Innovation Nest invests $200 000 in UXPin - a tool for User Experience professionals

May 14, 2012 Innovation Nest has signed an investment agreement with UXPin Sp. z o.o. UXPin is a tool for User Experience professionals aimed at supporting their work in the area of ​​prototyping and product development. UXPin offers paper design notebooks (for web and mobile apps) and an online application offered to customers in a SaaS model, allowing for mock-ups design of interfaces. With this round of funding UXPin team intends to speed up the development of the online application and offer new features. The investment amounted to $200 000 PLN and will be invested in tranches.

Read more at GoalEurope.com

Follow UXPin on twitter @uxpin or visit at uxpin.com

Sourcing period - tell us about your startup!

From November 28th we are starting our project sourcing period. Until January 15th 2012 will be analysing, contacting and meeting with teams that are seeking support for their project or company. If your project has not yet found its way to us, we encourage you to go to the NEST section of our page and read about our support propositions for entrepreneurs.

Top Polish venture capitals invest in image recognition technology

iTraff Technology which has just closed the first round of financing, has developed an innovative image recognition technology dedicated to mobile devices like smartphones and tablets. Its main application - SaveUp - allows to make a purchase straight from the smartphone by simply taking a picture of a product. The company is also developing individual solutions for B2B market and helps to design interactive advertising campaigns based on its photo recognition technology.

iTraff Technology will soon provide a special platform, which will contain an easily accessible API. It will allow each company to build own application based on image recognition technology in few minutes. This will not require any additional help from iTraff Technology and it will be possible to use the same API in many different ways. To develop this platform company acquired from investors a half million EUR for nearly 32% of the company shares, which means that a total valuation of iTraff Technology stands at approximately 1.5 million EUR.

Among the investors are the most important Polish venture capital firms. A great example is the Innovation Nest fund. Its CEO, Piotr Wilam, was the Polish Internet pioneer who co-founded in 1998 the top web portal  - Onet.pl. Marek Kapturkiewicz, who is a fund co-creator, is an expert in strategy development for IT companies. Another investor is Rafał Han,  founder and CEO of HanBright - a VC that has in portfolio the leading Polish media for parents and preschoolers. Stephane Senkowski is a private investor with a great experience in managing large technology companies.

Among the shareholders is also the SpeedUp Group, which invested in iTraff Technology at the seed level, earlier, in 2011. 'We owe SpeedUp Group a lot. SpeedUp introduced us in the industry, helped us from the very first steps. I am also glad that just a year after our company was founded, we managed to close the first funding round. It ensures further development of our company and our technology. Today we have gained not only great investors, but also the outstanding experts, who work for IT industry for years. They will give us a wonderful mentoring. With their support iTraff Technology is able to create platform with API, which will provide users with an easy-to-use technology that will help them to purchase things much more quickly and conveniently. That will be our share in the mobile revolution, which is currently spreading worldwide', says Arkadiusz Skuza, CEO of the iTraff Technology.

iTraff Technology was awarded  several times both in Poland and abroad. It is worth to mention that technology has been rewarded in Brussels by the Europeana Foundation (which work in collaboration with the European Commission) and in the Vienna, during the Startup Week 2011 competition. In Poland, SaveUp won the Startup Fest 2011, an event organized by one of the largest home media company - Agora SA. It was also rewarded at Mobile Trends Awards for its e-commerce potential.

Mission USA

Innovation Nest supports projects with a potential global. There is one place on Earth where Internet businesses are globalized most intensively : a belt of 50 miles between San Francisco and San Jose, between the bay and the mountains ... The Valley! We set out on our first three-man mission: Paul Nowak (PressPad), Lukasz Twardowski (UseItBetter) and me - Peter Wilam (Innovation Nest).

Part 1: Destination: the valley – USA

Do you really think about global markets? Do you really want your idea to conquer the USA and the whole world? For me, it is the most interesting approach, with potential for the biggest growth of business.

Innovation Nest supports projects with global potential. There is one place on Earth where Internet businesses globalize most intensely: it’s the 50 mile strip between San Francisco and San Jose, between the bay and the mountains. It’s not enough to come there for a week once a year – it’s worth visiting more often!

We are setting off on our first three-man mission: Paweł Nowak (PressPad), Łukasz Twardowski (UseItBetter) and me - Piotr Wilam (Innovation Nest). 

The next mission – in just three months. The trip will again involve two or three projects cooperating with Innovation Nest, whose goals are global and whose implementation requires a feedback from customers and business contacts in the Valley.

What, according to me, does it take for an idea for a business to have a chance of becoming known globally? In a dozen or so days, after a few dozens of conversations, I will write again…

Piotr Wilam, twitter: @piotrwilam

Part 2: San Francisco

It’s the fifth time I’ve been here and it’s always the same on the day of my arrival – cloudy. A quotation from Mark Twain inevitabley comes to my lips: “The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco”… however for travellers from Poland the winter in California is attractive nonetheless.

We’re staying in the Mission District (proper district for our “Mission”) a few hundred meters away from the oldest building in San Francisco – the Mission Dolores church. Naturally, our flat has been rented on AirBnB. A few days after our arrival we were given a piece of advice in the Silicon Valley: „Remember to buy lunch on the street from Mexicans in Mission Street” We will!

Travelling has always fascinated me, even before I co-founded Pascal publishing house. In San Francisco, the colourfulness of the street and thick tissue of the city – although not always beautiful – are fascinating. Although it’s not New York, and San Francisco is smaller than Cracow and it’s not clean everywhere, I can say one thing: this city has character!

Two hours after my plane landed, I take part in the first meetup: Designers&Geeks. The lecture is interesting: Chris Clark (@clarko). The main message: "Speak simply, fewer people can disagree with you when you say less." Of course, it’s about designing, not discussions!

We sit in a bar in Mission Street: "Hi guys, how are you doing?". After countless situations in Poland when starting a conversation with strangers was met with a cold reception you have to get used to openness! This city is really deeply embedded in the industry: a newly met girl works for a leading PR agency in the technology industry and a boy sitting nearby – in an innovative company with 100 million dollar in venture funding… The same situation is with those who let the flat to us: they work for Yahoo and an Internet marketing agency.

Jet lag is easing, slowly we are acclimating…

Piotr Wilam, twitter: @piotrwilam

Part 3: Plug&Play Tech Center

Saeed Amidi was once in the real estate business. As every self-respecting entrepreneur, he observed the market and came to the conclusion one day that it’s worth turning one of the offices he rented out into a space for start-ups. Did it already dawn on him that it would be the main business line he would develop or was it a coincidence? I don’t know, but I will ask Saeed next time I meet him. The story is so interesting that you would like to write a case study about the man – such as those we discuss in Innovation Nest School for Entrepreneurship. Maybe it will happen.

The space offered by Saeed attracted many keen people – the business started to grow and now there are three centres in the Silicon Valley, through which hundreds of companies go through per year. The offer is twofold: renting out office space (co-work) or a 10-week incubation program. Incubation ends with EXPO: presentation for the representatives of over 80 investors – funds and business angels.

Plug&Play Tech Center in Sunnyvale is now a concentration of 280 companies under one roof and the most “international” place in the Valley, with national pavilions (or rather cubicles) sponsored by governmental institutions. Like everything, it has both pros and cons: central location in the Valley, solid contacts, program that is open for Europe – these are unquestionable pros. However, it has – according to me – a bit less “energy” than “500 Startups” or “Y Combinator”.

You come from Europe and want to experience instantaneously how the Silicon Valley is functioning? If so, now you know where to go.

Piotr Wilam, twitter: @piotrwilam

Part 4: Entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurs in the Valley are everywhere. They repeat their mantra. They gather energy. Some of them already have hundreds of thousands of users, others – only an idea, some have financing, others are only at the stage of thinking about an investor. They work in small groups or prefer large teams. All of them – at least it seems so – have already made a few landmark decisions in their search for their own place on the market. Some are still looking for it, whereas others have already found it and do everything they can to prove that their idea works.

My friend Richard Titus, an investor, tells a story which goes like this: “I knew an Englishman who had decided to operate in the Valley. He moved house. First he was busy looking for a flat, next his girlfriend came to join him, then he was working out a conception, and several months passed. In the meantime, his competition entered the market, obtained financing and was light years ahead of him”. That’s an important lesson to learn.

Allan Grant, the founder of CureBit – a company which went through Y Combinator and gained Dave McClure from 500 Startups as its investor, talks about “time sink”, which is an important conception for YC: it is when from the activities you take you eliminate those which give little benefit and take a lot of time. What’s the last time you thought about your “time sinks”, which may give important results, but not those which will allow you to achieve your goal most quickly?

During the meetups in the Valley entrepreneurs approach people and straight out, without ceremony, without a foreplay, ask them: "hi, what are you doing?" Evasion, joke or changing the subject instead of giving the answer is out of the question! You have half a minute to explain what you are doing and make the interlocutor become interested in you.

Entrepreneurs gather energy. Their companies are like hurricanes: they slowly grow stronger and stronger to devour as much as possible. Everywhere you see people presenting themselves, their companies and products. It has however nothing to do with impudent accosting or expression of an entrepreneur’s ego – at the end there are always questions: what do you think of it? Can you help me in any way?

Peter Berger, Topicmarks CEO, uses simple terms to express a formula which seems to be the formula for success here: “as soon as you find on the market what you want to do, do it immediately and put in it all your energy, focus only on it. You have three attempts, if you fail – give up on it! ”

Piotr Wilam, twitter: @piotrwilam

Part 5: Business of business

 “I don’t know a more arrogant group of people than the partners of Venture Capital funds from Sand Hill Road!” – says one of the partners of a VC fund from Sand Hill Road, and adds: “even the consultants from McKinsey aren’t so arrogant…” But, it’s not the arrogance we usually mean by this word - rather, it takes the form of conviction that the Silicon Valley is the epicenter of the world innovation… and it is a self-fulfilling prophecy! This ecosystem really works and attracts the best ones, that’s why the Silicon Valley IS the center of the world innovation in digital technologies and not only.

Some funds are extraordinary competent, have extraordinary contacts and work extraordinarily hard. But when you have co-founded hundreds of companies, which are now worth over a billion dollars each, including the biggest brands, then you are competent, have contacts and have to work – all at the extraordinary level.

Peter Thiel set up Founders Fund. When you want to cooperate with them, you have to answer a few questions. One of them is the following: If you had a huge computing power at your disposal, what would you compute? – what is appreciated here is imagination! Another question: what is the probability that a set which contains all sets which do not contain themselves contains itself? – logic is what  counts here!

The whole process of project development is quite predictable: first, you look for a strategic direction (“market fit”), create a prototype and prove the value of the project on one or a few customers depending on the type of business (as my friend put it: “one unit of utility”), then you enter the market (proper showing of the “traction”), and finally – you expand.

The investment process runs parallel to it: first, there is the seed round; just before or just after entering the market – round A of financing; the proper VC financing is round B. You are ready for it when you have a 1 million users, or preferably 3 million (especially when your users don’t pay for the basic service), and in B2B businesses you need 100 smaller customers or several bigger.

What motivates entrepreneurs is the desire to create a good company, i.e. one that will serve its customers, solve their problems and, at the same time, will be worth a lot. Gaining an investor, or other important moments in a company’s life are merely stages, means for achieving this goal. My friend put it very aptly by saying: “We are in the business of business, not in business of ideas”.

Piotr Wilam, twitter: @piotrwilam

Part 7: 500 Startups

One of the most interesting startup places in the Valley is “500 Startups” – not only due to exceptional views you can admire from there. Its founder, Dave McClure has a simple method for success – first, attract good ideas; second, put emphasis on three elements during the incubation: design, metrics & distributions. “500 Startups” was created only a year and a half ago, but there’s been a lot of talk about it, because it is a project that appeals to imagination and is thus inspiring. Dave is an innovator and he takes up risky challenges, which makes “500 Startups” a unique, innovative startup!

A really great number of companies go through the incubator. The working space is great – there are no cubicles as in Plug &Play. You can see creative chaos and focus on achieving goals. Everybody has 3 months to make use of the chance offered by the Incubator. Like in life – you either manage to use it or be prepared for failure!

The inspiration to set up „500 Startups” as it is now appeared many years earlier. When the World Wide Web was being created, one of the business angels - Ron Conway – went against the tide. He decided to invest in a hundred startups – which was completely different from what other business angels or VC funds were doing. The first fund was successful, although there’s no denying that the bubble of Internet companies’ pricing contributed to it. With the second hundred, it was much more difficult because the bubble burst. It looked as if there would be a tragedy, some creditors even sued Ron and everything would have ended badly if it hadn’t been for a small detail – one of the companies from the “second hundred” was… Google!

And what a view from the 12th floor… you probably won’t see better in the Valley…

Piotr Wilam, twitter: @piotrwilam

Part 6: The Valley from a different perspective. Recipe for success.

Do you want to be like Larry Page and Sergey Brin? Below is the recipe presented in a nice rhythmical form. Pay attention to all the important elements: significance of a business plan, following the trends, motivation of the founders, building a team, choosing a domain and finally the importance of social media for the promotion of a startup.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6IQ_FOCE6I

yes! yes! recipe for success:

Larry Page, Sergey Brin 
time to write a business plan
so i can be like those guys

first you need a buzzword
then a second and a third
pick at least two industries
you'll revolutionize

find yourself an engineer
feed him pizza, buy him beer
give him just a fraction 
of a fraction of the pie

need a good domain name
must be cheap, can't be lame
something cool like
flickr, meebo, wikiyou, mahalo, bebo
"telephone" without a "t"
"digg" but with a triple "g"

make your elevator pitch
code it up and flip the switch

here comes another bubble
the VCs are backing
baby let's get cracking

blog blog blog it all
blog it if it's big or small
blog at the cineplex
blog while you're having sex
blog in the locker room
babies blogging in the womb
blog even if you're wrong

In my opinion, the most important elements are: “pick at least two industries you'll revolutionize” and “blog even if you're wrong”. And what do you think? :)

Piotr Wilam, twitter: @piotrwilam

Part 8: The Future

I’m above Greenland, halfway between San Francisco and Poland. It’s time to sum up. I have two messages for entrepreneurs in Poland:

First, look for your own place on the market. Don’t talk about what you will do when you have 100 thousand users… don’t talk about your technology or various features of your product either. Instead, find a customer who will want to use your product: who it is and why he/she would buy what your company offers? Obsessive looking for “market fit” is typical of the Silicon Valley and I think that the more similar thinking in Poland, the better!

Second, if you have already found your place on the market, if you have set the first hypothesis and see clearly that there are strong arguments supporting it, put all your energy in verifying it. Set yourself a goal that is clear – preferably a prototype or the first customer or proof that there is traction – i.e. that the product caught up, and the customers are satisfied. If this is the goal you are trying to achieve, don’t get distracted by anything else at that time. If after a few month you won’t be successful, think seriously: what next?

After my visit in the Valley I’m sure that there is no sense in asking: does the Polish startup have a chance overseas? I’d rather ask: WHICH Polish startup has a chance in America?

I’ll try to answer that:

First, the company must set its strategical direction, which is nothing else than the „place on the market”. For companies from outside, additional conditions must be met: on the one hand, a proven traction, that is (at least) the first version of the product and first customers; on the other hand, strategic direction based on a convincing and interesting vision.

Second, project must have a leader who clearly knows what he/she wants, has energy, motivation and… knows English well! There must also be a team which has competences needed to achieve the goals set.

Third, it is necessary to set goals which are clear and convincing, and at the same time in line with the logic of the company’s development: first customers, traction, launch and expansion of customer base.

Forth, the leader and the team must know what they want when it comes to the vision of the company’s growth. Are you a Polish company which is setting up a daughter company in the USA? or the other way round – the company is American and has a “daughter” in Poland? Do you count on funding? If so, from what type of investors? With whom do you want to establish relations and why would the other party want it too?

Maybe there will never be a new Steve Jobs in Poland, but a cluster of global Internet companies can surely be created even now.

Piotr Wilam, twitter: @piotrwilam

Web of data

At the very beginning of the World Wide Web Tim Bernes-Lee had a vision that the objects in the Web would be categorized and interlinked. Both the users and data processing processes would recognize objects by means of the information contained on websites.

However, the Web developed in a different direction. The Internet became a platform for publishing information and we saw an explosion in the amount of unordered data. Against this backdrop, a search engine became the biggest Internet company in the world – something that nobody expected 10 years ago. Today, the growth in the amount of data over the last years and, more importantly, the expected growth in the amount of data in the next years (I don’t want to give here futuristic visions for 20 years) makes the issue of data organization and processing even more important. Data will be provided by sensors, data will be automatically processed by computers. Web of Data is an important trend in the present day Internet.       

Tim Bernes-Lee’s vision of Semantic Web was continuously developed. Ontologies, non-relational databases, query languages were created. Now, Semantic Web is a part of the broader trend of Web of Data.

Web of Data and Semantic Web are areas of high innovativeness and thus a field where enterprise may thrive. First, the world of corporations with large knowledge databases shows huge demand for new solutions that help with data structuring and processing; second, content providers with extensive knowledge databases look for partners and solutions that enable publications in a new paradigm; third, the whole industry needs tools.   

Due to technological changes the whole sphere is highly dynamic, and even small teams can come up with interesting solutions. In Poland semantics and web of data are little discussed topics. As Innovation Nest, we would like to have a contribution to changing this! 

Piotr Wilam

twitter @piotrwilam

Web of data

At the very beginning of the World Wide Web Tim Bernes-Lee had a vision that the objects in the Web would be categorized and interlinked. Both the users and data processing processes would recognize objects by means of the information contained on websites.

However, the Web developed in a different direction. The Internet became a platform for publishing information and we saw an explosion in the amount of unordered data. Against this backdrop, a search engine became the biggest Internet company in the world – something that nobody expected 10 years ago. Today, the growth in the amount of data over the last years and, more importantly, the expected growth in the amount of data in the next years (I don’t want to give here futuristic visions for 20 years) makes the issue of data organization and processing even more important. Data will be provided by sensors, data will be automatically processed by computers. Web of Data is an important trend in the present day Internet.       

Tim Bernes-Lee’s vision of Semantic Web was continuously developed. Ontologies, non-relational databases, query languages were created. Now, Semantic Web is a part of the broader trend of Web of Data.

Web of Data and Semantic Web are areas of high innovativeness and thus a field where enterprise may thrive. First, the world of corporations with large knowledge databases shows huge demand for new solutions that help with data structuring and processing; second, content providers with extensive knowledge databases look for partners and solutions that enable publications in a new paradigm; third, the whole industry needs tools.   

Due to technological changes the whole sphere is highly dynamic, and even small teams can come up with interesting solutions. In Poland semantics and web of data are little discussed topics. As Innovation Nest, we would like to have a contribution to changing this! 

Piotr Wilam

twitter @piotrwilam

Ivan Herman - interview

During 2011 Semantic Technology Conference in San Francisco Piotr had a chance of meeting Ivan Herman. Ivan is involved with W3C organization and an active figure in all subjects related to Semantic Web. Below is a short interview with him.

Piotr Wilam

I have got a couple of questions. As could be seen at SEMTECH, nowadays there is a lot of development in the B2B (Enterprise semantic applications) and B2C (applications for end users) areas. I want to ask which of these areas has a bigger potential for growth.

Ivan Herman

I wouldn’t categorize it in this way… I would rather say that applications which currently dominate are, from technical point of view, server applications. Whether a server application means that it is within an enterprise or outside the firewall – here it is a secondary issue. I don’t know which of these two dominate but surely we can say that applications which dominate are server applications.

Piotr Wilam

What do you mean by the term server application?

Ivan Herman

A server application means that most of Semantic Web-related processing is performed not by applications in a web browser, but by server side applications, and the web browser only displays the results – this is what I mean.

Piotr Wilam

I have two questions which are a bit in opposition to this. What are the bottlenecks (the most important ones) in the development of Semantic Web, and what are the most important factors facilitating this development, which in some way support available structural data.

Ivan Herman

In my view (let me think), there are two factors worth highlighting. One of them, which certainly is a problem, I would call (in a broad sense) education. If a company or an institution wants to develop technology that is based on Semantic Web, it has problems with finding appropriate specialists (with expertise) on the labour market. It is also reflected at the level of decision makers – what direction should be chosen, as the knowledge about Semantic Web is not convergent with its significance (value) – and this is a big bottleneck.

Another area – and this is the answer to both your questions – is a large growth in tools (of various environments) which support the development of semantic applications. Here, however, we find ourselves in a situation we can compare to the question of whether the glass is half full or half empty. The glass is half empty in that the quality of the tools is not yet at the level required by large corporations so there is still a lot of work to do, the conception is quite complicated and some institutions may not want to become involved with it. On the other hand, the glass is half full because looking at the development of the tools and the environments available over the last two or three years you can see a lot of progress in all aspects, from ontology editors to tripple stores. Here, we can also mention a quite well-functioning infrastructure of small, medium-sized and even large companies which operate in this area offering their services and are more and more advanced, and take the burden off the shoulders of developers of end user applications. In some sense, as I pointed out earlier, this is the answer to both your questions.

Piotr Wilam

So, you confirm that there still is a need for creating tools.

Ivan Herman

Yes, I do. Compared with the tools available in other areas of web development, both on server and client side, there is still a lot of work to do.

Piotr Wilam

If you don’t mind, let’s assume that we have a potential customer – a company with a large database of documents which can’t cope with managing these documents. How would you convince somebody that semantic solutions are necessary for such a company?

Ivan Herman

It would depend on an application. The real strength of using semantic technologies is the possibility of integrating data from different sources. If the application in question is based on one database, one data source which is local and under control, and the only thing that must be done is “nice” queries and displaying this in the Web, then Semantic Web may offer a certain degree of flexibility, which may be useful, will give good descriptions of [how you want to…] based on the data possessed, but the benefit of this may not be sufficient. However, if you integrate, or plan to integrate this data with another data, which is in your company or somewhere else, and want to build applications based on this data (integration of this data), then it’s a different kettle of fish. This is when semantic technologies will be very useful.

Piotr Wilam

So customers with distributed databases will be able to enjoy real benefits…

Ivan Herman

You must be precise with words because it’s not only databases. Of course, it may be databases, but also any other data.

Piotr Wilam

OK. As we now, several weeks ago schema.org was released by a few companies. What do you think this initiative will mean to the Web generally, and to the development of ontology, RDFs, in the area of ordinary services for consumers.

Ivan Herman

Well, two weeks in the Web is a long time, but in the real world it is not. It’s not absolutely clear what the consequences will be. However, the very fact that major search engines will consider managing structured data within web pages is very significant. It’s undoubtedly a huge step forward. In the past, people representing and working in these companies were very sceptical about whether webmasters need to use structured data in their services (metadata). So, for many years it was ignored. And the fact that schema.org appeared is a big progress because it has made people think that there must be something in it and they have to consider this. This is important. There are many questions concerning the details of schema.org, how the terms are defined. Not everything is clear by now, and there is a lot of discussion in the industry. OK this is the first step, but how the situation will unfold and how it will affect the development – these are questions I cannot answer.

Piotr Wilam

Do you think that there will be a stable continuation of the growth in semantic applications – I mean uses of semantic technology, number of servers which use it – or that we may expect some sort of crack in the future and there will be a revolution.

Ivan Herman

I can’t confirm that – I don’t like pure guesswork J.

Piotr Wilam

Do you think that the pace of the development is stable – have you noticed how many people are involved in building applications based on Semantic Web. Do you see stabilisation over the last couple of years or there has been an increase in the pace. If you don’t want, you may not answer this question.

Ivan Herman

The problem is I don’t have solid, hard data at hand, so it’s difficult to say something definitely because such statements should be supported by data. I’m not in the possession of such data. Participating in SEMTECH conference, every year I see companies – new companies I did not hear about because they are beyond my radar – show up at the conference. This is very significant. We could see a lot of activity, such as the LOD movement or what the governments across the world do. All of this can be regarded as big explosions, which can be seen as exponential growth, but in other cases the growth is more gentle. As I already said, I don’t have the data. It is growing – over the last four-five years we have seen a huge growth – there is no doubt of that. It can’t be compared to the growth of Facebook or Twitter – it certainly is not this kind of technology which will suddenly attract teenage users. Summing up, it’s difficult to say.

Piotr Wilam

OK. Thank you. And my last question. Which name do you like most? Semantic Web, Internet of things or structured data?

Ivan Herman

I usually use the term web of data/ data web – in many aspects it appeals to me better. Well, the term Semantic Web is already outdated – it has been around for about 10 years. Sometimes there are discussions in the community whether these two terms mean the same. Personally, I really don’t find these discussions particularly interesting or stimulation. I usually use the term web of data, but this is my personal feeling.

Piotr Wilam

OK. Is there anything you would like to say especially to Polish readers?

Ivan Herman

To the community? To be honest, I don’t know many people from the Polish community of Semantic Web. I have a good contact with a person who has just returned to Poland after many years abroad – we have even set up a company in this area and this is great…

Piotr Wilam

You mean Sebastian?

Ivan Herman

Yes, Sebastian. Apart from him, I have very little contact with Poland in this respect – which is a pity because I have good memories from my private journeys to Poland when during my youth. Growing up in Hungary, I remember that at the time I was young there was a special relationship between Poland and the Polish and Hungarians, so you know…

Piotr Wilam

It dates back to XV century.

Ivan Herman

You are right. There is a proverb: “Pole and Hungarian cousins be”, unfortunately I don’t remember the rest. It’s been a long time since I was in Poland. I would like to go there so maybe in the future I will be able to visit Poland again.

Piotr Wilam

Would you advise Polish technology entrepreneurs to become more interested in and knowledgeable about semantic technologies?

Ivan Herman

I think, I would, because it is an area that still requires web development, which (I wonder how to best put it) needs people who are adept at technology, who are more interested in technological challenging than in business opportunities. I think that in countries such as Poland and Hungary, the way of development is to a much degree based on high intellectual content they produce and create. This is certainly an area with high intellectual content, and it fits well in the directions of growth I see for these countries.

Piotr Wilam

And there is a need of a lot of innovation, because this is the reality we talked about earlier – use of semantic applications.

Ivan Herman

Exactly, you are right. This is innovation in intellectually oriented area, and this is precisely the area which you, Poles or Hungarians, Slovaks, Czechs, Lithuanians or other nations should accept to move on.

Piotr Wilam

Thank you very much for the conversation.

Ivan Herman

You are welcome, Piotr.

Report from SemTech SF 2011

SemTech conference is held annually in San Francisco and brings together most of major experts involved in semantic technologies. The event attracts people from technology oriented companies offering implementations, companies which follow their own business models based on semantic technologies, corporations which have performed implementations with certain business effect, as well as researchers whose interests involve nearer or further future.   http://semtech2011.semanticweb.com/agenda.cfm?pgid=1     

This year’s conference was larger than in previous years, which clearly indicates greater interest in semantic web and, in particular, web of data in a broader context. 

Two distinct currents could be distinguished at the conference: B2B and B2C. In terms of technology, there are no significant differences between these two types of uses, however from the perspective of business model the differences are fundamental.

In the B2B world, we could see tens of implementations. The general case – large internal knowledge databases, databases which aren’t fully ordered or databases where the expectations of them change – is widespread. Non-relational databases, semantic arrangement of data is a widespread approach, which could be seen at SemTech.      

In the B2C world, the situation looks a bit different. On the day preceding the conference, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo unveiled their initiative: schema.org, which on the one hand gained an enthusiastic reception – finally Google takes a big step towards the semantization of the Internet content (after last year’s microformats). On the other hand, voices of discontentment could also be heard: why they have to reinvent the wheel, why they make so little use of what already functions.     

B2B covers a lot of implementations in areas where the amount of information is huge – from e-commerce (O'Reilly, BestBuy) to the media (BBC, Press Association). Innovative, semantic solutions are based on external databases, so innovative, semantic projects were joint venture of content providers and technology startups.      

A separate current, where innovativeness is the highest, is comprised by companies that create tools, at different stage of value chain, of information database structualization. At SemTech 2011 there were dozens of companies providing data structualization and data processing designed to meet different needs.

Conclusions

1) This is not an issue of future – semantic technologies are fine and are developing, and for a certain group of issues, they give hope for a significant increase of effectiveness of solutions.

2) This is an area in which a change in paradigm is taking place – therefore the potential for innovation is huge.

Piotr Wilam

twitter @piotrwilam

London

London is the centre of technology entrepreneurship in Europe. Number of start-ups, technology companies, angel investors, major venture capital funds and the environment: large digital UK market, the interaction with the American market due to language and London openness for newcomers from Europe, make it worth their while to stay in London on their way to America.

Startup Weekend London

Great Britain is undoubtedly one of digitally most developed countries in Europe. Another factor is the English language, which allows a huge part of the British society to use American websites and applications.

What was Startup Weekend in such an environment like? How did it differ from Startup Weekend in Warsaw?

1) mobile apps with social exaggeration.

As far as the subject of activity is concerned, there are no big differences between Poland and Great Britain. Everybody builds mobile platforms with a strong social element. Of course, the platforms serve various purposes: from evaluating curry (a wonderful idea; I keep my fingers crossed for the team because so far I know only one restaurant in London with a really good Indian food) to a platform for placing legal bookmaker bets on each subject.

On the one hand, the direction is right - the Internet as a platform for bringing users the content, e-commerce and other users is another thing. On the other hand, however, is it not a fad and exaggeration in taking one direction?

2) precision of strategic direction

What has always amazed me in Anglo-Saxon countries is the precision of thinking. If the aim of a team is to create an application for ordering lunch for a large concentration of office buildings, nobody adds in the next sentence that the plans also include negotiating discounts, menu crowdsourcing and social network designed for creating local office communities.

A Polish entrepreneur often falls in love with his or her idea, treating potential options of further development as a certainty, and is sure to tell about all of them. Indeed, she or he thinks that mentioning all these things is a requirement and increases the attractiveness of the project!

Entrepreneur, it is worth focusing on the precision of the strategic direction along with a specific proposal of marketing mix for a given service!

3) being pragmatical in operational efficiency

The teams at London Startup Weekend were very pragmatical in presenting their operational plans. The milestones emerged naturally.

What is the learning? Being pragmatical, realistic, focusing on the most important things significantly increases chances of achieving success!

3) lack of global character

What was striking and surprising for me is that so few ideas had global potential. Digital maturity, English language, excellent infrastructure for Internet business should create favourable conditions for creativity and seeking groundbreaking ideas. However, the concentration of “disruptive ideas” was not high.

And who was the winner? This will be disclosed in the next article Winners of London Startup Weekend.

Winners of London Startup Weekend

The winning team proposed a crazy idea, which after a moment of reflection and seeing the intangible resources possessed by its members, is very interesting.  

Portal Entertainment. http://www.portalentertainment.co.uk/

PE is an agency promoting a new, non-standard advertising form. Here is how it works: PE makes short films. The first of them, 'The Craftsman”, is a thriller. The film is shot in a completely professional way, with attention to details, budget of 500 000 pounds and, most importantly, a gripping plot. Using various promotional tools, PE receives phone calls/e-mails from people who have seen the film and then engages users into an interactive game. An SMS with a telephone number – just as it happened in the film. Mysterious information played after calling the number…         

PE is not an Internet startup, it is a startup in the advertising business which uses the Internet as its tool. The team has advertising experience and advertising thinking of customers and the market.    

It’s great if you can sometimes distance yourself from the Internet or Internet thinking and see the world in a different perspective, which at first glance can be crazy… I’m not sure whether this is a good business proposal but the creativity of its authors is no doubt positive.   

The two other prize winners are:

The company with highest chances of obtaining financing: Trendset.me

The company with the highest chance of making a million: Invizua.

European SW Battle

European SW Battle

European SW Battle, a one-day event, was held for the first time. Its organizers themselves admit that the word battle is a bit of exaggeration. The aim was to bring together the teams that achieved success in various StartupWeekends across Europe.

At European SW Battle, my attention was caught by 3 teams:

* GoWar from Italy - “virtual wars real places”

* Myguidie from Warsaw- “the airbnb for travel guides”

* Apibabi from France - “the first app to make a baby in less than 9 months”

I came to ESWB as a consultant of MyGuidie – so, naturally, the way I see things is connected with the wonderful idea and team Myguidie. However, in this article I’m assuming, as best as I can, the role of an objective observer.    

All the three teams are excellent, all the three products have global potential and are in an advanced stage. 

GoWar

GoWar is a mobile game in which you command armies in the real world. The player has virtual armies located in a real place which can attack real targets. You want to conquer London? No problem. First, you have to gather an army, check who is in the area, and then attack by getting around the area in tanks and other types of armed vehicles.   

There is something really interesting in geolocalized games. Creating a war on a world scale is, despite my qualms connected with my pacifist view, a really interesting idea.    

The first version of the game is already ready. The application has been downloaded by 16,000 people. If the game is well-made and well-thought-out in terms of details, Francesco and his team will certainly achieve success!     

MyGuidie

Myguidie, as many of you probably know, is a platform designed for connecting guides, both professionals and amateurs, with independent tourists who look for guides sharing their interests and passions. 

A tour of Barcelona for Barca fans? A startup San Francisco? A literary trip around Paris? Myguidie is a platform where such offers can be found. 

The presentation by Ola and Paulina was great: they detailed the strategy, explained how the service worked and presented the milestones and the team.

Apibabi

You are amazed by the creativity of the team behind the fun game ZB. What is it about?  

Why wait 9 months for a baby - you can make one right now! All you have to do is to choose a partner, do the act of procreation and the baby is ready. All these actions are naturally virtual, but the parents are real. And when you have a baby, you must look after him or her. Your child should look and behave better than others!  

The service addresses various spheres. You can have children with multiple partners (while it is true that you do so only virtually, you offer real persons to become parents with you!), there are e-commerce offers for parents and children, the game is social – you keep in touch with other couples.  

Verdict

The jury, as they admitted themselves in the official statement and also in less official conversations, had a hard nut to crack. Taking the decision was not easy. In the end the victory went to Apibabi! If it becomes a new cult game, the intuition of the jury is enviable. If it doesn’t achieve success, the jury deserves respect for a brave decision! 

PressPad

PressPad is a system for creating, publishing and viewing content on mobile devices. The product is designed for all content publishers, both those using traditional (paper) and electronic forms. With PressPad, anyone who has some content can easily create his or her own magazine and publish it on mobile devices. The PressPad system consists of two elements:

• [B2B] publishing platform
• [B2C] content reader application on mobile devices (iOS, Android)

The content reader application works in the system in two versions:

• as a kiosk application where magazines of various publishers are available
• as a dedicated application, created exclusively for one publisher (an example of such reader application is the application for ZNAK monthly)

Main features:

• The content published with PressPad is immediately available on many different devices (smartphones, tablets, computers). The reader application installed on a user device automatically adapts the content to the size and mode (vertical/horizontal) of the screen – which is a unique feature of PressPad.    
• It is a SaaS application, so the publisher does not have to invest in software or infrastructure – he or she only buys a service. 
• You don’t need to have specialist know-how to use the system – everybody can become a publisher.
• The magazines published with PressPad take up little disk space on a reader’s device and come out quickly compared to the competition.

A few facts:

• The description of the product and offer is available at http://www.presspadapp.com
• In September, the monthly ZNAK was published on iPad with PressPad (it can be downloaded from Appstore by entering ZNAK into the search engine)

Team:

• Paweł Nowak
• Marcin Klimek
• Rafał Guzik

Contact:

kontakt@presspadapp.com

twitter: @presspadapp

iTraff Technology

iTraff Technology is the company focused on the development of the image recognition technology for mobile devices. This technology can be successfully used in the dedicated applications, as well as in interactive campaigns. The diversity of the possibilites of the technology use is very broad. The company at the moment uses it:

●     [B2B] to prepare a platform with an API at www.recognize.im,

●     [B2B] to create a dedicated mobile applications and interactive campaigns (IOS, Android),

●     [B2C] in SaveUp – mobile shopping application that allows immediate purchases (IOS, Android).

SaveUp cover both, B2B and B2C, fields of iTraff Technology activity:

●     [B2C] the basic meaning of the SaveUp is based on the products sale – it is the store that lets you buy games, movies, books or music CDs, when you take the photo of them or their graphic representations,

●      [B2B] when the campaign in cooperation with our partners is launched, SaveUp is used to the recognition of the advertisements printed in media – we use it as the tool in some of the interactive campaigns.

The main features of the SaveUp:

●     it use our patented technology of image recognition,

●     it allows the immediate purchase of the deserved product,

●     in the application database there is over 3 000 000 offers from over 60 major Polish online stores; mostly games, movies, music CDs and books,

●     application is able to recognize not only the physically existing products, but also their graphical representations on the billboards, posters or in newspapers,

●     among the other features there is also simple text search and the bar code seatch.

iTraff Technology has achieved many awards home and abroad. Company received rewards i.a. in Belgium, Austria and Finland.

The core members of the team:

●     Arkadiusz Skuza

●     Paweł Mazurek

●     Wojciech Radomski

Contact:

Pawel.Mazurek@iTraff.pl          

www.recognize.im

http://www.SaveUp.pl/english

http://www.iTraff.pl/english

@_SaveUp

UXPin.com

UXPin is a complete wireframing solution with advanced collaboration and documenting features and is made up of:

•             an online wiereframing application

•             a collaboration tool

•             an online documentation of the designed project

•             analog design kits (notebooks) for paper wireframing

UXPin is already used by UX professionals in companies such as: Google, Sony, Myspace. The business model is based on subscriptions and notebook sales.

The team:

Marcin Treder – CEO, role: product development and marketing

Kamil Zięba – role: lead UX/graphic designer

Marcin Kowalski –  role: management, finance, customer service

Piotr Duszyński – role: lead programmer

Wiktor Mazur – role: programmer, analyst

http://uxpin.com

Questions? hello@uxpin.com