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Russ: This is the BusinessMakers Show heard here and online at theBusinessMakers.com. And now it is time for the Aflac BusinessMakers Flashback, brought to you by Aflac, ask about it at work. And for this mornings Flashback we are going to roll back to just last week when I was in Edinburgh Scotland and got to sit down with Jessica Williamson she is the Entrepreneurship Coordinator at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland and an entrepreneur herself. And here is Jessica Williamson talking about entrepreneurship in Scotland.
Jessica: I was pretty surprised after I moved over here. Edinburgh's very, very busy in the entrepreneurship scene. There are so many events and resources. Really the government's trying to stimulate entrepreneurship here. There's a strong history of inventors that come from Edinburgh and from Scotland world widely, so it's always been quite packed.
Russ: Okay, share a few of those inventions in the history of business and entrepreneurship with us.
Jessica: Of course. So Scotland really takes credit for John Logie Baird with the television. You've got Alexander Graham Bell as well as James Clerk Maxwell, James Watt. The more thinking side, we've also got David Hume and Adam Smith for Economics, so there's quite a few great minds buried here.
Russ: Okay. Well I was surprised here at the University itself, the program. There's an official entrepreneurship group here; an organization and startups that actually come out of the University of Edinburgh, correct?
Jessica: That's exactly correct. There are a few different groups at the University that all are kind of pushing the entrepreneurship scene forward, so I coordinated the Entrepreneurship Club which was really set up for the MBA students to get their entrepreneurship education outside the classroom. But we find actually more people from the community wind up coming along. In other things at the University, we've got a group called Launch which is all about helping students set their businesses up. Informatics Ventures which specifically focuses on computer science and informatics because that's actually quite a specialty here. And Edinburgh pre-incubators scheme to help people get started, and really the list goes on and on, as much help and support as you really could want.
Russ: Well real cool, and as I said I was really surprised by it. So I mean surprised realistically from the position that the UK is not quite as capitalistically focused as the United States, so I'm curious how it's embraced both within the rest of the University as well as within the community. I mean is it accurate to say that entrepreneurship is just breaking out?
Jessica: You know I sometimes feel that way because I'm just surrounded by people starting businesses, but I think the reality is that it's a bit of a bubble here; and people that are in the bubble just stay in it and adjust the other startups and feel like that's where the entire world consists of. But probably the majority of the population's outside this bubble and doesn't see it at all, which is quite funny to me because I'm sure in California, even people that aren't in the startup entrepreneurship scene are most definitely aware of what's going on and what's happening. So that's probably a bit more unique to Scotland or to Edinburgh here.
Russ: Okay, but I also have felt this kind of loyalty to the community and the University here. I've notice quite a few people that seem to come here to go to school and never leave.
Jessica: Well that's fair to say. Edinburgh's a wonderful, wonderful city which you'll continue to see here, but that was my story at least. I initially just came for one year abroad in a funny country I knew nothing about. I knew they spoke English and I practically picked it out of a hat, wound up out here, and in the end after my one year was up, I moved back later and have no intention to leave at this point, much to my family's disappointment.
Russ: Well go ahead and share your background. You're actually from the U.S., correct?
Jessica: Right. So I grew up in sunny Sacramento, California. I was never really into technology, I was pretty oblivious to the Silicon Valley out there. I then decided to go somewhere freezing for a University, I moved to Chicago just to suffer for a few years.
Russ: Okay.
Jessica: Had a great time at North Western, but it was really Edinburgh took me when I studied abroad for my third year. Wound up moving back here and did a Master's in Science and Technology, Policy, and Management. It was the first year of the course and again a bit random, but just really moved in a new direction. I fell in love with the city, got a work visa on the back of that, and just haven't looked back since.
Russ: Okay. You both sort of head up the entrepreneurship program here, you work for the University, and you're involved in a startup; is that right?
Jessica: That's right.
Russ: Okay, so what do you do in your spare time? (Laughter)
Jessica: I run a blog on startups and technology in my spare time. (Laughter)
Russ: That's cool. Well, go ahead, well what's your blog? How do people get –
Jessica: So the blog is Startup Cafe. We're StartupCafe.co.uk and we basically realize there's so much happening here that it's really hard for anyone to keep track. And events and resources are only as good as people are aware and know what to apply for and know what to show up for. So we started with that intention and just to give local startups a place to celebrate their success, because often the main publications are London based and don't really look north of the border. So we feel a bit ignored here a fair amount of the time and kind of wanted to do our own thing that just focused on Scotland's success.
Russ: Okay, great, great. I can't go much further at all without talking about the startup that you're involved in. Tell us about that.
Jessica: Yeah, so I joined a startup last year which is quite exciting. It's called TenBu Technologies and we're launching a new security alarm for your mobile phone. I mean if you leave your cell phone behind in a restaurant or in a Taxi as unfortunately thousands of people do every day, then as soon as you walk too far away from it, a little alarm will go off on your key chain that you have with you, letting you know that your phone's been left behind.
Russ: Real cool.
Jessica: You can also use it to protect your laptop bag, your keys of course, even a child. We've had some people putting it on their kids to make sure they don't wander too far away. So it's quite a fun product, we're just getting started here.
Russ: Is the product already for sale?
Jessica: Yeah, we're on the market. We launched end of last year, so at the moment that means Amazon and our website. I'm at the moment in discussion with distributors to get it into the legs of Best Buy, Radio Shack. Hopefully you'll be seeing it soon. It's a little gadget called Nio, N-I-O.
Russ: Okay, so that's the name of the product itself? N-I-O.
Jessica: That's the product.
Russ: And so if somebody's listening right now and just wanted to check it out, how do you find it?
Jessica: Well, if you wanted to get one or have a look, you can go to bluenio.com. That's blue like the color, N-I-O.com
Russ: So you mentioned your trying to get it into distributors, is that the roll you're playing in the company?
Jessica: That's right. So I'm responsible for the launch for the U.S. and Canada.
Russ: Okay, and the product, is it actually being made here in Scotland or do you outsource that perhaps to China or India or somewhere like that?
Jessica: That' a very good question. At the moment we've been manufacturing in Scotland. But as our orders are increasing and getting too big for the factories here to handle, we're moving operations to China as we speak.
Russ: Great. Okay Jessica, and I understand up next you have some other entrepreneurs that we might have them tell their story.
Jessica: Yes, that's right Russ. I've invited in a few friends. They're all different entrepreneurs in Edinburgh with some interesting stories to tell.
Russ: Alright stay tuned in for entrepreneurs from the University of Edinburgh and the continuation of this mornings Aflac BusinessMakers Flashback, brought to you by Aflac. You're listening to The BusinessMakers Show heard here and online at theBusinessMakers.com.
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Russ: This is The BusinessMakers Show heard here and online at theBusinessMakers.com. And continuing on with the Aflac BusinessMakers Flashback, brought to you by Aflac. And continuing on with Jessica Williamson from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland who is being joined by Jessica's entrepreneur friends. Jessica who's up first?
Jessica: First up, we've got Kate Ho from Interface3. Kate, why don't you tell us a bit about yourself.
Kate: So I run Interface Three and we're basically trying to create a better customer experience for the retail and retail finance sectors.
Russ: Okay, how do you do that?
Kate: We have two kind of product ranges. One is focus on next generation information kiosk using the multi-touch interface and the other thing we're doing is looking at the multi-touch interface as a multi-user, but single touch type device. So group and collaborative software.
Russ: Okay so if I have a retail store with a kiosk, you would come and put it in my store?
Kate: Yes.
Russ: Okay, so what's the status of the company now?
Kate: Well we only started working full-time on the company about four and a half months ago, so we're still boating proof concepts.
Russ: Okay, thanks a lot Kate. And who do we have up next Jessica?
Jessica: Alright, up next I'll hand it over to Sam Collins with Bloop. Sam you wanna tell us how events, and Bloop, and everything you've got going on there?
Sam: Yeah, sure. So Bloop is a mobile application for professional events. The main problem it solves is when you walk into you know, a networking event, or a tradeshow, or a conference, and you've got this sea of faces and suits or whatever and you've no idea who anyone is or you know, what they're there to talk about; so Bloop lets you check into that event and post what you're looking to talk about or what conversations you're having with people, and it makes it easy to sort of get around the room and make the right connections.
Russ: Well what's the status of Bloop today?
Sam: We're in private beta at the moment. We've been flying through development and we've got some testers like London Business School and the University of Edinburgh using it, and it will hit public beta in about June.
Russ: Alright Jessica, who do we have up next?
Jessica: Alright, next we'll hand it over Hilary Singer who's developing a new product, Bullfrog. So Hilary, you wanna fill us in on that?
Hilary: Bullfrog is a new bicycle safety device based on sound and it's really just in the idea stage at the moment. But I got the idea from reading an article about electric cars and apparently cars, regulators are really excited about having all these silent cars on the road until they realized that they posted a really big hazard to pedestrians and cyclists. So they're now mandating the installation of false sounds on all electric cars in Europe and the U.S., or at least considering it. So when I read that I thought, bicycles have this same problem every day, no one hears them coming, and that's why pedestrians walk out in front of them, people open their car door in front of them, and that's the problem I'm trying to solve.
Russ: Cool. Well so, can you tell us the sound that Bullfrog makes? (Laughter)
Hilary: It's hard to (Laughter) just mimic it over the radio here, but –
Russ: Give it a try.
Hilary: – it's basically a click. It's a pulse sound and what I do is I usually snap to give a (snap, snap) demo, but it sounds actually a little bit more sophisticated because they're trying to integrate white noise and other things that will make it much more informative to anyone listening.
Russ: Okay, and what's the status of the company today Hilary?
Hilary: Well I've taken a very rough row to type out on the road just as a proof of concept and I loved it. I'm a commutist cyclist myself and I instantly – it proved the use case for me.
Russ: Alright, so Jessica, who do we have up next?
Jessica: Alright, I'll hand it over to Nigel Eccles here with FanDuel. Nigel, tell us how FanDuel's doing and what it is you guys are up to.
Nigel: Sure, thanks Jessica. So FanDuel is a U.S. fantasy sports game. We're a social games company focused on sports fans. FanDuel is a daily draft game, so it's exactly the same as traditional fantasy sports covering football, baseball, hockey, and basketball. The main difference is that every game lasts one day, so you can enter in the morning, draft your team, put money behind your team, and then that night you'll win a cash prize obviously if you win.
Russ: Okay, so we're talking about real money here, right?
Nigel: It's real money, yes, absolutely.
Russ: So we're talking about gambling here.
Nigel: Well technically no, and the reason is –
Russ: Duly noted.
Nigel: – fantasy sports is the one thing that's been given an exception from the Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act of 2006 and fantasy sports is played by 25 million U.S. people, and then generally played for money, so it's considered a game and therefore an exception of online gambling.
Russ: And getting around the law doesn't have to do with you being sort of what would be called an "off shore company" from the U.S.
Nigel: We're actually split between the U.S. and the U.K., so we've got business development in California and then we've got product development, a lot of the team in Scotland as well.
Russ: Okay, and Nigel I understand that before FanDuel you had another endeavor on the Web that was real fascinating. Tell us about that one a bit.
Nigel: Yeah, so we've got another product called Hubdub which was a news prediction game. We launched that two years ago at a tech event called "Demo". It's a very novel concept because it gives people the ability to predict the outcome of news stories and it's still there today.
Russ: News prediction wow. Did many of their prediction turn out to be true?
Nigel: Yeah, we've done and we actually track a lot of the data and provide it to academics. But you know, for example, in the U.S. elections we predicted 49 of the 50 states and D.C. predict those correctly of which candidate would win them.
Russ: Real cool, but before we let you go, get back to FanDuel. What's the status of that company today?
Nigel: So the status is we are venture funded and we're really building up for the Baseball season, really build it all the way the through to football to the end of the year.
Russ: Great, well thanks a lot.
Nigel: No problem, thank you.
Russ: Okay Jessica. Who do we have up next?
Jessica: Alright, here we've got Jonathan Millin of Zoomatelo who seems to be growing quite successfully. Jonathan, you wanna fill us in on how you're changing carpooling?
Jonathan: As just mentioned, Zoomatelo's ended facilitating carpooling inside large organizations. And we do this by creating closed social networks specifically limited to the organization. Essentially we directly addressing issues like congestion, carbon emissions, parking, traffic alleviation, all the rest; and we've launched in South Africa to the largest company in Africa, they are doing beta testing for us. Our initial audience is about 12,000 in the head office and they've been quite impressed and they're scaling us up to about 45,000 people across 30 countries in Africa.
Russ: Wow cool. Okay Jonathan, so this is cool but tell us from a business perspective how do you monetize the business?
Jonathan: Well essentially we're launching as a social enterprise. The whole idea is to help get the world to commute better. But we can miniaturize this through white labeling the service, so –
Russ: Okay. To the corporate customer.
Jonathan: Exactly. So we provide the system for free that anyone can start up and create their own car pooling website with their own sub-domain on our website. But if you want more tailored sites, if you want your own personal branding, if you want advanced analytics and reports, and essentially an entire transport management system, then we'll provide this white labeled, unique service specifically for you.
Russ: Cool. Well good luck and I really appreciate you sharing your story. So, I'm impressed Jessica. We have lots of entrepreneurship going on here at Edinburgh.
Jessica: Yeah, there's a lot of exciting projects really covering a wide scope here, so it's always fun to keep an eye on what everybody's up to.
Russ: Alright, well I'm definitely gonna keep my eye on Edinburgh and I really appreciate it.
Jessica: Ah, thank you very much Russ.
Russ: Okay and that concludes our discussion with Edinburgh Entrepreneurs and that wraps up this mornings Aflac BusinessMakers Flashback brought to you by Aflac, ask about it at work. Stay tuned in for our featured guest segment where we move over to France and interview Michael Phillips of Perception Travel. You're listening to the BusinessMakers Show, heard here and online at thebusinessmakers.com.