the first and winning startup presentation by WagonShare, a web-oriented means for mobile home owners to make a bit of money by renting out their vehicle. In New Zealand, as in the USA, these campervans and caravans are usually sitting around unused – but would be perfect for rental.

Apparently WagonShare were the unanimous winners – evident in that the judges didn’t need to spend too much time deciding their favourite new business.

The other 11 pitches showed varying degrees of market validation or ways of assessing whether there is a market for their perceived product or service. A couple of the teams pivoted their business on the basis of such market assessment during the two and a half days of intense development – something that could and should happen during the creation of any new venture.

The pitches that took my fancy were:

mySmartGrid

  • App/web-based way and tool for consumers to make better informed electricity use decisions
  • A bit of gamification, a bit of compare yourself with other individuals and interest groups
  • Apparently, PowerShop and other electricity retailers expressed interest in being part of such an offering

eMammogram

  • A means/way to standardise the images from mammograms taken across years to see change/difference in breast tissue
  • Could sit alongside Matakina Technology (which converts any digital breast mammogram into quantitative numbers in which tissue properties are characterised and differentiated)

Arrangr

  • Indian-subcontinent oriented web-based matchmaking service based on Facebook’s friend recommendations

STVA (SmartTVart)

  • Marketplace for digital art images
  • A way to protect and make money for artists whose work is displayed on a screen

As a couple of WSW mentors both mentioned, the idea of the event isn’t necessarily to come up with a new idea or company that drives through to the market – though that’s not considered bad.

More, it is to inspire, educate and provide a template for entrepreneurs and would-be startups to have a go.

One thing Startup Weekends do really well is demonstrate, vividly, the value of a team and individuals’ skills within that environment.

As Melissa Clark-Reynolds said recently in a sticK blog, trying to do everything yourself in a fledgling company poised for growth just slows everything down and is easily sub-optimal.

In other words, teams work.

And, on a final note, a piece of WSW irony.

Even before the WSW started, the organisers felt that they were a bit light on the number of participants expected to turn up with developer skills (people who can computer code).

This was compounded (for the other teams at least), when – during the phase that the initial 12 winners have teams formed around them – many developers opted to join the 3Dmakersworld.com team.

You probably can’t call it the law of unintended consequences, but it is something similar!


‘Foolproof’ writer to study difference between new business intent and reality Peter Kerr Feb 20

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Jenny Douche is going back to 'school' to boost her entrepreneurial skills

Jenny Douche is going back to ‘school’ to boost her entrepreneurial skills

The writer of ‘Foolproof’ a tome about how to find and test great business opportunities through market validation is off writing books – at least for a while.

In a previous incarnation, Wellingtonian Jenny Douché put out a series of books under the ‘Smarter than Jack’ label.

These collections of stories, about smart animals, raised $440,000 for worldwide, animal-connected charities. The NZ SPCA earned about $120,000. Douché’s venture into publishing followed an initial (and one of the last) cadetship at Wellington Newspapers followed by her first entrepreneurial venture which was as a pet photographer.

“I quickly realised what I really liked about the business was the partnerships, the business side of it, it was not really the photography itself,” she says.

Douché developed the idea for Smarter than Jack during a four-year stint at Telecom as a marketing/communications specialist and while doing her MBA. “I wanted to create a scalable business that I was really passionate about, and one that would make a big difference to the animal community”.

She sold the Smarter than Jack label and concept in 2007, and after having her first child, had the opportunity to work for Grow Wellington and to manage its ‘Activate’ programme for up and coming startup businesses.

When that 12 month contract finished, she decided to write another book called ‘Baby Gone’. This was another compilation of stories about infertility, miscarriage, stillbirth and infant death.

“They were stories about the months after the actual event, life after it, coping,” she says. “The objective of creating the book was to help educate the medical community and to help families find solace in knowing that they are not alone on their unplanned and painful journeys.”

She got a sponsor onboard through Trilogy’s Catherine deGroot, and this contributed to the donation of over 3000 copies to people such as midwives, nurses, GPs and to support groups.

Following the arrival of a second child, and playing to her project-orientation strengths, saw her come up with the idea for Fool Proof.

As well as her own business/entrepreneurial experiences, Douché also had been helping put startups through the market validation process. Creating a resource for others seemed to her a useful exercise.

She’s self-published the book – but now has ‘orders’ from her husband not to write another until their current three-year-old daughter starts school.

So what’s she going to do to keep her creative juices flowing – a PhD!

Based on startup businesses that have a documented business model (from say an incubation process), “what is fascinating is how they change during the early growth period,” she says.

“What is it that people say and think they’re going to do, compared to what actually happens. What influences those things to happen? I want to understand why things turned out the way they did.”

Won’t be much writing there will there?


Give up the total DIY for tech start-ups – Clark-Reynolds Peter Kerr Feb 13

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The great Kiwi ‘traditional’ of do-it-yourself (DIY) has its downsides in many tech developments according to serial entrepreneur Melissa Clark-Reynolds.

Speaking as one of a panel at Unlimited Potential’s AGM, Clark-Reynolds says entrepreneurs and start-up founders need to, quickly, get over the idea that they can proficiently do every task themselves.

The founder of Minimonos, an online environment for children which currently has 90% of its 1.5 million followers in the U.K. says getting the right people with the right expertise in at the right time can save a heap of trouble and money. It can also mean the success (or failure) of a project getting off the ground she says.

“Perhaps it is the downside of our Number 8 wire mentality, and something it would be good at times for us to ditch,” she says.

Clark-Reynolds questioned whether the NZ gaming industry (those who make the PC and smart-phone oriented games) is as healthy as sometimes portrayed.

Most companies creating such games are doing so on a toll basis for others, “working for hire.”

She says there are exceptions such as Ninja Kiwi and Dave Frampton (whose CHOPPER – is his best seller. His Blockheads app has over 1.5 million downloads).

“We need to create and grow our own IP, not necessarily just do it for others,” says Clark-Reynolds.

The rapidly changing of the net, devices and how people access content is something everyone also needs to be aware of she says.

The Minimonos team has watched, “fascinated” by the growth of computer tablet use, and how it may impact on their online interactive world.

“For the last two quarters, the number of children playing on tablets exceeded the number playing on a PC,” she says.

“It is transforming the way we present our material, and means again we’re going to have to tweak our presentation.”

She also had a prediction of what will be ‘hot’ in the near future.

“There’s a massive education bubble going on, and all over the place we’re seeing pressure to reform it,” Clark-Reynolds says.

“Education’s not strong in the tech world, and when you look at things, there’s a real gap between what children use and experience at school, and what they have available at home.”

The hype, and hope, around education-oriented apps is difficult to appreciate from New Zealand she says.

She recently heard of one USA purchase of an education start-up.

“It has no business model, no revenue, and yet it raised $75 million,” she says.

“Something started up in that sector is going to flip really fast.”


What a problem for ikeGPS…..managing its growth! Peter Kerr Nov 29

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ikeGPS chief executive Glenn Milnes with the hand-held device, with plenty of back-end smarts, that can measure and model anything

The ikeGPS has the world at its feet – so much so it is going to have to carefully decide which of many markets it should attack first.

The hand-held device integrates hardware and software and enables anyone from a utility to a mining company to measure and model anything.

By taking a photo combined with laser measurement, and knowing exactly where the device is located through GPS (global positioning system), all parts of the picture can be captured as data.

Any part of the picture can be measured accurately, and that information added to the data stream.

What it means in practice is a tool and package that, for utilities that have assets such as poles for power and broadband distribution which need verification of location and use, a cost reduction of two thirds says ikeGPS chief executive Glenn Milnes.

“Compared to such companies using a measuring stick, we can improve employee productivity by 70%,” he says.

The pole utility measuring and modelling market in the USA alone is estimated to be worth US$5-6 billion alone. But considering industry segments such asenergy and mining who have external assets which they want and need to know where they’re located, how big they are and what condition they’re in; then you’re talking massive market potential.

And also a slight conundrum for Wellington-based ikeGPS.

“The biggest mistake a business can make is try to cover the whole market,” says Milnes, who has a background in the European telecoms market, and in the Wellington venture capital industry before moving to the CEO role 18 months ago.

So, a strategic decision has been made to pursue the utility , defense and intelligence markets in America, and a sales and marketing office is being ramped up in Colorado, with the back end technical R&D and manufacture to remain in Wellington.

The currently 25 person team will look to add another 15 staff, mostly in New Zealand, mostly in the software interface area.

This also indicates a change in the company’s approach, founded in 2005 by current CTO Leon Toorenburg.

“Even two years ago we were all about the hardware,” says Milnes.

“Today, in terms of our engineering resources 70% of what we do is software driven.”

And though ikeGPS has patents and trade secrets around the hardward, its increased software focus is to “provide an end-to-end industry solution,” he says.

Thus, ikeGPS makes its backend software, proliferated on a customer’s IT platform easy to use and install.

To take advantage of the massive interpretation and measurement ability of this system though – well, the customer needs the hardware. And obviously, while there’s competition, ikeGPS sees itself being a few steps ahead at the moment.

“There’s a few layers to our competitive advantage,” Milnes says. “With the software and algorithms needing to network together, and the calibration required; it’s really not that straightforward. It really isn’t just about the hardware.”

The elegance, security and ease of use of the end-to-end solution provided by ikeGPS is also one of the reasons the company has been able to sign a recent development contract with In-Q-Tel, a US company which carries out a lot of strategic development for American intelligence agencies.

ikeGPS is the first Australasian company to be accredited by In-Q-Tel, and will bring remote measurement for asset security assessments.

“They have the capacity to bring a lot of really big customers to us,” he says.

Which again brings the NZ company back to the ‘dilemma’ of what markets to attack first.

Milnes is confident that the private and venture capital backed company can scale up sales and distribution (and NZ manufacture of the hardware).

A decision will probably be required in the next few years around further partnering with others.

“At the end of the day, we’re a platform,” says Milnes. “Do we let others build on it is a strategic question, along with how we’d manage that?”

In the meantime, ikeGPS soon shifts its sales and marketing focus to the US, and will concentrate on the niche vertical market of companies who have poles (and lots of stuff hanging off them).

“We’re looking to become dominant, experts in that; at the moment,” he says.

The company has doubling yearly growth, and Milnes envisages that will continue – at the very least.

The company’s keen to raise its profile and continue to attract clever engineering minds as it continues to develop its products and solutions.

Managing such growth will be a challenge – the past 12 months has seen a lot of change, and preparing for the next phase is equally so.

But, as challenges go, managing growth isn’t a bad quandary to have!

P.S.

In case you’re wondering what ikeGPS stands for; it’s ‘I know everything’.


Foolproof market validation tool for those of us who would be fools Peter Kerr Oct 18

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Market validation works says Jenny Douché

‘Foolproof’ (great title) has been inspired by much of a working life immersed in entrepreneurial startups.

Its author, Jenny Douché likes to think of the 188 page book as a resource for anyone looking to create or grow a business.

At its core, Foolproof is about an all too often neglected or overlooked component of starting up – market validation.

That is especially, proving there IS a market before too much, or anything, has been spent on producing a product, developing a marketing plan or anything of the busy business things that all require doing in a new commercial proposition.

And while the Wellingtonian mother of two young children expresses ‘introversion’ as her particular personality profile, the May publication of Foolproof following eight months of research and writing has provided a couple of intangible (aside from recouping self-publication costs) benefits.

  • Provides credibility in the market validation area
  • Consolidated Douché’s own thoughts and learning on market validation

From that point of view, Douché says the book is less about building a professional profile as providing a resource for the business community – one that isn’t readily available in such a non-academic form, one that has a New Zealand-centricness.

“Most of what I read about market validation had a very narrow view on what it actually encompassed, that is it just tended to look at how the market would react to a particular offer,” she says. “Things like, what features people want, how much they’re prepared to pay. I saw very little that had a focus on potential customers’ current behaviours and on the barriers to changing those behaviours.”

Douché says nothing in business or in life ever happens in isolation, and when validating the opportunity for a new offering one needs to understand the wider context. That is, what other activities does the customer do, what other products and services do they use and how do they come cross them? It all impacts on their likelihood of using your proposed offering.

Some of the potential barriers to a business customer changing their behaviours may be uncovered by asking questions such as:

  • Who in the organisation is the decision-maker?
  • How much will making a change affect other systems within the business?
  • What contracts might an organisation have to get out of?
  • What training might be required (for the new product or service)?
  • What data may have to be transported across?

Foolproof addresses current behaviours, barriers to change and finally critical success factors – “seen through my lens and interpretation of market validation,” she says.

Part of the book’s motivation also came from Douché’s time as the ‘Activate’ manager for Grow Wellington/Creative HQ. Activate’s common theme is market validation – “but it is really hard to get some businesses to do this side of things,” she says.

“But, those who did, do, most have changed their business models, some substantially. The process pointed out opportunities that were available, some people stopped their business.”

The going repetition of the need for market validation, and constantly telling and saying the same message, indicated to Douché that Foolproof’s time had come.

Douché’s aimed the book at SME’s, tried to keep it general, tried to make it all inclusive.

“When writing the book I tried to ensure that it would be applicable to all kinds of business, whether product-based, virtual or service-based. Given this there will be bits that don’t apply to all businesses, but everybody should get something valuable out of it.”

Foolproof isn’t available in bookstores, but can be purchased direct (from here) for $29.95 in hard copy or $7 as an e-book.


New media + books = Literary Angels: friend recommendations set to fly Peter Kerr Oct 04

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Lisa Buchan and Mike Peters are hoping to tap into friend recommendation as a way of promoting and selling digital and real books

Literary Angels, a Facebook (with other social media to come) book socialising, tracking and selling tool, could be exactly what the publishing industry has been looking for.

LA sets up a unique identity for a hard copy or e-book, allowing readers to recommend, and give away a single copy. It also allows an author and/or publisher to see how much engagement fans and potential fans have, and whether indeed a purchase has been made.

The Angel’s co-founder Lisa Buchan and her business partner Mike Peters, have been involved in authorship over the past couple of years through their rights trading platform, Sparkabook.com.

They were aware that the book industry itself is on the cusp of experiencing similar internet/digital revolutions that has turned other industries such as media and (some) manufacturing upsidedown.

“For book publishers, the big difference is that where they used to completely rely on retailers and distribution, is completely turned on its head with e-books,” Buchan says.

“Publishers are well-aware they need to communicate directly with readers and do their own sales, marketing and promotion to find an audience. The question has been how; and we think we’re the answer.”

Unlike other consumer brands, who have both a budget and can target certain segments of people, book publishers are different.

Consumers don’t buy brands, they buy authors, which is where the value lies. And all books have a different target. With fewer bookshops (and the enthusiastic salespeople within), the whole previous ecosystem is being stripped away. E-books mean publishers are losing the ability to target a book at the right audience.

Which are among the reasons publishers have been very very interested in the www.vangelizer.com offer through Literary Angels.

“They’re at this point in time where they’re grappling with what they’ll do,” she says. “They know they have to do something, but they can’t figure out what, or how to communicate and get in touch with fans. What we’re saying is here is a social media tool to help.”

So far they’ve talked to New Zealand, Australian and a few USA and UK publishers. One Brit immediately demanded the Literary Angel Q.R. code (and Facebook recommendation and tracking) his a reprint of his ‘Harry Potter on Location’ guide.

Publishers will be expected to pay to use LA, be they big or self-publishing. Such self-promoters will have the ability to get their books into the hands of those who would most enjoy it.

The four month old venture is getting better and better as it learns about the book reading and recommending ecosystem, with such learnings being incorporated in succeeding generations of the software.

The Twitter, Linkedin and Good Reads social networks will be added to the LA landscape over the next few months.

Buchan has already been to a couple of Frankfurt book fair’s, and, knowing her way around the show and the publishing industry’s infrastructure, is looking forward to spruiking the book socialising Angel’s abilities to the same in early October.

“We’re trying to edge publishers to the territory where the person to person communication happens, and where they can continue to make money through being part of the process,” she says.

And just as the Literary Angels’ ‘job’ is to go forth and promote a book, this is exactly what Buchan and Peters will be doing for their social media oriented tool in a month’s time.

As a kind of MusicHype for books, as a way of enabling publishers to stay in business, Literary Angels may be the type of guardian they’re looking for. Keep reading.


An angel lines up in books’ corner Peter Kerr Sep 13

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Lisa Buchan and Mike Peters are looking to socialise books in a digital age with Literary Angels

Here are two aspects of books – an industry ripe for a social media makeover.

Firstly, chances are, if you’ve had a good read lately, you’ve told someone else about it.

Secondly, with the sometimes predicted death of printed books through e-books, the publishing industry is experiencing the same kind of digital disruptive change experienced by other industries…..and is desperately looking for new ways to engage with readers.

Hello Literary Angels – a newly launched Facebook facing (with other social media to be added) service looking to allow readers, publishers and authors to have a group hug, and promote and excite in this new bits and bytes world.

L.A. are the brainchild of longtime computer/IT involved friends, Lisa Buchan and Mike Peters under the Vangelizer label.

“Literary Angels go forth and promote books,” Buchan says. “They let people tell others what they may like. The main idea is to present a way to socialise a book.”

Buchan says, as is especially being seen in America with bookshops closing all over the place, there are increasingly few people working in the retail environment who can recommend books or genres for someone walking in off the street. LA is one way around this she says.

Like many things in life and the digital world, LA have a front end and backend.

How it works is, after having read and enjoyed a book (hardcopy or an e-book) a fan touches or scans a Q.R. (quick response) code. This takes them straight to the book’s LA page, and the fan can in turn select, via Facebook, friends they wish to inform about the book.

The same fan is also able to give away, for free, one copy of the book (which, when you think about it is what often happens with a paperback).

These (non-gifted) friends may purchase the book, and in turn create a virtuous circle of recommended reading.

Meanwhile, at the backend a publisher, literary publicist or author (or all three) can see any action carried out on that angel.

These include who has downloaded a sample chapter, clicked on a back page, clicked on the author page off Facebook.

“All this is incognito, as Facebook cannot give out personal attributes about a person without their express authorisation,” Buchan says. “The only time we do ask permission is when a person gives or receives a free e-book. That’s so people don’t set up a scam giving away thousands of books.”

In the four months of beta-testing, such permission hasn’t been an issue. Many avid readers like to be the first, to be noticed and noted as one step ahead. They’re happy to be identified as recommenders.

LA/Vangelizer’s business model is to charge a publisher and/or author. Publisher’s always have a publicity and advertising budget, the majority of which goes to the distribution and retailing side of things.

As publishers too look for a new way of connecting with readers, LA will pick up some of this spend Buchan says.

She and Peters have test-crash-dummied Wellington author John Draper’s new book Minstrel Boy using Literary Angels under an e-book model, and an English publisher has LA for a hard copy book ‘Harry Potter on Location’, a film location guide for the UK-made movies.

Buchan says as with all these types of new ventures, their team is learning by doing and as they do it.

Their main target is the Frankfurt book fair in early October.

“That’s when we’ll really launch publicly,” she says. “That will set the expectation, and we’ll be taking orders and getting angels out the door from late October.”


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