Thanks Chris, Daniel! Blog Friends definitely has some very supportive followers despite the service issues we had towards the end – we’re very grateful to those people. Whether or not funding is forthcoming out of this, I’m definitely up for any inventive plans that could get us back on track (as much as Luke, Benjie and I love webdev/consultancy, it’s very time-consuming!)

Thanks Chris, Daniel! Blog Friends definitely has some very supportive followers despite the service issues we had towards the end – we’re very grateful to those people. Whether or not funding is forthcoming out of this, I’m definitely up for any inventive plans that could get us back on track (as much as Luke, Benjie and I love webdev/consultancy, it’s very time-consuming!)

I wasn’t pinning all of the blame on the angel market. I just think think it is a shame to have to learn the lessons this way, rather than hanving help in preventing it occurring in the first place. A great angel network would probably swoop in and help the solid team and idea that you guys have. That is less likely to happen in London. Full time startups are hard. Part time startups simply don’t work.

This is why ideas die this side of the pond. Only the minted can afford to play the game.

I wasn’t pinning all of the blame on the angel market. I just think think it is a shame to have to learn the lessons this way, rather than hanving help in preventing it occurring in the first place. A great angel network would probably swoop in and help the solid team and idea that you guys have. That is less likely to happen in London. Full time startups are hard. Part time startups simply don’t work.

This is why ideas die this side of the pond. Only the minted can afford to play the game.

On the one hand, you’re right in that the userbase shouldn’t have been an issue; MyBlogLog had about 50k users when it was sold to Yahoo for $10m and their data isn’t a patch on ours in terms of quality. Furthermore, our service solved real problems in the market (both in a B2C and B2B sense). However, it’s worth recognising that they sold because a) they had a vast amount of user cookies b) it was at a time when yahoo would have paid anything to get what was effectively a very comprehensive survey of the blogosphere. I.e. they were lucky – something that Rafer’s happy to admit.

On the other hand, the reality was that we didn’t communicate our business plan well enough and fast enough to the right people. Now, you might argue that UK angels don’t take enough risks (versus seemingly funding pretty much anything in the US) but I don’t think that’s entirely fair. I know it’s not fair, because if we started the same thing again today we’d do many few things differently – especially when it comes to fundraising.

Ultimately, as I’ve not yet successfully raised a major round, I’m not yet in a position to make a serious comment on the UK angel “scene”. Nonetheless, what I *do* know is that raising money is sufficiently hard here that, should you not succeed, it’s probably because your business isn’t ready yet. In a way, I’m happy that European investors aren’t chucking their money at every NewsFriendFeedTweeter.com that comes along. The only down-side I see is that there aren’t enough failed post-angel/Series A companies around to fill the ecosystem with battle-hardened entrepreneurs; it’s a bit all-or-nothing.

On the one hand, you’re right in that the userbase shouldn’t have been an issue; MyBlogLog had about 50k users when it was sold to Yahoo for $10m and their data isn’t a patch on ours in terms of quality. Furthermore, our service solved real problems in the market (both in a B2C and B2B sense). However, it’s worth recognising that they sold because a) they had a vast amount of user cookies b) it was at a time when yahoo would have paid anything to get what was effectively a very comprehensive survey of the blogosphere. I.e. they were lucky – something that Rafer’s happy to admit.

On the other hand, the reality was that we didn’t communicate our business plan well enough and fast enough to the right people. Now, you might argue that UK angels don’t take enough risks (versus seemingly funding pretty much anything in the US) but I don’t think that’s entirely fair. I know it’s not fair, because if we started the same thing again today we’d do many few things differently – especially when it comes to fundraising.

Ultimately, as I’ve not yet successfully raised a major round, I’m not yet in a position to make a serious comment on the UK angel “scene”. Nonetheless, what I *do* know is that raising money is sufficiently hard here that, should you not succeed, it’s probably because your business isn’t ready yet. In a way, I’m happy that European investors aren’t chucking their money at every NewsFriendFeedTweeter.com that comes along. The only down-side I see is that there aren’t enough failed post-angel/Series A companies around to fill the ecosystem with battle-hardened entrepreneurs; it’s a bit all-or-nothing.