ADEREMI'S NOTEBOOK

VC links 22/05/05 (0)

I started taking an interest in Venture Capital industry recently and amazing a few individuals in the industry do have blogs who offer insights on how things operate.

• How to become a venture capitalist
• Turning Biotech Science into Companies
• Why so many VC blogs?

The Destiny fulfilled… and lovin’ it tour (1)

Somehow I got my hands on 2 front row seats (Block A1, row M) for the Destiny’s Child’s The Destiny fulfilled… and lovin’ it tour at Earl Court on the 3rd June 2005. You can bid for the 2 tickets on ebay.

Wedding and Name changes (3)

Earlier in the week, I posted about diamond rings, this thime it is about wedding and name changes. Over at Metafilter [via Kottke], there is an ongoing coversation about name changes after wedding. It is interesting that over 80% of the comments supported not changing the wife’s surname to her husband’s. I always thought that a compound name would be cool but my wife not taking my name, I am not sure I will be too pleased. I will probably get over it but c’mon Mr and Mrs MyName sounds better than Mr Myname and Mrs Hername.

Another 15% said that the male kids will get the father’s name and female kids will get the mother’s name. That is not just unacceptable.

If you happen to marry spainish person, the name change will be even more interesting.

Am I being old fashioned here? I was slightly comforted by this comment.

Francis Bacon Said (3)

There is a difference between happiness and wisdom: he that thinks himself the happiest man is really so; but he that thinks himself the wisest is generally the greatest fool.
- Francis Bacon

Amazon Diamonds (2)

I was once a diamond advisor, well at least I was told. I was one of those people who you came to see when you wanted to get married or engaged. My aim was to make sure that your (future) wife got the most expensive ring you could afford (not the most expensive ring we had!).

I am no longer in that line of work and seeing the amazon’s diamond search tool (it uses AJAX, which I am yet to understand) made me wonder how long could jewellery retailers continue to survive on the high street. The search tool has everything you require to make a decision (the 4Cs) to purchase diamonds but the user experience was minimal - no diamond to hold and feel. I can confidently say that jewellery retailers are here to stay because most people I know prefer to see the diamond in its entirety before making payment. Maybe cheaper diamonds will be purchased online but expensive (break my pocket type) will still have a place on high street for some time to come.

— Cinema returns to Lagos;worth sharing #

Should I Finance My Business? (8)

I came across an interesting article by Kayode Muyibi on “Should I Finance My Business?” and I felt the need to post a comment, which eventually got too long and turned into this post.

I think the decision to get funding from external sources (e.g VC) depends on the idea and scale of the business. At times it is difficult to get a Venture Capitalist (VC) to give up a minute of their time if you require less £500,000. External funding means you have to give up part of ownership of the company, which will be diluted every time you go back and raise more cash. Sharing profit is not the problem as it is unlikely that you will make any profit in the first couples of years of the business running. Giving up close to 50% of one’s business can be painful because you require funding - so it is better to find friends, family or speak to a bank manager if the funding required is small. All this is not without risk. This means that getting funding between £100,000 and £500,000 is problematic for any start-up firm. It goes without saying that founder should be prepared to invest his/her money in the business – it shows commitment. Business plans and ideas are great but their execution is all the matters.

In fact in multinational companies, the procedure is to finance new ventures through existing cash flows followed by using external debt then issuing equity. (pecking order).

Of course start-ups in Africa particularly Nigeria carry additional risks like scam risks, I think these risks are sometimes perceived since conditions are improving but nevertheless enough to scare any Venture Capitalist or Private Equity firm. The statistics are compelling for example, less than $2 billion of the $325 billion U.S. private-equity market is devoted to Africa according to Charles H. Allison, Jr., senior investment officer at the F. B. Heron Foundation [source]. This he says can be attributed to Africa lacking “must-have conditions for investing in an emerging market”.

Quote of the Week (0)

Did you hear about the two antennae that got married? The wedding wasn’t much but the reception was great.

Music Blogs (0)

Everyday I find that the need to download music from p2p decreases due to the amount of quality online radio stations, however the recent increase in the number of music blog has also provided an opportunity to listen to new and old music alike without worrying about some music authority coming around to Lewisham. Ofcourse the right thing to do after listening to the music, if you do like it is buy it to show your support to the artist. You could imagine my joy when I found Tofuhut ’s long list of MP3 weblogs arranged alphabetically by genre.

A quick look and I found two interesting blogs; honeysoul (also has some radioblogs which includes Maxwell, Dwele, Erykah Badu, Raheem Devaughn and complied jazz collections) and Quietfm.

Often the catch with most of these sites is that the music is only available for a week or so from date of upload.

— The Future of Dotcom Imitators in Africa; Second Mover’s Advantage? #