Glasses Direct takes on the giant opticians

It is very interesting to note the aggressive price stance being taken in the latest Specsavers press campaign.

Full pages featuring "A massive range for less than £40" - at the "UK's most trusted Optician"

[Source: Readers Digest Most Trusted Brands Survey 2007].

I think this is all very flattering for Glasses Direct, the tiny eCommerce upstart founded by Jamie Murray Wells and backed by Index and TAG amongst others.

A concerted campaign by the UK's leading opticians may slow Glasses Direct down a little but a price war is probably the last thing the high street operators need right now.

The fact is that as more and more consumers start to understand that there is relatively little mystery in buying subscription glasses on the web then Glasses Direct with their - "from the factory to the consumer" approach - is likely to keep taking market share.

Jamie has built his business on a lot more than price. The range is expanding rapidly to embrace fashion products and the service and quality that he is offering is superb.

Glasses is demonstrating a most interesting disruptive approach to a market which has paid little attention to price until recently.

Koodos using FeedCommerce

It is noticible that more and more user actions are being accomodated within the browser - not requiring new web pages to load. This undoubtedly leads to a more satisfying user experience and providing greater stickiness (to use a web 1.0 term) to publishers.
This phenomenon is now moving towards eCommerce and Koodos is an early adopter of this technology with the help of Nooked. Click on the grid below and see that you don't need to leave the publishers page to get product descriptions and price. Only at the point of transaction do you call upon the Koodos site (by all means do so and place an order).

Koodos is an ideal ecommerce application because it specialises in scarce inventory which changes daily so the feed technology keeps the offer current, exciting and relevant.
[Hot tip: If you do go to Koodos before 22nd August, make sure you register for their private sale of Diesel Jeans at only £29.99!]

Edgeio (another company in the TAG portfolio) has recently launched its paid content network enabling publishers to have their content paid for 'within the browser'.

A feature that makes it easier for consumers and publishers is one we are likely to see much more of soon.

If you know of any really great applications of FeedCommerce please comment.

Four out of Ten!!

I sincerely hope the Guardian Newspaper know how to pick winners - in the tech start-up space anyway!
They recently ran a series of articles headed Top 10 Dotcoms to watch. Their picks were:(in alphabetical order)

Dopplr
Social networking for frequent travellers.

Extate
Intelligent search of property websites.

Garlik
Online identity management.

MindCandy
Alternate reality gaming.

Moo
Print on demand: cards, notes and stickers.

OnOneMap
Map-based property search.

Touch Local
Local directory services.

Trusted Places
User-created local information.

Zopa
Peer to peer lending.

Zubka
Recruitment 2.0.

UK based only - of course.

Like all top 10's its bound to be controversial although since TAG is invested in 4 of the 10, we naturally hope they have it about right!

Fizzback shortlisted ...

Fizzback has been shortlisted for in the 'Best Use of Technology' category for the 2007 UK Startup Awards.
This category is for companies which have applied technology to provide an advantage in a traditional market or have come up with a totally new product, solution or service.

Fizzback's idea is brilliantly simple. Consumers comment or provide feedback using digital channels - primarily mobile phones using SMS. The service provider has their finger on the pulse of customers issues and comments in real time - while they are experiencing the service.
Fizzback enables consumer facing companies to capture instant feedback from their customers and convert real time insights into improved acquisition and retention. Some of Fizzbacks clients use the service to identify 'at risk' customers and initiate intervention or communication within minutes.

The powerful Fizzback engine uses artificial intelligence to interpret free form comments and instantly analyses and interprets the feedback delivering it its clients in a format that ensures they receive a continuous and real-time view of their customers’ satisfaction levels, issues and priorities. This is done via a web interface dashboard.

Feedback can give companies a real insight into what their customers are experiencing at the front line. Senior management can’t possibly patrol all their shop floors, train carriages, or hotel foyers. So they rely on feedback to tell them what’s going on. And yet it is often something that companies seem to dread receiving.

If you get to a customer quickly, at the point of the experience, you can not only stop that customer defecting to a competitor, but can actively convert them to loyal advocates. But you have to know that they’re having a bad experience in the first place.

Traditional methods of capturing customer feedback are deficient in many ways. Questionnaires, on or offline, are notoriously unreliable for gathering a real understanding of customers’ future intentions. The feedback form that tells you that a guest at a hotel was ‘satisfied’ with the service, but is it enough to get them to return? What would have changed that view to ‘excellent’?


Fizzback’s research shows that companies using this system have reported a 67 per cent drop in issues and complaints from customers (up to 73 per cent in the retail sector) coming via other methods such as letters of complaint. The immediacy of feedback stops disgruntled customers defecting to a competitor. Some companies use it to identify common problems, for example, with suppliers. If they receive a number of complaints about a particular supplier, it may be that the contract needs reviewing.

Some of the companies using Fizzback - on trial or as part of their ongoing operations and customer experience monitoring are:
Barclays Bank, The National Health, Phones4U, National Express, Bourne Leisure, First Capital Connect.

Interested in reading further, read DM Weekly article

Seedcamp Sprouting

Saul referred to Seedcamp on Thursday last at the Library House Event, Essential Web.
The Seedcamp website went live on the same day and some of blogs have picked up on the story - as did the Guardian on-line.
There is quite a lot that isn't conventional about Seedcamp and perhaps this post will help to elucidate.

The theme of why we need to keep seeding European start-ups is a well covered one.

Like the Opencoffee Club, Seedcamp is essentially designed to promote entrepreneurship in the tech community in a down-to-earth, direct and practical way.
Like Opencoffee it is aims to be collaborative, inclusive and participative.

The idea is simple, Seedcamp will help to kick-start the best of European ventures through the provision of a small amount of money but more importantly by providing direct access to the best mentors in the ecosystem.

The website explains it in some detail.

Seedcamp will be owned by a wide range of VCs, Successful Entrepreneurs and Professionals.
Announcements will follow soon of those who are backing it.

In just a week and a bit - since Essential Web - rapid progress has been made on a few fronts.

1) 3 days ago, we had 12 fully submitted applications and 96 signed-up users. I am amazed at this given the application form only went up 4 days previously.

2) We have a number of backers on board. Our plan is to make a public announcement about our 1st group of investor/supporters in the coming week.

3) We started up a Facebook group around Seedcamp. There are 411 members today! Word-of-mouth and blogging is very active as we can tell by the links on our website and the emails we are getting

If you think you can add to Seedcamp as Investor/Sponsor/Mentor or you have a business plan which needs support please go to www.Seedcamp.com and contact us via the blog or the email.

If you can help spread the word, that too will benefit the community.

Moveme wins best new business from NMA!

Congratulations to Mark, Keith and the team at Moveme! This is a real accolade. They were up against some very stiff competition. Also shortlisted were Oodle and Viagogo.
I report from NMA verbatim below - the links are mine.
Best New Business
"Moveme.com is a specialist website providing a support and planning service for home movers. Its objective is to be involved with 20% of the approximately 500,000 house moves a month.

Launched in June 2006 as themovingserivce.com, the site was rebranded and relaunched in January 2007 as moveme.com. The company has attracted strong backers including venture capitalist firm Advent Venture Partners, seed investor The Accelerator Group and serial entrepreneur Brent Hoberman.

The site features a resource for the booking of removal services, utility suppliers and the automatic generation of letters informing appropriate parties of your change of address. Moveme is launching an active push in brand-building and awareness campaigns over the summer, but currently the only spend beyond software development is in the form of PPC with Google and partnerships with Findaproperty.com. Moveme.com also intends to launch a nationwide marketing, PR and viral campaign to drive traffic to the site and establish it as the main player within the online property moving market space.

Currently moveme.com caters predominantly for purchase moves, but is in the process of developing solutions and software specifically targeted for rental and student moves. The company also plans to offer a white-label service to compliment the existing web strategies of the leading estate agents and property portals.

According to a recent GP Bullhound Research report covering the online lead-generation sector, the home-move market will be worth in excess of £2bn globally in 2007. This is a growth rate exceeding 70% annually, making it the fastest growing segment of online advertising.

The judges said that the service had a great interface and practical useful tools, and that it was clear where the founders were driving the business as a facilitator."

Oodle was launched in US in early 2005 but is new to the UK and Viagogo is a UK version of Stubhub in the US.
Moveme is an original and clever solution to the universal challenge of moving home.

Wonga.com emerges from stealth mode

Wonga.com came out of stealth mode on Thursday at the Library House Event, Essential Web. Wonga offers same day cash to borrowers. In fact the alpha trials demonstrate that transferring cash to approved on-line applications should take no more than 30 minutes.
The system that Errol Damelin, Jonty Hurwitz and the team have developed has about 20 complex system integrations but using the power and speed of the web makes the whole experience for the user clean, simple, clear and quick.
Wonga is a simple solution for personal debt management, designed for anyone who occasionally wants a short term, unsecured, same-day cash loan to help them out when unexpected expenses or urgent cash requirements arise.
Wonga aims to build social contracts and trust ratings with all its customers, as well as carrying out standard and innovative credit checks. Once their trust rating is fully established, Wonga allows its customers to borrow up to £1,000 at any one time.
We also announced the first funding round of $6m for Quickbridge Ltd (the owner and developer of Wonga.com) by Balderton Capital (formerly Benchmark Capital Europe).
Read some of the blogs referring to the announcement here: mashable, e-consultancy, venturebeat and P2P Banking

Daylife raises its Series A in London

Upendra Shardanand's Daylife in which TAG was the largest seed investor back in July 2005, has raised $8m from Balderton Capital (previously Benchmark) and Arts Alliance.
See FT.com's coverage.
The company's news aggregation tool, which sits on partners' websites, allows customers to search for a term and see results from articles, blog comments, pictures and other online sources displayed similarly to a newspaper front page rather than the results lists favoured by Google and other search engines.

This round brings the amount raised for Daylife to around $11m.

Ynon Kreiz of Balderton and Adam Valkin of Arts Alliance said the group had sought European financing because it was a global business with customers on both sides of the Atlantic.

From the outset, Upe and his team have determinedly positioned Daylife as global with its news gathered from every corner of the world and seeing it from every angle.

Upendra was one of the founders of Firefly, an early online community site and recommendation engine sold to Microsoft in 1998.

Can Getty do for music what it does for images?

Getty Images are going to start making a real difference to the way in which film, TV and web creatives source their music in future.
In our multimedia world with digital content being becoming richer all the time and being distibuted across so many platforms, Getty has made what looks like a profound strategic move. They announced the acquisition of Pump Audio last week for around $42m.
For years, Pump Audio has been providing major media companies such as MTV, NBC, CBS and the BBC with a proven, legal way to access great independent music for their commercial productions.
Getty will help Pump make this same licensing solution directly available to everyone.
Getty Images now has a platform that allows customers to license pre- cleared, original professional quality music to enhance their broadcast, film, video, advertising and online projects. The music will, over time, be integrated into the various web sites of Getty Images, as well as being made available by the sales force of Getty Images.
"Getty Images has powered the forward momentum of the visual content industry over the past 12 years, delivering most of the major innovations and bringing new opportunities to our partners and customers. Today there is wide agreement in the music industry that the market for commercial music licensing is fragmented, inefficient and confusing, just as the imagery market once was,” said Jonathan Klein, co-founder and CEO of Getty Images. “We are confident that bringing our digital distribution, e-commerce expertise and our customer relationships, as well as our understanding of intellectual property, to the music industry will have a similarly positive impact.”
There have been a series of moves on Getty's part to expand beyond photography and into the digital media sector. Last month, it launched a new division to license video footage and other multimedia content, and over the past few months has made a string of acquisitions, from amateur photography site Scoopt to fast growing photographer driven portals like iStockphoto.

MBE rejected

No sooner had I posted with pride the recognition that Agent Provocateur had received in the award of MBEs to the founders, than Joe Corre decided that he didn't want his. What followed was a tsunami of media coverage the likes of which brands cannot buy.
The entire front page plus page 2 of the Independent plus every other major newspaper plus news at ten on the BBC etc etc. Our press office received dozens of interview requests and emails through the website (most by far supporting Joe's views) came flooding in.

The fact that Serena was delighted to accept hers and that Joe made clear these were his views and not the company's has helped the brand's positioning significantly.
Agent Provocateur's brand is a blend of Joe's anarchism and Serena's style and glamour.

Business and politics don't mix ...come to think of it nothing much mixes well with politics.

AP founders awarded MBEs

What a wonderful tribute to Joe and Serena to be appointed MBEs for their services to fashion in today's honours list.
They started Agent Provocateur in 1994 from a tiny store in Broadwick Street, Soho. "When we began Agent Provocateur we wanted to create this beautiful place that only existed in our imagination. We had always hoped something similar existed somewhere else, but it didn’t."
Rees and Corré introduced their vision of lingerie avoiding the prudery that insists on categorising anything to do with sex as sleazy or smutty. The aim was to create an availability of high quality designer lingerie with creative flair.
TAG invested in 2002 when the company had 4 stores and was about to open in New York.
Today we have 29 stores (20 own stores and 9 franchised) in 13 countries with many more planned.
The website has been named "the world's sexiest site" by Vogue and it is the company's largest single store - outstripping Selfridges London, New York, Las Vegas and the rest.
AP's most recent award was for New Fragrance of the year for Maîtresse given at the Fifi awards in April. The FiFi Awards are put on annually by The Fragrance Foundation to honor the fragrance industry's creative achievements and is considered the 'Oscars' of the fragrance industry.


The couple are supported in the building of the brand by an oustanding management team built up over the last 5 years who are infused with passion for the brand and what it stands for.

Saul on why Europe needs to keep seeding

Saul Klein was one of the speakers at the recent NextWeb conference in Amsterdam. His theme was one that is talked about regularly in the Euro tech venture scene. It co-incided neatly with the LastFm exit helping re-inforce Europe's credentials in enabling the creation of global tech companies
Take a look at Fred Destin's blogpost on the subject.
In addition to the debate, there is a lot of practical action going on. In case you haven't noticed, The Open Coffee Club, started by Saul is now an international phenomenon.
Now established in 50 cities in the world, it was envisaged only 14 weeks ago as a means of stoking the European ecosystem. London alone has 579 members.

Saul's presentation at NextWeb is here.

Moo celebrates one year in MooStyle

It was a party disguised as a product launch - or is it the other way around?
In typical Moo fashion they organised a MeetUp in SF on Tuesday where an "exhibition of cool MOO stuff, loads of freebies, a rockin' DJ and drinks" were available.
to customers, partners, friends and fan of MOO.
Following the success of the moo minicards, the company has launched the Moo NoteCard. This clever bit of paper design is a greetings/note/invitation/ card which can be mailed (16 envelopes provided in the pack of 16 cards) or desk displayed using the folded section.
Of course, the NoteCard can be fully personalised by uploading pictures or graphics from your hard drive or Flickr stream.

Royal Mail benefits from the Web

While email is killing - or has killed - peer to peer letter communication, many web companies seem to be more than making up for the damage.
Amazon has given an enormous boost to the Royal Mail's parcel delivery service but the biggest impact to its letters business has undoubtedly been the on-line DVD rental services.
The Evening Standard's This is London in a piece about film state that "LoveFilm will reportedly soon become the Royal Mail's single biggest client".
Personally, I am a little sceptical of this statement the source of which is not attributed.
Yes, with an estimated 1m discs going to and from LoveFilm (Royal Mail gets paid there and back) each week its pretty good business for Her Majesty's postal service.

No wonder other home delivery services like Deutche Post are eyeing Royal Mail's UK stranglehold.

Royal Mail delivers 84 million items every working day and has a network of 14,376 post offices. Revenue for the year was £9.056 billion, and profits before tax were £312 million.

The Local Globe in action

When Saul coined the name LocalGlobe he showed profound understanding of the web.
We are seeing some really exciting examples of how this all works in practice.

Stardoll [for those unfamiliar, watch eNews on the Stardoll phenomenon], is now available in English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Polish and Hungarian. A look at the Alexa rankings for Stardoll shows how the effort of localising is paying off.
Another great example is TAG's latest announced investment, Netlog.
Netlog is the least known of the social networking giants see LocalGlobe's brief piece on it recently and the press announcement of the Index led round.
Countries where Netlog sites have been established include UK, Spain, Portugal, France, Holland, Belgium, Germany, Italy and Romania and there is a real local flavour to each. You'd expect a user generated site to be so but Netlog have really facilitated this process.

Netlog Facts: 18.1 Million Members
2 Billion Monthly Pageviews
25 Million Unique Monthly Visitors

It will be interesting to see how Imagini evolves since it uses few words and images tend to be fairly universal in their interpretation. Certainly the 2m VisualDNA profiles which Imagini have collected will throw up some interesting national differences.

Little Moo has not started localising but the comment from one of their customers, Dennis Howlett says a lot:
"Along with a certain scepticism that I might not receive the product given I live in the back of beyond.
Imagine my surprise when my Moo cards turned up - exactly on time.
Although Moo is a tiny company, it has reached 143 countries. A perfect example of the Global Microbrand."

In the big Euro/Valley debate the one advantage Europe and London in particular has is its awareness and readiness to internationalise and localise.
Of course localising is not simply a question of translation it often implies local customer service and cultural nuances.
As broadband penetration grows globally, we are truly seeing the WORLDWIDE WEB emerge.
Let me know of other Euro companies really doing a great job at localising...

Interested in eCommerce? Keep an eye on Digivate

A relatively low key part of the TAG portfolio, Digivate is demonstrating clearly that deep domain knowledge wins in the eCommerce agency space. The founders, Lysander, Will and Mark were all schooled in direct-marketing, database analysis, catalogues and merchandising while at Innovations together. They were all involved in Innovations doing the first UK consumer transaction on the web in May 1995.
They left to set up Digivate and built an eCommerce platform using open source technology. This proved to be a great long-term decision. It was tough in the early years to persuade larger clients who wanted IBM or Microsoft platforms. Not today!
Digivate has expanded its offer from Managed eCommerce service to eMarketing in all its manifestations and their deep knowledge of how to get and keep customers and how to drive conversion, analyse email marketing campaigns really does deliver.
Their latest client is the Pier - site by Digivate not yet released.

Their etails newsletter is worth reading if you are interested in eCommerce - they always have interesting observations about what is happening in the US and they watch the multi-channel retail scene closely.
I'm delighted for the team that they are growing so well, are very profitable AND that they are paying their shareholders good dividends!

moveme starts buzzing ...

MoveMe has attracted a lot of media attention recently. This morning's page 3 of the business section of the Sunday Times is just the start of what we are expecting to be some great coverage for the service.
MoveMe has developed a simple to use but comprehensive planning tool for managing house/flat moves.
With databases and prepared letters covering everything from parking permits, utilities, removal companies, credit cards and the dozens of other chores one has to do - this site is a real godsend to people moving home. The testimonials coming in from the users of the site attest to the fact that MoveMe is a really useful web service.

Spotplex - a better Digg?

We at TAG are betting it is. We've made our 4th US investment with our participation in a seed round of Doyon Kim's Spotplex.

The others are: Daylife, Edgeio and Spotrunner.

Spotplex provides internet users with real-time ranking of blog articles based on actual impression count.
In other words, you can find what is the hot news today, this week, or this month in real time at Spotplex. This is not a list of articles people recommended or voted for, but a list of articles read most in a given timeframe.
Bloggers can track and analyze their blog traffic with a simple Spotplex code or widget. Not just how many people visit the blog, they can even find which articles people read most and how many people read them. Whenever an article of the blog is read, it will show up at Spotplex in real-time and get noticed by Spotplex users.

Techcrunch broke the Spotplex story 6 weeks ago and other commentators like Dave Parker at Daily Internet News seem to like the approach that the company has taken which avoids the probelms that Digg has had in relation to 'gaming' site popularity ratings.
To overcome the problem of the posts from large blogs dominating the popularity stakes in the early months, Spotplex have introduced a neat 'relative measure' as well as an absolute.

With Blogging showing no signs of slowing down [BBC have an interesting article on the subject], Spotplex is aiming at a huge market.

Technorati is now tracking more than 60 million blogs, of which it believes around 55% are 'active' - updated at least every three months....and Chinese is now the third most popular language in blogosphere.

Astley Clarke - Luxury Brand of Tomorrow!

The champagne corks were popping down in Notting Hill when Astley Clarke was named one of the luxury 'Brands of Tomorrow'.

Walpole (the British luxury brands association) put together a panel consisting of John Ayton, Chairman of Links of London, Annoushka Ducas, Creative Director of Links, Sarah Elton, former MD of Smythsons, Lucia Van Der Post -luxury commentator and Demetra Pinsent, strategist at McKinsey to create The Walpole Brands of Tomorrow Programme.

This was announced in The Sunday Times this weekend past.

Congratulations to Becca Clarke and team on yet another accolade. The last of which was being named 'on-line shop of the month' by Marie Claire.

Koodos starts taking shape ...

Miriam and her team have really started to get Koodos on the fashion map. Getting the top luxury brands onto Koodos was always going to be a challenge but in the last 3 weeks some really big names have joined and they are now getting loads of inbound enquiries.
Featured on Koodos right now are Gucci, Prada, Chloe etc and great British brands such as Amanda Wakely, Georgine Gooman and the like.

The new Koodos Blog will help provide a point of view on fashion too.

Interestingly, the biggest issue from the consumer's perspective appears to be: "Are these brands genuine?" I guess the prices challenge the idea that they are the real thing and unfortunately conterfeiting in this market is rife.

Koodos has also introduced the notion of the 'private sale' to the UK. Already very popular as a retail format in France, Koodos is pioneering it in the UK.

Look out for some great promotions over the coming week and a site makeover, following early learnings will also be coming soon.