BizCamp Dublin is a conference (or un-conference) for start-up companies and entrepreneurs featuring attendee generated content. It took place on Saturday September 9th in the Guinness Storehouse. It was a fantastic event with lots of interesting talks, interesting people and a real buzz. Here is a quick run down on my thoughts on what I attended.


Raising Money - Gerard Brandon
The day kicked off for me with a talk on raising money. Gerard gave a very interesting talk on his approach to raising money which I would summarise as follows;

• Preparation is key.
• Investors are not interested in a 'one man band'. You have to have a team.
• Your idea has to dramatically improve the customer experience, not incremental.
• You need to be aiming to deliver 10 times what you are asking for within 3 years.
• You need to have a story so compelling that the listener is hooked within 2 minutes.

A very good point was to remember that Investors want to know three things;

• What is in it for them?
• How much could they lose?
• Who are you?

Gerard concluded his talk with some insights into good alternative sources of investment, including your accountant, solicitor, management team, and partnering with universities.


For someone like me who has never been involved in raising money, this talk was a real eye-opener.


Financial Projections - Brian Flanagan
Brain gave a very enlightening talk on his approach to financial projections. A key lesson was to always work out your projections from the bottom up, not from the top down. For example don't say you are going to corner 1% of the market which is worth x amount. Start with projected sales month by month based on market research, number of sales people and industry norms.
An interesting ratio mentioned was that your sales / marketing budget should be 10% of sales.
Brian also directed people to a handy business plan template on his site which I will certainly be making use of.

Creating Value Using The Left and Right Brain - Adrian Avendano
Adrian gave a very interesting talk on how the human mind works, drawing on examples from both successful and failed marketing campaigns. While not immediately practical for me, it is always fascinating to learn more about how we work and how some of our behaviours and responses are more programmed then we realise.


At this stage I was seriously regretting having skipped breakfast, and so I headed down to the Storehouse cafe to enjoy a tasty sandwich and a kick-ass tourist video on the big screen.


The difficulties of Time Management - Kate O'Beirne
First up after lunch was this talk which I was really looking forward to. Unfortunately Kate never turned up, ironically enough.


LinkedIn - Krishna De
Although I have been using Linked in for a long time, I still picked up some tips I hadn't been aware of, like how to export your profile incase you ever loose it. Well worth doing!


Marketing - Tibbs Pereira
Tibbs gave a true master class on marketing. He talked about the importance of having, in writing, a clear vision and goals for your business. And how from that follows your objectives and strategy and your action plan to achieve these.


He stressed the importance of having a clear Value Proposition, how this is the foundation of everything you do, and discussed the elements of a value proposition.


Tibbbs finished his talk by giving his model to build and manage a sales pipeline.


I thoroughly enjoyed this talk and certainly will be applying a lot of what I learned here to my own business.


Interviewed By Marie Boran of Silicon Republic
I took a break next from the talks to be interviewed on camera about OS3 and what we offer in terms of iPhone development. I was absolutely delighted to be asked and can't wait to see the video.

Public Relations - Jack Murray & Eoin Kennedy
My final session of the day was was two very well delivered talk on PR in Ireland. Jack went through his 7 steps to success which was entertaining and highly informative.


While he talked about a lot of aspects of PR, his hints on a good press release stood out for me;

• What's the news value
• Write a great headline
• Answer the key questions in the first paragraph, who, what, where, when, and how.
• Importance of a good professional photo
• Tailor your message to each audience

Eoin then talked about PR in a Social Media context. He discussed the importance of new media, podcasts, video, and the importance of SEO'ing your press releases.


Conclusions
While there seems to be an every growing list of conferences, camps, open coffees, seminars etc etc, BizCamp really stood out as one of the most enjoyable, and informative I have attended. I certainly will be attending again and I would highly recommend it to anyone starting their own business. Well done to the BizCamp team on a first rate job.