Why we all love Wonga ... all who know it that is.

Image via CrunchBase

Wonga.com (Wonga = English slang for cash) is a web phenomenon. It started offering small cash loans on the web 2.5 years ago, setting out to solve an important and pressing need that many have for emergency or instant cash in a very simple, clear, open WYSIWYG way - in fact, in a way which is entirely culturally compatible with the internet.

The regulations surrounding financial services are quite correctly stringent but have evolved for a very different era. They require all loans to be expressed as an effective APR (Annual Percentage Rate)  - even if the loan is for 14 days - or 7 or 30.
It also includes any application fee (Bank's generally call these 'arrangement fees' - in commercial lending) and transmissions fee (for same day - or in Wonga's case, instant transfer) to be included as interest within the APR.

An example. if you borrowed £100 to tide you over for 14 days, you'd pay back £120. Wonga charges £20 to process the loan, transmit the cash, collect it and take the risk of non-payment - all for £20.
Wonga explains the APR question nicely on its website.

This APR issue has made Wonga a controversial brand - loved by many hundreds of thousands but misunderstood by some - and an easy target for those not ever likely to use the service.

I have gotten used to the visceral reaction of some on the social web to seeing the Wonga TV ads (latest version is below) and the APR in the thousands - but every now and then I notice people from the tech industry rushing for the moral high ground and shouting foul.



Why is Wonga one of the stand out successes of the internet?
[Europe's fastest growing company, according to GP Bullhound's Media Momentum Awards and still growing at around 500%]

• It solves a very real and large problem - not solved elsewhere with the speed, convenience, flexibility and honesty that Wonga does.
• Its customers really love it!  With a NPS of around 79, there are very few brands that match it. I have been involved closely with some brands that elicited great loyalty and affection from its customers - none quite like this. 90% of respondents who had used another lender agreed that Wonga was a better service (30% ‘better’ and 60% ‘significantly better’).
• The product is backed up by a determined customer service ethos which strives to be open, responsive and flexible to the needs of the customers - via a multitude of channels. 
• Lending decisions are made in real time referencing over 3500 data points and analysed in Wonga's proprietary risk engine.
• The technology which makes all this possible is world class.

Little known facts about Wonga.

• To be a customer of Wonga, you need to have a bank account.
• 99.7% of Wonga's customers own a mobile phone. 
• 17% own an iPhone
• Wonga sponsors Blackpool FC in the Premier League

Errol Damelin, Jonty Hurwitz and the team at Wonga are building a business to be proud of. I, for one am proud to be its Chairman.

Image by Wonga.com via CrunchBase

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TAG and Index get together to drive Seed investing.

Image via CrunchBase

The ecosystem has been alive with reams written about how active angels are becoming, how VCs have gotten too large, how companies need less cash and how the VC model is broken. And of course, there is the perennial complaint about the lack of early stage capital in Europe. [see links to some related articles below]


A number of the large US VC firms have made special arrangements or adjustments to their models, their PR or have re-emphasised their commitment to early stage and start-up investment.


Sequoia invested in or with YCombinator, Reid Hoffman joined Greylock, Andreessen Horowitz has been launched promising low friction, multiple investments in amounts ranging from $50K to $50m. They appear to have done 12 investments since August last year including 4 seed investments.


Super early stage investors with relatively modest fund sizes have emerged in the US - like First Round Capital, Union Square Ventures, True Ventures as have new institutional seed guys like Mike Maples and Jeff Clavier along with super angels -Aydin Senkut , Chris Dixon and the like.
Betaworks are building a different kind of incubator/investment company.


Whilst this is going on, we've seen very little from Europe's top tier-VCs.


Until now.


Index and The Accelerator Group (TAG) have announced a plan to directly address this opportunity.


Index will create Index Seed. In some ways similar to Index Growth which was announced in January 2008, Index Seed will benefit from clear focus, application of appropriate resources and a discreet pool of capital.


Index has invested continuously in seed since 1996 so this is no new space for them - on the contrary they are arguably the best tech seed investors in Europe. Inevitably, however, as the firm grew, the proportion of pure seed deals fell and with it the misconception grew that many deals were simply too small.


This will no longer be the case.
I will join Index as a venture partner - helping to lead the Seed investment activity together with Saul and with the support of Neil Rimer, Mike Volpi and Danny Rimer, (all partners in Index Ventures).


We will aim to make around 20 investments in the coming 24 months - with initial amounts from $50K to $1m. As TAG has done for many years, we will seek to invest alongside 'fellow travellers' - people with whom we have been investing for a number of years and the growing band of active angels in Europe and the US.


TAG will have co-investment rights in all seed deals but will have the freedom to invest on its own if circumstances dictate.


Some History:


Saul and Danny worked together first in 1995 in the US, while Saul was at Firefly & Microsoft and Danny was at H&Q (JP Morgan) and the Barksdale Group. As TAG, we worked with Index first in 2003 when they led the first institutional round of investment in our own startup, Video Island.....(which then acquired ScreenSelect, merged with LoveFilm)


We are co-investors in 14 companies (including Moo, My Heritage, Glasses Direct, OpenX, Stardoll, Moshi Monsters and LoveFilm). The introduction to these companies has been both ways - TAG's introduction to Index and sometimes Index inviting TAG's participation.


We know each other well and there is a congruency of purpose and values.


Despite this closeness, TAG has successfully worked, over many years with many other VCs such as Accel, Advent, Atlas, Balderton, Eden, Greylock, Octopus and Betaworks. Some of TAGs most successful investments like Wonga, Fizzback and Zoopla - as well as some emerging companies like Graze, MyBuilder, Bit.ly, Tweetdeck and FreeAgent - were made with these VCs and others.


A guiding principle for us has been that we never forget that we back entrepreneurs - the business is theirs and we are part of the support team - like their other team members. How much money? from whom? and when? is very much a team decision.


So, TAG will remain independent and Index Seed will seek to actively co-invest with 'fellow travellers' - large and small - at early stage.


There has never been a better time for technology Entrepreneurs.


It is thrilling for me to work closely with young, smart people who are - in many cases - genuinely changing the way in which people live or businesses work.


The leadership Index is demonstrating with its commitment to Seed and the eco-system in Europe and beyond is very significant and I am hoping its impact will extend far and wide.


Looking forward to hearing your views, comments, questions and will post again in week or so to expand on any topics.


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For those unfamiliar with the TAG details - a short summary:


The Accelerator Group (TAG) is the father and son investment team of Robin (@robinklein) and Saul (@cape) Klein, which last year was recognized at Techcrunch Europa's as European investor of the year (http://bit.ly/2lhP3J ). TAG has actively invested seed capital in over 60 ambitious entrepreneurs with global ambitions in the last 12 years.


Some of TAG's 10 exits include Agent Provocateur (3i), Sit Up TV (Virgin Media), Lastminute.com (IPO), Last.fm (CBS) and Dopplr (Nokia) where we've had the pleasure to work with great European founders like Brent Hoberman, Felix Miller, Martin Stiksel, RJ, Marko Ahtisaari, Matt Jones & Biddulph, John Egan and Ashley Faull, Joe Corre and Serena Rees as well as superb seed investors like Stefan Glaenzer, Reid Hoffman, Joi Ito, Esther Dyson and Martin Varsavsky.


TAG currently has 44 active investments with some of Europe and the US top investors, including:


• Lovefilm (Index, Balderton)
• Stardoll (Index, Klaus Hommels)
• Moshi Monsters (Index, Accel)
• Moo (Index, Atlas)
• Fizzback (Advent, Sherry Coutu)
• Zoopla (Atlas, William Reeve, Alex Chesterman, Simon Murdoch and Sherry Coutu)
• Songkick (Jeff Clavier, Index, Stefan Glaenzer, Alex Zubliaga and Betaworks)
• Wonga (Balderton, Accel, Greylock)
• Tweetdeck (Betaworks, Ron Conway, ProFounders)
• Twitterfeed (Betaworks)
• Bit.ly (Betaworks, O'Reilly Alpha Tech)
• Erply (Redpoint, Index, Dave McClure, Aydin Senkut)
• Mashery (First Round Capital)
• Slideshare (Ariel Poler, Dave McClure)
• Amee (Union Square, O'Reilly Alpha Tech, Toby Coppel, George Coehlo, Amadeus)
• Graze (William Reeve, Octopus)


We've had a particularly strong relationship over the years with Index, doing more than a dozen deals starting from Lovefilm in 2003 and including Moshi Monsters, Stardoll, Moo, Songkick, GlassesDirect, OpenX, Netlog, MyHeritage, AstleyClarke. In some of these cases, TAG and Index co-seeded the company.


Saul founded Seedcamp 2007 and TAG has been active in supporting Seedcamp ever since, in addition to investing directly in Seedcamp teams like Zemanta, MyBuilder, Skimlinks and Erply. We have also actively invested in YCombinator companies for several years - companies such as Songkick, Habit Stream and WebMynd.

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• Major coup for Seedcamp winner, ERPLY (the-accelerator.blogspot.com)
• TAG Investment stats (the-accelerator.blogspot.com)
• Seedsummit - network for active seed investors (localglobe.blogspot.com)

FreeAgent powers ahead with Iris

Image via CrunchBase

FreeAgent Central, has agreed a strategic partnership with Iris, the UK’s largest private software house, opening up the significant accounting practice market to their award-winning online accounting software ‘FreeAgent’ and positioning the company for rapid growth.

Iris, which supplies software to over 60,000 business customers, currently dominates the accountancy practice software market with over 14,000 practice customers (a market share of around 50%).

Iris is a software giant in the UK backed by Hellman and Friedman the private equity house that took Getty Images private in 2008.

CEO Martin Leuw has been building IRIS into an exceptional business with revenues of £120m and profits of £40m in 2009. Their strategy has been to focus on sectors which they serve really well with appropriate products.

Its a real endorsement and validation for what Ed Molyneux and Roan Lavery, the founders and the team have built at FreeAgent that Iris selected them to partner and invest in.

Iris is also investing investing in FreeAgent, acquiring a minority stake and Phill Robinson, Iris’s Accounting Practice Solutions’ Managing Director, is joining FreeAgent Central’s board. 

Phill, well known in web circles, was formerly Chief Operating Officer and Chief Marketing Officer - Sales and Distribution at Salesforce.com and will be invaluable to FreeAgent Central as it looks to continue its rapid growth both in the UK and internationally. 

This is an important milestone for FreeAgent Central and will bring online accounting to the mainstream of the accounting practice software market. Accountants have a unique opportunity to help small businesses thrive, and FreeAgent will help them that to do that even more effectively by connecting them live to their clients’ accounting data. 

Users of FreeAgent become passionate advocates within days of starting to use the service and the FreeAgent team is  planning to build some powerful analysis tools for Iris’s practice customers too.
The FreeAgent product has been getting rave reviews for some time. This distribution deal will empower many more freelancers.

Existing investors, including The Accelerator Group and serial angel investor Christoph Janz, also participated in the investment round.

Major coup for Seedcamp winner, ERPLY

Investors in Seedcamp were universally impressed with Erply during Seedcamp week in London last September and then again during 'demo day' and 'investor day' at the end of 2009.

They were exposed again to 50 or so seed investors at SeedSummit in December 2009.

Now, following a visit that 10 of the Seedcamp finalists made to the US, Redpoint and Index have led a funding round which puts the business software start-up from Estonia firmly on the map.

This is an exciting development for Seedcamp and Erply.

For Seedcamp, this is an endorsement of its ability to find high potential companies and provide them with a global platform.

For Erply this round is a recognition of the strength of the product that Kris and his team have developed.

Also read: http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/22/erply-the-next-skype-of-business-software/

The press release follows:

 

Erply attracts funding from top tier investors for disruptive business software technology

Press Release: London & Tallinn, 23 March 2010 – Seedcamp winner Erply raises $2million from top tier US and European venture capitalists and angels in a Series A round.

Business software startup Erply today announced the closing of a $2 million funding round from Redpoint, Index Ventures and prominent entrepreneurs and angel investors Marten Mickos (former CEO of MySQL), Kenny van Zant (SVP & Chief Product Strategist at SolarWinds), Zack Urlocker (former EVP Products at MySQL), Aydin Senkut, Dave McClure and The Accelerator Group. The funding will be used to expand Erply’s customer base in key European markets and its upcoming expansion into the US. Satish Dharmaraj of Redpoint and Index Ventures partner Saul Klein will both join Erply’s Board of Directors.
 

The company, led by CEO Kris Hiiemaa, was founded in 2009 in Estonia by four experienced business software developers. Since winning Seedcamp in 2009, Erply has already seen rapid growth in new customers. Erply is revenue generating, profitable and has attracted a wide variety of customers, including car dealerships, toy shops and restaurants. 

Erply’s easy-to-use business software that enables companies to perform every business function, including bookkeeping, customer relationship management and stock control. Erply is built on the latest web technologies, so it is as powerful and secure as any business software on the market. As a result, small businesses can easily integrate Erply and rapidly scale-up their operations.

While the USD $39 billion market for comparable business software is currently dominated by major players like SAP, Microsoft Dynamics and Oracle, their offerings are too costly and complex for the majority of small businesses. In contrast, Erply’s business software is available for a small fraction of its competitors’ and an average €55 monthly subscription fee is a more cost-effective option for small businesses. Erply is additionally well-positioned for success: where its competitors’ market is limited to tens of thousands of big businesses, Erply has a potential market of 45 million small businesses in Europe and the US alone.

Erply co-founder Kris Hiiemaa believes Erply’s new investors’ experience will prove pivotal to building on the company’s impressive start: “The main value in this funding round is in the enormous insight, experience and expertise our investors bring to Erply. Individually, each VC and angel has an incredible track record of identifying cutting-edge tech startups with fast-growth potential and helping them flourish. It’s a very exciting time for us.” 

Redpoint partner and Zimbra co-founder Satish Dharmaraj: “Erply is to ERP what Zimbra was to email and collaboration. Having seen how rapidly Zimbra replaced Exchange and Outlook as an email solution for businesses for all sizes, I see promising synergies in the game change that Erply is set to do, and I’m thrilled to be involved with Erply.” 

Former MySQL CEO Marten Mickos: “Similar to how MySQL made databases affordable for businesses all over the world, customers are already adopting Erply and recognising it as a great solution for their business software needs.”

Index Ventures’ Saul Klein: “Having seen at first hand the effect that Skype’s simplicity and pricing had on the telecoms industry, I’m delighted to support Erply as they try to do for business software what Skype did for telecoms.”

Erply Background Information
Erply (http://www.erply.com) was launched in Tallinn in 2009 by four Estonian software developers.

The company is incorporated in the UK and has its headquarters in Tallinn. Since winning Seedcamp London in September 2009, Erply has grown rapidly and now is generating revenue and is profitable.

Erply gives companies the ability to manage their business (including critical data and operations, inventory, stock control and accounting) in one easy-to-use package.

Erply is already available in seven languages and is fully customised for each geographic location’s particular tax laws.

Erply has four monthly subscription options, ranging from a basic free version to a fully-functional Premium account which costs €99 per month.

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Europe needs to learn to play nicely

Saul's latest inspiration to European entrepreneurs.

Europe needs to learn to play nicely

View more presentations from cape.

Skimkit is a major advance for publishers

Newspapers and other media have long felt that they have gone unrewarded for the enormous boost that their reviews of  product give to sales levels. A mention from an influential journalist or reviewer can shoot a book into the best seller list or a product into orbit.
Of course, writers need to be completely impartial when reviewing products and those journalists who are not, are very easily found out and no self-respecting editor would allow such bias - readers would leave in droves. The best reviewers are independent, even handed impartial - that does not mean that their publishers should not be rewarded for referencing the product or retailer in question.

In order to provide a real service to readers, a good reviewer should offer a link to the retailer or manufacturer, enabling the reader to buy directly.

Now publishers can do all of this with ease AND earn a referral commission - resulting in a win/win/win for the reader, medium and retailer.
All this happens in the background, without the journalist or the publisher getting involved in any of the grubby business of affiliate commissions. Retailers pay Skimlinks the affiliate commission and Skimlinks shares this with the publisher.
Skimlinks currently covers 23 different affiliate networks, 7500 merchants and over 100,000 products.

Finding a product and its deep link is really simple.
Whether the writer is doing a piece on 'the top ten red coats under £100', accessing a list of retailers that stock the Plasma TV they're reviewing, or reviewing the latest discount offer from their favourite skincare brand, Skimkit finds the products and produces the links to take the readers directly to the relevant products on the retailers website.
Skimlinks takes care of the all the commercials.

Skimlinks new tool, Skimkit is a significant advance. It changes little in the writing process and is extremely simple to use.
I expect Skimlinks growth to continue to accelerate with this initiative.

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What's happening at Netflix?

Image via Wikipedia

You'd expect me to follow Netflix closely - and indeed they have always been a beacon of the on-line revolution. Disrupting the established methods of distributing movies to consumers in a significant way - leading to the inevitable demise of Blockbuster (once the brief on-line battle had been won) their dedication to great customer service has been a constant theme.

Our own founding of Video Island - later to become LoveFilm after a series of mergers - has meant a more intensive tracking than normal of a much admired business. Listening to Reed Hastings, Netflix, outstanding founder and CEO and comparing his metrics with our own every quarter has been an education.
The Netflix stock-price has always suffered the overhang of those who believe that the DVD's days are numbered and that digital streamed delivery would render Netflix's obsolete or at least would open up significant more competition than it has experienced hitherto.
Netflix has consistently come up with the answers - first by explaining that DVDs would be around for a lot longer than people thought - then by offering streamed movies themselves and agreeing that DVDs would indeed die at some point not too far in the future. Mostly however, Netflix has delivered results. Consistently meeting and beating the street's forecasts.
After music, then books, newspapers and magazines, movies are bound to be the next digital 'goods' to be widely distributed over the new platforms.
So, is Netflix in a very vulnerable position? Or is it perfectly placed, with a fiscal relationship with 12m subscribers who pay them each month. Its relationship with the movie studios - who will ultimately decide how and when their product is distributed is clearly another factor.
There are a handful of digital companies (outside of the main utilities) with such a close, regular and continuing  transactional relationship. Netflix is a more than a "DVD by post" business, they are an entertainment distribution platform.

Is this realisation behind the recent exceptional surge in the Netflix share price? It has trebled in the past year despite the continuing stream of news heralding new competitors. Walmart's acquisition of on-line movie service, Vudu is the latest. Hulu, Apple, YouTube, BestBuy the list is long and powerful.
The battle for movies will start soon.

Not even Reed Hastings sale of 10,000 shares last week has dented its apparent strength.

For all Facebook and Google's power, neither of them has a direct financial relationship with consumers. Though clearly they will move in that direction.

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Beware the band of Angels

There used to be a commonly held concern of entrepreneurs that taking investment funds from an angel investor, came with it a large dose of interference - not necessarily of the constructive kind.
After all, most angels are successful people, who made their money building or running businesses - not necessarily of the type that the entrepreneur was engaged in - and their keeness to assist often verged on intervention.

Current conventional wisdom is that entrepreneurs should strive to obtain 'smart money' - cash that comes with strong, in-depth knowledge of early stage, start-ups; an extensive rolodex; loads of management and recruiting expertise.

It hard to disagree with this although I have observed that having lots of 'smart money' in the project sometimes almost equates to having dumb money!

How so? Well, if a syndicate is put together of a collection of angels - a band of angels - unless there is a lead angel ie someone who takes responsibility for pulling the syndicate together, for staying close to the entrepreneur throughout, then the company may land up with the worst of all worlds.
The investment that each angel makes is often of little consequence to them, they take no 'ownership', get involved very occassionally and peripherally and if asked to advise they are seldom close enough to the situation to give really good advice.
Everyone gets that warm, comfortable feeling that they are co-investing with the great and the good of the eco-system, whereas in fact no-one really 'owns' the investment. No-one has the necessary unwritten but clearly articulated 'contract' with the entrepreneur that they will be their 'partner' in the venture.

Looking back on some of our failed investments, a few fall into this category.

Nowadays, if I'm asked to join a syndicate - "we're raising $1m and only need $200K - would be great to have you guys involved - I've heard how much value you add ...etc..." some of the questions I ask are: "who's the lead investor? Is he or she joining the board? How much time is he/she planning to spend? Are they being properly compensated for this time/effort?"

We are firm believers that choosing your investors is a fundamentally important decision to make. That they really do make a difference. Its not just quality that counts but the committment and willingness for that quality to be applied.
In the end, its hearts and minds that matter - not just cash and share certificates.

Wonga puts its head above the parapet

Wonga set out to fundamentally change the way in which short term credit was accessed by borrowers. Although never articulated, it aspires to go much much further by using technology to radically alter a raft of financial services - putting control in the hands of consumers.
Banks have never been well regarded by their customers - long before they were ever seen as the villains in the credit crunch.
They have been seen as impersonal, heavy handed, slow and cumbersome.

The opportunity surely exists for a whole new approach to banking and financial services.
Clearly, Virgin in the UK are seeing this - as are many others.

Payday lending, doorstep lending and similar short term services have existed for some time. Wonga decided to start there - believing that there was an ethical, customer friendly and efficient way of tackling this market. People will always have the need for short term cash to deal with unexpected bills, unintended overspends - or shortfalls in income.

The vision was simple and clear - the execution anything but.
Applications for loans would be processed in in real time by a sophisticated risk engine - using thousands of data points, applicants identity would be verified - again in real time - by the triangulation of data. All this would happen 24x7x365 and funds transferred into the customer's bank account within the hour.

Wonga has  now processed over 100,000 loans - accepting about 20% of new applications.
Customers love the service and Wonga has the highest NPS (Net Promoter Score) - which it constantly monitors of any company with which I have been associated.

Of course, the interest charged for this service was always going to be controversial. There is no way around having to prominently display a typical APR of 2689%. The law requires it.
APR is a measure intended to 'normalise' loans so that rates can be compared. Of course, it is an absurd measure for loans intended for repayment in no more than 30 days - just as quoting a cab ride as £x per mile would be.
Wonga decided that one of its fundamental principles was transparency, openness and simplicity. Therefore what was most important was showing exactly how much has to be repaid for any variation of loan.
For example, borrowing £100 for 12 days will cost £17.99. Not cheap, but clear.

The alternative of taking the money from your bank - in the form of an unauthorised overdraft typically costs a lot more and has been the subject of protracted legal challenges (which the banks have won).

Knowing that once Wonga became a significant player in this market, that it would be controversial, they decided to 'go public' with their iPhone application - a really neat and simple app which, true to its mission, puts the control, ease, accessibility of the service in the hands of consumers.

Wonga has managed to do what no other company has been able to in the world of short term loans and the worlds media have recognised this. CNN, BBC, Sky and the rest have all recognised the significance of this company. [See below]
The APR will continue to polarise opinion and provoke those who feel that credit is itself undesirable - meanwhile Wonga will continue to dedicate itself to great customer service and will continue to innovate in the financial services space.
Congratulations to Errol, Jonty and the awesome team at Wonga!

BBC Evening News .. http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/ondemand/london/realmedia/news/londontv?nbram=1&lang=en&nbwm=1&ms3=2&ms_javascript=true&bbcws=1&size=16x9&amp=bbwm&C0C0C0=amp

CNN global news (several runs) – http://money.cnn.com/video/news/2010/01/15/n_iphone_app_street_credit_loan.cnnmoney/

Sky News – no sign of the video online as yet, but may appear here, in the Unplugged section -http://news.sky.com/skynews/video

ThisIsMoney – http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/credit-and-loans/article.html?in_article_id=497563&in_page_id=9&in_page_id=9&expand=true

Daily Mail online – http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/article-1243435/Need-wonga-New-loan-company-launches-iPhone-credit-app--MASSIVE-rates.html

MSN Money blog – http://msnukmoney.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!41A6172A045E17E2!1759.entry

Moneysavingexpert (part of  news round-up) – http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/loans/2010/01/loan-sharks-leaving-victims-in-debt-all-year

PocketLint (influential gadget blog) – http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/30851/wonga-iphone-loan-app-launches

UnWired - http://www.unwiredview.com/2010/01/15/wonga-iphone-app-lets-you-borrow-money-wirelessly-in-the-uk/

Mobile News - http://www.mobilenewscwp.co.uk/News/398696/first_iphone_credit_app_launched.html

PMP Today blog - http://www.pmptoday.com/2010/01/15/iphone-wonga-app-borrow-money-wirelessly-in-the-uk/

PayDayPundit blog (US) - http://paydaypundit.org/2010/01/15/wonga-thinks-big/

Marthees.com blog - http://marthees.com/2010/01/iphone-wonga-app-borrow-money-wirelessly-in-the-uk/

Apple iPhone Geek blog - http://appleiphonegeek.info/need-some-wonga-new-loan-company-launches-iphone-credit-app-with-3000-nterest-rates-daily-mail/

iPhone News Site blog - http://www.iphonenewssite.com/need-some-wonga-new-loan-company-launches-iphone-credit-app-with-3000-nterest-rates-daily-mail/

Gadget Blips blog - http://gadgetblips.dailyradar.com/story/wonga-iphone-app-lets-you-borrow-money-wirelessly-in/

TechCrunch US article from the night before - http://www.techcrunch.com/2010/01/14/is-the-internet-finally-robbing-the-greedy-financier%E2%80%99s-gravy-train/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29

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Start-Up Nation - a great read.

I have just finished reading Start-Up Nation a new book by Dan Senor and Saul Singer....thanks Saul and family (Klein).

It is a fascinating read with clear messages for anyone interesting in entrepreneurship, anyone who is fascinated by the way in which innovation can drive economic success and particularly to those of us with a profound belief that technological innovation is one of the essential planks for recovering economies.

Israel has stood out among advanced economies as a place where the crisis hit softer, and may have passed quicker, than almost anywhere else. Israel's economic growth has not been based on easy credit or a real estate boom, but on the technology-driven productivity gains that many believe is key to sustained economic growth.

All this has taken place in a tiny little country, with no natural resources - other than its people.

The authors put forward a number of theories for why it should be that Israel - a country of 7.1 million, only 60 years old, surrounded by enemies, in a constant state of war since its founding — produces more start-up companies than large, peaceful, and stable nations like Japan, China, India, Korea, Canada, and the UK. How is it that Israel has, per person, attracted over twice as much venture capital investment as the US and thirty times more than Europe?

Israel has more companies on NASDAQ than any country outside the US – more than all of Europe, India, and China combined. Nor is Israeli innovation limited to computers, security and communications; Israel leads the world in medical device patents and is a global player in cleantech and biotech.

The book explores elements of Israeli culture: the determination, persistence, the questioning and challenging of authority - which have led, in part, to this phenomenon. The intersection of scientific exploration and the military imperatives are also thoroughly analysed.

Full of interesting facts and fascinating anecdotes, Start-Up Nation sometimes reads like a pitch for investment in Israel.

For us, in the UK and the rest of Europe, there are some clear lessons. Tolerance of and active learning from failure (Israel has more failed start-ups than elsewhere, too) is something we are seeing more of in the UK. Thinking global from day one, challenging accepted modes of doing things are a couple of other aspects of the approach which we could readily adopt.

Another major ingredient of Israel's start-up culture is openness to new immigrants, who are natural risk takers. Israel is home to some 70 different nationalities, including Jewish refugees from Russia, Ethiopia, Iran, Ukraine and Poland - and the Israeli government has implemented unique policies to assimilate them. Two out of every three Israelis are newcomers or the children of immigrants.

Encouragingly for the UK, the ease with which London, in particular, absorbs and makes welcome immigrants is helping to turn it into a European centre for entrepreneurship.

One gets the sense, reading this book, that we may just be at the beginning of the start-up phenomenon. Lets hope so.