Last night I watched Dragons’ Den, one of my favourite TV shows here in the UK, where entrepreneurs can pitch to 5 investors their business ideas and request investment in return for a percentage of their company.

In the process of finding real talent or potential investment opportunities and for general entertainment value you often see either ridiculous or useless business and product ideas. The dragons all come from different business areas, such as retail, leisure industry, hospitality.  Although one of the investors is meant to have more of a technology background, when it comes to internet ventures, the dragons are slightly overwhelmed.

A couple of years ago Theo Paphitis invested £200k for a 30% return in an affiliate site Gaming Alerts, which I found startling. Amongst the internet industry there was a lot of discussion regarding this outrageous investment. In a later show Gaming Alerts was only mentioned very briefly and it was said that they moved the team of 2 into Theo’s office building, I guess to keep an eye on them and to see where his £200k actually go. I would like to know too!

In last night’s show, Deborah Meaden invested £100k for a 15% stake in the company Mydish.co.uk, a recipe sharing site. Maybe £100k would be a fair investment but the founder of the company already raised £600k investment to date and I truely ask myself what happened to all that money, as the site doesn’t really feature any spectacular functionalities, which would have added up to this kind of money. Otherwise I suspect, that the company owner Carol Savage has been ripped off by her web development company.

Those two examples just really demonstrate to me that those particular investors may lack the necessary know how in the online industry. Although I have to admit that in both instances the pitches were really professional and the people pitching for the investments were really confident and knowlegable. This is certainly an important part contributing to the investors’ decision making process. However, I still believe that  they could have saved themselves a good junk of money if they just stuck to their areas of expertise.

written by Feli \\ tags: dragons den, internet businesses, investments

Regular readers of my blog have probably noticed that I’ve recently started a series of interviews with developers. I am going to continue interviews next with designers and am still looking for more participants.

If you are a designer and would like to receive a mention and a link from my blog, all you need to do is participate!

Requirement is only that you provide one question yourself, which you would like to ask fellow web designers.

The interviews will kick off later in the year, but please get in touch soon, so I all participants have plenty of time to respond.

I look forward to hearing from you.

written by Feli \\ tags: designer interviews, designers, web design

Thanks for everyone’s comments about my recent post about my internet privacy & security issues with my landlady here in Barcelona!  In my last email to Elena I asked her how she wanted to share 1 router with 3 flats (!) whereby she told me a hole would be drilled and a cable from downstairs would be plugged into our router up here. After a few days of silence, she finally got back to me with this:

• 5th Email: Landlady to Feli (me):

Sorry to reply you late, but the truth is that I am very busy with no time to sit in front of the computer! [I see!]

Yes, you are right, exactly like that a Lan cable will be pushed through a hole from downstairs to connect with your router.  It will not happen that the plug will come out, we have it like that in many places and it works well, nobody will knock on your door.  The only thing that may happen is that they phone me and I phone you to make a rerouting.  It is not the entire building, it will be three flats. You will have the rooter and the phone that as you know.
The other option for you is that we take out the rooter from your flat and the phone too, leaving you the connection, but I think that is more convenient for you to have it.
When we will have free the entire building, then we will do a connection always for three flats but with the rooters at the staircase, but in this moment the more convenient thing is to do it like that.
I apologize for any trouble that it make cause you to make the connection but it will be something that not will take long.
I am going to be away from Barcelona during next week and we can organize a day good for everybody, the afternoon to do it.  i do not think it will take you longer than one hour, probably less.
Best regards,
Elena

Aha! Interesting… she does this all the time?

Anyway, I am pretty sure that no-one will move in downstairs for another few months and by then we’ll have hopefully found another place where we can have our own router. What a luxury that would be!

Enjoy your weekend!

written by Feli \\ tags: internet, internet privacy, internet security

I never think about internet security and privacy that much to be honest. But an email conversation with my landlady changed my view on this matter completely.  The situation is just too funny, outrageous and a little bit scary, so I need to share it with you all!

Since my partner and I arrived in Barcelona we have been having quite an interesting time with our landlady. Over the past few months we’ve been living above a building site. The work was meant to be completed in January and we’re already half way through March and I can’t see the works being completed any time soon.

Hence I got in touch with our landlady to enquire about the aforementioned noise, which in turn reminded her to ask for a favour from our end.

I will just copy and past now, thinking about it makes me laugh so hard, I have tears rolling down my cheeks, whilst I am quite astounded how this can be real. I am also going to leave the names in, because the reader audience is mainly English speaking and I just need to keep them in there for effect.

Here it goes.

Internet security, we need no stinking internet privacy

Starring:

1) Landlady: Elena

2) Tenant: Feli

3) The all around handyman: Mr. Salas

4) Internet technician: Carlos Grau

• 1st Email - Landlady to me (Feli):

Hi Felicitas

There will be days with noise and another with less but they are working everyday to be able to finish soonest!.

I wanted to contact you because we would need to go to your flat to make a connection between your rooter and the flats below that will share the connection. Tell us please when it would be convenient to arrange it with Mr. Salas.

We will wait for your news, thanks and regards,

Elena

• 2nd Email - Me (Feli) to Landlady:

Hi Elena,

I’m not quite sure why Mr Salas would need access to our router to give the flats below internet access, surely those flats will have there own landline connections? if there were several people all sharing from the same connection this would make it very slow? or would the speed of the connection be upgraded?

Regards

Felicitas

• 3rd Email – Landlady to Feli (me):

Hi Felicitas,
I hope the noise is getting better.

Mr. Salas has to come to your flat to open a link, passing by the floor to connect the rooter with the flats below.  Then, below they will have their connections.

We would have the technician for the internet, Carlos Grau that would come together with Mr. Salas.  Sr. Salas will make a hole to connect below and Grau will pass the cable and this is it.  No more bother for you.

Regards

Elena

• 4th Email: Feli (me) to landlady:

Hi Elena,

Am I right in thinking from below that a LAN cable will be pushed through a hole from downstairs that will connect to the router sitting in our flat? this doesn’t seem right to me, what if the plug comes out? we would have people knocking on our door asking what has happened to the internet? or if like some days, it just does not work for a few hours? again, we would be responsible for the entire buildings internet? I did own a property in the UK previously so I know this is not the best way to get a whole building hooked up to the internet.

It would make more sense for each of the flats to have there own walled internet connection and own routers to allow for several computers in each flat to be hooked up.

If I have misunderstood what is getting done please clarify.

Regards

Felicitas

Well, what do you think? A little bit dodgy, isn’t it? What about privacy issues, someone savvy could hack into our computers easily. I am not very comfortable with that. Let’s see what the landlady tells us next.

written by Feli \\ tags: internet privacy, internet security, spain