Tim Calder

Storer Check balances storers’ privacy with the need for secure and profitable storage facilities.

Storer Check has been established for the sole purpose of maintaining a database for the identification and collection of information about problem storers. Storers who have defaulted on their storage agreements, storers who miss payments, storers who abandon goods, storers who threaten staff and other problem storers are able to be listed with Storer Check.

We have been fortunate at EZY STOR Self Storage to date as we have had very few bad storers. Storer Check has been an initiative of the Self Storage Association of Australasia and is included in our annual membership charge. As we expand at EZY STOR Self Storage this online software will help us keep away those storers that cause nothing but trouble and allow us to focus attention on our valued customers.

Well known Web Entrepreneurs Steve Adams, Tim Norton, John Clegg and Patrick MacFie have just launched the new website ‘Made from New Zealand‘.

The project aims to increase traffic to members’ websites, make them easier to find on search engines and help like-minded businesses to get in touch. The site was kickstarted last night with a television campaign, sponsored by Telecom. (By Jacqueline Smith, NZ Herald)

Steve Adams saw the opportunity to link the thousands of Kiwi businesses with websites through a stronger online “eco-system”. The website provides up to date links to the Latest Businesses, Top Contributors, Popular Businesses, and Popular Networks.

Keep an eye out for The Distiller’s debut on the Popular Network links, as our group plans to put Dunedin on the map as a strong base to take your web business global.

Last week I met with Pierre-Em and Jason over drink at South Bar to catchup with how our ventures are progressing. Pierre-Em is the co-founder of G-tours which is developing a cross platform software solution that combines GPS technology and data management on mobile devices for the tourism industry. Jason is the co-founder of PocketSmith which is an online cash flow management system used to help you budget for future purchases/savings goals.

At this meeting we talked about forming an ICT network of young entrepreneurs around Dunedin who would meet regularly to discuss our highs & lows, successes & challenges. We would also use this opportunty to allow people to network with other companies in related industries and to listen to guest speakers and angel investors. This would also provide people like us with a chance to discuss the support they require as many new business ventures are not aware of what organisations can help them.

One of the main objectives of forming this group would be to endeavor to gather together enough like-minded people that have great ICT ideas which need developing so that we can establish New Zealand’s first Y-Combinator which we would call The Distiller.

Y Combinator is a new kind of venture firm specializing in funding early stage startups. We help startups through what is for many the hardest step, from idea to company.

We invest mostly in software and web services. And because we are ourselves technology people, we prefer groups with a lot of technical depth. We care more about how smart you are than how old you are, and more about the quality of your ideas than whether you have a formal business plan.

The Y-Combinator has experienced huge success overseas with a range of great investor ready businesses coming out of incubation regularly. We believe this can be replicated in Dunedin as there is already the key components of this concept in place;

• Kickstart Entrepreneurial support,
• UPSTART Business incubator,
• New Zealand’s most valuable Angel Investor network,
• Otago University’s Centre for Innovation and research,
• and five supportive regional mayors which make up the Otago Forward Economic Development Strategy

In the next few weeks we will be approaching these different organisations and others to try to establish ways that we can all work together to achieve success. At the same time we need to start our regular meetings at the Dunedin Club where we have been allocated conference rooms and more importantly the bar.

EZY STOR Self Storage has reached the stage where we require dedicated storage software. Storman is professional storage software designed to improve the operations of your storage facility by keeping better track of your customers account details, tracking customers in’s and out’s, and by producing several detailed facility/business reports. We have tried the demo and have looked at other software packages on the market before we made up our minds to go ahead with the software. One aspect that held us back for a while now was the high cost of this software, it seems that all industry related companies are taking advantage of the strong growth in New Zealand self storage by charging huge amounts for relatively simple software. Where Storman have the monopoly is that most other software is largely related to the US self storage industry whereby Storman is the only prominent software in Australasia.

The one thing that I have been searching for in Self Storage Software that I haven’t found anywhere is the ability to operate it online. EZY STOR Self Storage has four facilities across Dunedin, and are constructing another site as we speak, which are all run out of the same head office located in the center of town. If we were able to access all of our facilities remotely from any location this would enable the ability to sign up customers, check accounts, and open the security gates while onsite at any facility. As internet is becoming more accessible via iPhone and other portable systems the ability to operate online is becoming more important. Unfortunately I don’t think that this feature is on the cards for the next few years as there is no real push for Storman or any other software company to provide it. Most self storage facilities are run by owner/operators which generally manager their own single facility so don’t have the problem of having to get across town to meet another customer. And of course as there is very little competition with self storage software providers there is no need to innovate to remain competitive.

Bain Capital Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Greylock Partners and Bessemer Venture Partners have combined their investments and have given LinkedIn a $53 million round of funding which creates a valuation of $1B.

I use Linkedin frequently and have found the professional applications of this site useful when making, sharing and recording contacts where Facebook isn’t suitable. I have recently added my Linkedin profile to the footer of the Bio page of this blog so that colleagues can add me to their network and share my contacts. I feel New Zealander’s are only slowly catching on to this Professional Networking Application as many of the people I deal with are still yet to register. Many of my older (and often more valuable) contacts don’t even check their own email so would battle with the concept of joining an online professional network.

“If LinkedIn is able to achieve its goals and objectives in the coming years, this valuation of a billion dollars will be looked upon as very cheap,” stated Mark Kvamme, Sequoia Capital partner/LinkedIn Board of Director.

I believe that Linkedin will continue to be successful as they have managed to obtain a strong first mover advantage with no known competitors. Although people may have several social networking profiles in order to fit in with different sets of friends, everyone will only require one professional profile, and that will be with Linkedin.

After a little bit of configuring I have now setup up my Twitter account. I first came across Twitter in the new STARTUP magazine which reports on new innovative web based businesses. Wikipedia’s definition of Twitter is:

“Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows its users (also known as twits) to send updates (otherwise known as tweets) which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length.”

Twitter is very easy to use and is following the growing movement of blogging in general. Until I get an iPhone, and can remotely use Wordpress, I will use Twitter to make micro posts which can be read by followers on Twitter or on my Facebook page through FeedFinder. As technology develops so does the need to change ones current habits, instead of writing a new idea down you can send a ‘tweet’ to Twitter to hear what your followers think…

WordPress has just launched an Open Source app that lets you write posts, upload photos, and edit your WordPress blog from your iPhone or iPod Touch. Wikipedia describes WordPress as a blog publishing system written in PHP whereby all data is stored in a MySQL database. Since iPhones have recently been released in New Zealand I would suspect that WordPress’s new application will support the growing movement of people starting to blog. I never thought I could get into this personal opinion/information sharing type of thing, but the WordPress interface makes it very quick and easy to write & publish a post online. Now that this system has been made possible using an iPhone (which now operates on a 3G network) the extended coverage will allow for faster information sharing whereby posts can be made instantly from the time of first thought.

My Hero:) Rod Drury has today retired from personal blogging.

I was first introduced to Rod at the University of Otago, School of Business, when he came to speak to the Master of Entrepreneurship and Otago MBA classes. I was inspired by Rod’s successes with Aftermail and with his current global, online accounting software Xero. After listening to his lecture I started following his blog where I enjoyed reading about his opinions and learning from his developments. As an enthusiastic young entrepreneur myself I am keen to follow in his footsteps with some of my web based ideas.

Rod Drury will continue posting occasionally at http://blog.xero.com

It took me a while to get into but now Facebook has become something I look forward to viewing and has changing the way I keep in touch with friends. There is growing opinion that Facebook is heading into troubled waters as employers are starting to view their employees profiles which has begun to restrict the content that the university student base users are uploading. I can understand this concern as I monitor what I upload and filter comments from friends that could offend others. I believe this common concern may create an avenue for another player to enter the social networking web platform as Facebook’s focus becomes to broad. I have just finished launching my second group on Facebook where people are able to join the Our Stadium Supporters club to grow our membership numbers. This is a perfect example of where Facebook is crossing over between personal to business use which is restricting users true personalities in response to those that could be watching and judging.