Building Digital Rain
I’ve had this Digital Rain idea in my head for a couple of months. A social business allowing technology and online entrepreneurs to build their businesses. I feel there’s so much missed opportunity out there for the sake of a website and a few hundred/thousand dollars. I came up with this idea that we (I) could help support them with access to technology and business support and mentoring, such that they could help themselves. Not just this idea of a co-working hub, there’s enough of them, but somewhere they could get really experienced support and a structured business programme. Help from people who’ve done it before.
That’s the social side, the commercial and business side supports clients in small and medium-sized businesses with getting to grips with technology, process, training and the inevitable overlap with people. Both as users and as customers. As it would happen, the client pipeline took a sudden influx of proposal requests this week.
I love the logo and design of the new website.Not bad for just over a weeks work. Not a great deal to do with me I should say. All the talent of my better half and her awesome design skills.
We’re looking for interns and partners to help support the sudden influx of clients needing our online and technology services. So take a look at the bottom of the home page for details.
Building Digital Rain Jobs
There’s no real recruitment agencies here in Cambodia. The market operates on a small payment to get the job online and then basically potential candidates e-mail the address at the bottom of the ad. If the client or the candidate gets lucky, the client might get a half-reasonable resume, and the candidate might possibly get a response. They all seem to operate the same way. No surprise then, that finding good technical talent in Cambodia is incredibly hard.
I thought I’s have a go at what has become the norm in the UK and US where an agent goes in the middle, knows the market, and knows the candidate. They do all the leg work and as a consequence, if everything is done well, you get a happy client and a happy candidate that go on to have a lasting career together.
So, Digital Rain jobs has been launched as an idea, and I’m looking for a partner or someone to help on the recruitment and working with businesses side. I’ll concentrate on the technology and help out where possible. If this is you, please get in touch.
Why Roles and Responsibilities are so important
Sometimes when I work in consulting I worry that I’m starting to sound like a cracked record. Stuck saying the same thing over and over again. I’m working with a client who we’ve identified has having communication, responsibility and accountability problems on their projects. Issues spread all over the organisation from Sales to Customer Support. The root cause being that roles and responsibilities haven’t been defined such that everyone knows what they are doing and who they communicate to when things stop going to plan.
Such a simple thing to know who’s doing what and when, letting people know when they have problems and when they are finished. It’s not that simple though as the organisation grows, takes on more customers and the person you used to talk to for this sort of thing has grown into a department on another floor of the building. Growing pains as they call them, and typical of a startup turning into a medium-sized business.
Picking Up Asana again
Used Asana a few years ago before they implemented its new interface. I’m potentially picking this up again for a small client team of 10 people.I really love its’ clean interface, the speed of operation and the fact that its’ so intuitive. So much so that I started using it myself again. Albeit there’s a bit of an overlap in functionality with Insightly – see below. I still like the video though, OK, so I admit I’m just a little bit obsessed with productivity, but I do so wish my day ran like in the video.
Building Businesses and a Sales Pipeline with Insightly
I’m at that envious point where I have many clients wanting the services I deliver. I’m having to manage my own sales pipeline process and make sure I don’t lose any information, fail to follow up and consistently be on top of all the small details that go together in making a potential client feel like they can be completely comfortable with you looking after them.
Rather than put everything in another spreadsheet, a to-do list or Evernote ( even though I love Evernote) I thought I’d give Insightly a try. It’s another great tool with the same zero cost barrier to give it a good try before parting with a long term financial investment. Such a great model.
Anyway, its very early days, and I like it. I have three clients asking for proposals this week. I wonder if it was psychological or if Insightly really did help ? Why not give the trial a go for yourself.
The Inno-Tech Festival, Phnom Penh
… and last but not least visiting the Inno-Tech Festival and meeting more of the local technology suppliers, hackers and entrepreneurs who are growing the technology sector in Cambodia. In general the display booths concentrating on infrastructure and websites. The complimentary Apps developers being ever present in growing numbers.
There were a few surprises with Khmer ‘games’ I use that phrase loosely as Poker is probably not an area I should be promoting given the somewhat unpleasant and unregulated gambling industry here. I guess where there’s demand, supply in whatever form it takes won’t be far behind.
The other surprise being pseudo payment systems and digital wallets. Again this is the ever present need for online payment, a real hurdle for online business here. I didn’t get chance to really dig into the details of the systems involved and if these are still only the half-way solutions. Sadly not all the stands were staffed with those who understood at the technical level. More for me to investigate later.
Then there was the drone. I’ve been interested in one of these for a long time, as a photographer I just love the views that stills and video could never achieve in the past. The inventor in this case trying to solve the need of the Cambodian market at a budget they can afford. I was wondering if that £1000 entry point barrier had been broken. Their ‘large’ model sells for $250 and runs for roughly twenty minutes. A battery costing $60. The camera is an extra, but given my still unused cheap Chinese Go-Pro copy lying as yet unused I think I could finally have a partner for it. They launch next week, and have a stall at the market not far from where I live. Definitely worth a second look.