Diary of a Start-up: Believe

Yesterday I met my good friend Jack Mcmanus and his lovely fiancee (plus Harry the dog!) for breakfast.

Diary of a Start-up / Technology: Special Mention

A quick special mention to my main man in the US of A who has just raised $2m for his company, Stella Service:

http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/21/stellaservice-raises-2m-tests-online-customer-services-so-you-dont-have-to/

We're hot on your heels brother!!! (Praise be!!!)

Diary of a Start-up: Dancing with no music

Stretching on the gym floor last night, I noticed a man in the corner breakdancing. The moves he were pulling of were fantastic and very impressive but something was missing - music!

Diary of a Start-up: Learning from Others - the importance of a smile

Dripping with sweat as I evacuated the treadmill last night, I ran into a guy that I'd consider to be a friend now, someone that is a truly inspirational character.

Previously in the wine trade, for the last six months Patrick Gavin has been building one of the most simple and fascinating businesses I have seen in my career looking at start-ups.

Diary of a Start-up: Enthusiasm required

Starting a business is schizophrenic. It is exciting at the same time as it's frustrating at the same time as it's terrifying.

Will it work? Are we wasting time? This will work! We're going to make it! You are hit by an ongoing dichotomy of emotions with the trick being simply, to rise above it.

Diary of a Start-up: Wheels in Motion!

Any youngster today should read the (slightly cheesy, but inspiring) 'Art of the Deal' by Donald J.Trump. His wealth to wealth tale revolves around high flying property deals and sky-scrapping developments but each project always begins with the simple and symbolically important step: breaking ground.

Diary of a Start-up: Analysing Risk

Boy, what a boring sounding title for a blog! Nonetheless, I'm reminded today by a quote uttered by a fellow start-up goer, Raj Dey, who said that 'people call entrepreneurs risk takers when in fact, it's the exact opposite of what we are trying to do. We are trying like hell to alleviate as much risk as possible'.

Letter from Amoo VC Advisory: Our Blog 2.0

Dear Blog Readers,

We would like to inform you of a couple of minor changes to our blog.

Not too long ago, we successfully migrated all our blog content from amoomedia.blogspot.com to blog.amoo.co.uk. The new site is easier to remember as well as more consistent with our brand identity.

Diary of a Start-up: The Importance of Brand

Spend a couple of hours wandering amongst the throngs of people in Harrod's on a busy Saturday and the importance of brand is nothing short of rammed home.

Diary of a Start-up: J(f)DI!!

Not so much a post today, more a quote that totally resonated with me from Foursquare founder Dennis Crowley:.

Diary of a Start-Up: Early start, great meeting!

The early bird catches the worm so they say. If today is anything to go by then that adage is true. Dave and I met this morning to make a detailed plan of the next steps involved. Another old adage says that talk is cheap and I couldn't agree more with that. Action is the only thing that matters.