Geekspace will be 500m2 devoted to helping entrepreneurs conquer the online space. Most of us are (or know of) coders who sit huddled in their bedroom, separated from the rest of the civil world, and who would really benefit from being a part of an ecosystem that could “feed” everyone in it symbiotically.

I am working out the finer details (including lease negotiations) but all of these are semantics: the Geekspace will be ready to launch July 1, and the space should be available June 1 if you don’t mind working in slight chaos while we set up.

The place I have in mind is in Bryanston, 5 minutes away from William Nicol and thus relatively close to the highway. Plenty, plenty of FREE parking (HUGE issue, trust me…most buildings want from R400 per bay). (But the lease hasn’t been signed, and I have 2 back up locations).

Should you be accepted into the space, you will get a desk, chair, Internet connectivity etc etc. There is a super entertainment area, including a bar (yes!) and loads and loads of built in fun. Also: free use of the boardroom, meeting rooms, etc. Private offices are also available, but very limited. Hoping to get DSTV and TVs in time for World Cup etc. There is a training room, a library, kitchens, etc etc. In other words…. truly AWESOME.

Oh, and the space will be a 24/7 so it will *never close*.

I am looking for a diverse mix of tenants, so it doesn’t all have to be “online people”, but it does have to be people that feed the online ecosystem. So, aside from coders, it can be marketing, strategy, legal, financial etc. Diversity is the key. Yes, also when it comes to colour.

The cost will be kept to the lowest possible. Still finalizing numbers, and dependent on sponsorships etc, but I wouldn’t want to cross the R990 per desk, per month fee. This includes the furniture, parking, facilities etc, but *might* not include bandwidth. You have to bring your own laptop.

Leases are month to month.

If you are starting up a venture, or have been accepted into the Crowdfund programme, you would most likely not incur any cost at all for the first 3 months. Also, if you are busy playing here, but really cannot afford to pay, you should just talk to me. This isn’t so much about revenue as it is about making things happen.

I will post much more details soon (including a dedicated website to this), but I just wanted to get the word out and start gathering some feedback of interest.

If you are interested in renting a desk for about R1,000, please email me directly, asap. First come first served, and space is limited. eved@ideabank.co.za, with GEEKSPACE in subject line, please. I need to know how many desks, who you are and what you do.

• We decided on a clear filtering method to deal with the applications for funding. You can read more about that here.
• We decided that we will consider South Africa focussed startups for funding, especially if they have applications for the whole continent. However, first prize is still a product that can launch globally.
• We decided that copycat products are OK. I was the one who was opposed to this, as I would like the Crowdfund money to fund innovation, but a strong case was made for the fact that by copying, the necessary improvements can be brought into play that can make a killer product. (Incidentally, just to be clear: I have no issue with copycat products in general, and will in fact be launching one myself later this week. I would just prefer not to spend Crowdfund money on them).
• We had a long discussion about the whole eco-system created by the Crowdfund, with an emphasis on the co-working space we want to set up. This will be huge. Watch this space.

The application is reviewed by a board member, usually me, who checks it to make sure it “ticks all the boxes”. The Crowdfund looks for projects that meet certain criteria, and it cannot consider projects that do not. (I intend to post in more detail what those criteria are, but in the meantime this is a good start).

At this stage, one of three decisions happens:
1.“No, we are not interested in further discussions.” This means that either we feel that the project is not viable at all, or not viable with respect to the Crowdfund mandate. It does not mean that the idea cannot be successful, cannot make money, is unrealistic (although any or all three of these can apply). It does mean that we are very unlikely to change our mind on the project, unless you make big changes to the idea or the team. You are welcome to enter into a dialogue with me as to why this is so, and we encourage you strongly to submit another idea.

2. “Maybe we could be interested in discussing this further” This means that you have caught our interest, but we need more information before we commit yours and our time to the review process. At this stage we will usually ask you more questions, or have a face to face meeting with you.

3.“Yes, we are definitely interested in discussing this further” This means we are very excited by either your idea or your team. We’ll probably ask more questions, and then based on those, ask you to present to the board.

What to do when we say “No”.

The first thing I suggest is that you ask us “Why?”. The reason I leave it to you to ask, rather than offering more than the broadest of reasons is that I have found that people can get very defensive when their ideas are critiqued, which is a pity.

You might find that we think it is a brilliant idea, just not suited to us at the Crowdfund. Or we might think it is not such a hot idea, because of various other reasons. Either way, if you are convinced that your idea is the killer idea, then you should simply refine, and try again and again and again with other sources of funding. But we’ll cover all that in our one on one discussions.

What I would really implore you do take to heart though, is that although our opinion shouldn’t be the death-toll of your idea, it does probably have some relevance. In other words, if you have gone as far as submitting your idea to us, then go the full distance and learn something from the process (we’ll be learning too). It is quite possible that your idea just is not viable. Question our opinion, but be prepared to abandon your idea and come up with a new one. As I heard over and over at the recent SxSW I attended: If you are going to fail, do it fast.

I think one of a good entrepreneur’s biggest assets is his or hers ability to innovate: it means they can adapt quickly, and are not likely to get boxed in. If you have come up with one idea to submit to the Crowdfund, I bet you can come up with 10 more before the week is out.

And we might just love one of those

Filtering by gut

When I see and read an application for funding, it usually takes no more than 30 seconds for me to get a gut feel for it. This is different form the “first 15 seconds to make a good impression” though, because I really do believe that the gut feel is not influenced by anything other than the raw idea itself. In other words, it would make no difference if you present it more eloquently, or with broken grammar, or if you cut and paste it into an email rather than have a professional .pdf designed.

A good idea screams from the rooftops, no matter how it is presented.

So what makes this idea so good? Well, thousands of blog posts have been written about this, and the discussion is far from over. Here is what I believe:

The idea has to be simple. Like, really, really simple. Your mother and her mother should understand it if you were to explain it to them. They should also be able to use it, once your prototype is ready. (I am not saying that they have to have a need for it, though. They must just understand it). When looking at some of the applications,I don’t understand the idea. And that’s a big problem.

The idea needs to give a clear solution to a clear problem. I need to see immediately who would use this and why. It doesn’t have to be 10% of the Chinese population, but it does need to be a market I can visualise, or imagine. People who are active online are busy people, and there are a lot of products vying for their attention. I am looking for that compelling “something” that will make these people choose to give time to your product, rather than a different, even unrelated, one.

The idea needs to be executable. This is a bit tricky to explain. I need to see the logic of how the product will be coded, even if I am not able to code it myself. For instance, if you are looking to develop a product that lists the top ten sellers in the e-commerce world over the last hour (look, an idea!) I would need to know that you can get access to the API of the leading e-commerce platforms. I can actually see this as very possible. However, if you want to create a product that creates groups of Twitter people based on their location so you can target them with email marketing, I don’t see how you would get access to their email addresses, because I know Twitter won’t give them to you. (This isn’t a deal breaker though, because if I don’t see it, I will simply ask you. But if you don’t see it either, then we have a problem).

The idea must be able to launch small. Funding the first fax machine would not have been first prize. Funding the millionth fax machine because it was so much cooler/better than any that existed already, and that everyone would have wanted instead, would be better. If you need a million users before the value of the product is realized, that could be a too big of a hurdle to overcome.

On the other hand, the idea must be able to scale fast. We expect you to be successful beyond our wildest dreams. So I would like to see that that is very possible.

The idea must have some whiff of revenue potential. It doesn’t have to be carved in stone, but I would like to get whacks of inspiration for how this could make money.

And of course, the team. The team must be made up of people that the board would really want to work with: smart, passionate, driven, social.

And why not? Pretty much every single big thing was started by two or three guys, sitting on a worn couch, drinking a couple of beers and shooting the breeze. One thing led to another, an idea was born, and with perseverance, sweat and luck was taken to market.

We have the guys (and gals), we have the couches, we have the beer. And god knows we have the ideas. What we might be lacking in is the confidence that Big Ideas are worth taking on. We can’t blame ourselves: it is tough to get any product to market successfully, and it is particularly tough to do so from South Africa.

What I am really hoping though, is that initiatives like the Crowdfund, and Silicon Cape, Tech 4 Africa etc are beginning to awaken the entrepreneurial, fighting spirit in the really smart people that we have here, and that they begin to realise that taking three months out of their lives to “give it a shot” is a risk they owe to themselves.

I don’t really know how to define the Next Big Thing. I guess that when we see it, we will know it. (Well… I hope we will. Or we will be kicking ourselves real hard.) I do know it must check all the usual boxes: innovative, valuable, simple to use, have global appeal. I also think it must be really, really simple in concept. If you need more than 30 seconds to describe it, it probably isn’t it.

It’s very likely that the Next Big Thing is mobile based, although I personally am still a fan of the web as seen on my 24” monitor. It will almost definitely be a filter of some sort, because that saves time, without draining it. Localisation is big.

Whatever it is, if you are applying for Crowdfunding, try to find it. Think big. We are. Remember, with enough passion, skill and perseverance there is nothing separating you from those two or three guys drinking beer on a couch in Silicon Valley. Get to us, and we’ll help you get there.

This is when I, and more importantly the investors, love to hear the “Yes, but…”.

It’s “The but” that shows how innovative people are, and how aware they are of the target market. And it’s “The but” that makes prospective investors change their look of disinterest to sudden excitement as they understand the potential of what it is that you are selling.

For example, take our recent local start up, Personera.com. They create customised calendars based on data in your Facebook profile (like your friends’ birthdays, for instance).
Me: “Oh, you mean like the calendar Facebook app?”
Them: “Yes, but….these calendars are actually printed in hard copy”
Me: “Oh…..wow”

Ideas are a dime a dozen, and probably pretty much anything that you come up with exists in some form, somewhere online. However, if you add your own clever “Yes, but…” you might just be laughing all the way to the bank.

(An important aside here is that I do think that it is perfectly OK to bring concepts that already exist and customise them for the local market. There are so many online products that I would like to have a strong presence in South Africa, but that will only have one if they are developed by a local team. Unfortunately, I don’t think The Crowdfund will be funding many of those, though, because this time round we want to focus on global appeal. But the good news is that we are working on a different model that would promote these kind of startups in the country.)

I like this model, but will not be using it in its entirety for The Crowdfund. For starters, the money will be limited to R50-R100,000 per company, and there will be no “deadline” for “admissions”, and thus probably no “Demo day”. We will take applications as they come in, and make investment decisions appropriately.

The real value in the Crowdfund comes from other benefits:

• A cool, funky and functional work space that is condusive to collaborative development, and quick launch/turn around times.
• Free bandwidth and hosting (provided by Internet Solutions)
• Access to experts in various online fields, as well as experts in sectors at which the online product is aimed (for insight, contacts and potential outsourcing)
• A no-holds-barred attitude from the board, who are determined to see the dev team succeed with a successful product launch, and second round of financing.
• The credibility that comes from being a Crowdfund sponsored company

All that should be enough to ensure that the product you are developing for launch is as valuable and focussed as possible, and therefore has a good chance of attracting that crucial second round of funding.

Of course, the real clincher is that once your development starts, and we see it progressing, The Crowdfund kicks into the “agent” mode, and starts helping you attract the second round of financing. To that end, we have a wide network of investors in South Africa, and will be actively selling your idea to those angel investors and Vcs who we think will be a good match. But we also have (and are ever expanding) access to Vcs in the United States (specifically Silicon Valley) and will be strongly tapping into that too.

At the end of the day, much as we want to see you succeed with your startup, we have a mandate with our investors for as high an ROI as possible. And therefore the more successful you are, the more successful we will be. So we are as motivated as you are.