Have you ever been involved in a project like this?

1) Keep it simple. If you are struggling to describe your idea what chance do we have in understanding it?? A strong elevator pitch will engage the assessment panel and encourage them to read on.

2) Do you homework! This is so important because it can save a considerable amount of time and money in the long run by fully understanding what is already out there. If you find something similar to your idea that is a good thing because it demonstrates an appetite in the market place for what you are offering. Don’t just consider direct competition either as this demonstrates a lack of insight in to the wider marketplace and where your product or service fits in.

3) Customers. The lifeblood of any and every business, on and offline, is customers. Assuming that they actually want what you have to offer make sure you fully understand the following:-
i) Who are they?
ii) Where will you find them?
iii) How much will they pay for your product or service?

4) Never assume anything! You think that you have a great idea but how do you know until you tell people about it? Any feedback you can get, particularly from potential customers will be invaluable in helping future investors mitigate their risk.

5) Passion and enthusiasm alone for your idea will not turn it into a successful business. In his book “Rules for Revolutionaries” former Apple executive Guy Kawasaki quotes Brancusi which sums up what you need,

Create like a god – Comand like a king – Work like a slave

So good luck and I look forward to receiving your ideas.
Darren Bristow
Director of Awesomeness

I soon discovered that there are number of “funds”, I use that term loosely, aimed at this very early stage often referred to as seedcorn, primarily from across the pond in the USA. Some great examples include Idealab,Ycombinator,  Techstars and Garage.com These organisations all have a different approach to helping people get their ideas off the ground. Go visit their websites and you’ll see what I mean.

Things are starting to happen in the UK with stuff like 4IP,  Seedcamp,  The Open Fund and now inQubator. If you know of any others please let me know!!

Over the next few weeks and months as we seek to find and develop an idea through our unique framework I shall be building up a bank of useful knowledge, resources and contacts that I will share with you on this blog and the inQubator website. I hope that you will find it useful and will recommend it to colleagues who you think may benefit from it.

In the meantime if you’ve got a great idea what are you waiting for ? Submit it via our simple online form.

Darren Bristow
Director of Innovation

Since our first few tests of working out how we would use Basecamp, we haven’t looked back.  Basecamp is now an integral part of our day-to-day operations.

Sure, there are some features that we wished it would do, but in some ways this is why Basecamp has been so successful for us…. It’s simple.  I can honestly say that for all the clients we have given access to Basecamp, never once have I had to conduct a training session to explain how it works.  Sure, we’ve given them pointers, but other than that, they just get it and allow us to get on with delivering great projects.

On the note of simplicity, the theme really is baked in with 37signals, the maker of Basecamp.  They have a great book called Getting Real which clearly explains their ethos and approach and is fascinating read, whatever line of business your in.

Our second nomination is in the category for Best Application of Internet Technology for our online HR solution Myhrtoolkit. This is a joint venture with our solicitors Ironmonger Curtis. The software is a great low cost, value for money way for companies to manage all aspects of HR and is well deserving of an award for its pure innovation alone.

Quba director and former Freeserve founder Rob Wilmot was invited to judge at the awards (not in the two above categories unfortunately!) Rob had a great day out with the judging panel and commented on the high standard of entries this year.

Finally Quba will be sponsoring the Best Entertainment Site category – should be entertaining!

Launchy – http://www.launchy.net/

Launchy is a great little application that allows you to launch applications and documents with a few simple keystrokes (Alt +Space by default).  The purpose of the application is to minimise mouse usage and do-away with the start menu.  It may feel a little strange when you first start using the application, but you soon find yourself relying on it.

Launchy has a number of configurable elements to tune its usage on what applications to launch and which directories to Index.

Evernote – http://www.evernote.com/

The strap line for Evernote is “Capture, Sync. Find”.  Essentially Evernote is a note taking application that runs on multiple platforms and will synchronise your notes between them.

Evernote is available online, on your desktop and on your mobile phone. Therefore, if you’ve ever been in a client meeting and drawn up a plan on a white board, Evernote will enable you to take a photo of the whiteboard, add some notes and will then automatically synch it.  When you get back to the office and launch the desktop version, the photo and notes will be there waiting for you.

Evernote can be used for many things, including:

• Tasks and to-dos
• Notes and research
• Web pages
• Whiteboards
• Business cards
• Scribbles
• Snapshots

Xobni – http://www.xobni.com/

If you’re never far from your (Outlook) inbox, Xobni is a must.  The application is actually a plug-in for Outlook that allows you to search your email scarily fast.  In addition to this, when a new email arrives, Xobni will show you the contact information of the sender, provide a summary of recent communication and a list files that have been shared.

If you have a LinkedIn or Facebook account, Xobni will also allow you to view additional details of the sender if they also have a profile.

http://tinyurl.com/cxwen9

We were admiring the technology Google have employed when we noticed three shady characters walking down the street:

http://tinyurl.com/Quba-Directors

Yes it’s Darren, Matt and Matthew off out to lunch, immortalised forever by clever technology.

Myhrtoolkit is designed specifically for businesses with between 5 and 500 employees and tracks sickness absence, handles contracts of employment and handbook, manages holiday requests, and handles task delegation, appraisals, and document storage. And because Myhrtoolkit is web-based, it gives secure control of employee information from any Internet-connected computer, with no software install. The product is already widely used in the South Yorkshire region by local businesses such as Blundells, Holbrook, and GBeye.

Rob Wilmot, Director of Quba’s Cloud computing business, believes that the demand for Myhrtoolkit is huge. “There is a very real need for this product. It’s the ideal tonic for companies that have reached a certain size where keeping track of the day-to-day staff administration is starting to become a pain. Managing employees is one of the biggest challenges faced by growing businesses. Myhrtoolkit.com gives access to the kind of functionality that until now was only to be available to the biggest employers”

Enter Love Quba

When my daughter  (Gracie aged 6) asked what I was writing about, when I said cloud computing she made this picture in Microsoft Paint

Over the last decade, this pervasive process has had many names including Application Service Provision (ASP), Software as a Service (SaaS) and more recently the phrase Cloud Computing has entered the common vocabulary.

We’re going to hear a lot more about Cloud Computing from now on. Why? Because early on this week a story has broken effectively announcing that Microsoft has acknowledged that the days of the operating system – in a box, on your desktop – are numbered. With their exposure of a project code named ‘Midori’ we get the first real sign that Microsoft is seriously planning the move from the traditional Operating System to the Internet Cloud, (it has dallied with the idea of making your documents available on the web before, but without a shift from the OS)

So what does this mean for the average Microsoft Office user?  The simple answer is that someday, probably in the not too distant future, we’ll all be using our web browser to do our word processing, spreadsheet building, and slide presentations, and rather than storing files on our PCs or in-house office servers, they’ll be held in great big data centres, quite literally on the other side of the world.

But so what’s so special about this? Hasn’t Google been providing web based word processing and spreadsheets for some time already? The answer is yes, of course. But whereas Google has been providing these services as market testers (some might say spoilers biting at the heels of Microsoft), it’s not a paid for services and is cross subsidised by Google’s core ad based search. What’s got people talking is that this is Microsoft’s core business and when they make the move to Cloud Computing there will be a naturalised paradigm shift the likes not been seen since the move from Windows 3.11 to Windows 95.

Here at Quba we’ve been doing stuff in the Internet Cloud since the beginning of the decade. In 2001 we built Vauxhall and Renault car dealerships with a web based insurance system, (back then they were called extranets). In 2004 we delivered an end-to-end customer relationship management system for the New Technology Institute which powers their public web site, with a backend office that still sits at the heart of their business processes today. Symphony, our Internet Cloud Event Management software services events ranging from NHS conventions to the Church of England’s Lambeth Conference.

Whilst writing this blog article my Daughter Grace aged 6 asked me what I was doing. I said I was writing an article about clouds. She went quiet for a while and after 10 minutes she gave me the picture, rendered in Microsoft Word, and proudly displayed at the top of this article. No doubt it will be Grace and her generation that will take Cloud computing for granted.