Well, it’s been two weeks already since we’ve kicked off, and yesterday evening we all convened to have our first Therapy session, along with guests from Research and Enterprise and Information Science.

The determined format for each startup in Therapy is a 5-minute recap of the Sprint including wins, losses and frustrations, followed by a 10-minute Q&A session where everyone works together on the immediate challenges faced by the startup.

It was a great session which gave everyone a chance to contribute to each others’ businesses. And not a single tear was shed! But it’s early days yet, we’ll see what happens as we continue to grow over the next 5 Sprints

Philip Fierlinger at Xero has been kind enough to provide some insight into the company’s agile design and development process. I’m a tremendous fan of rapid prototyping, and it’s great to see that some of the best in the business have taken a highly-effective and responsible approach towards this.

http://blog.xero.com/2009/03/one-secret-to-our-success/

Lifting NZ’s Productivity and Competitiveness

Background: Following on from the Prime Minister’s Employment Summit, Chris Simmons has suggested an Entrepreneurial Summit, to seek ideas to both exploit the opportunities of this recession and plan for our future entrepreneurs. The idea has been picked up by Tony Falkenstein and others - it is is a reality.

Concept: 100 Entrepreneurs only are invited (they must have started their own business). No politicians, academics or hangers-on will be invited, although the Prime Minister will be invited to close the session, and accept the ’20 best ideas’ document.

Everyone at The Distiller is submitting their winning ideas !

Check out www.entrepreneurialsummit.co.nz for more details. Submissions have to be in  by April 7

At age 13 he was a late starter. His first piano had eight broken keys and was out of tune.

But now, seven years later, Jaroslav Novak is one of New Zealand’s rising piano stars.

As he sits in his concert suit at the Steinway grand piano in Marama Hall at the University of Otago, waiting to have his picture taken, his fingers move restlessly on the black polished wood.

http://www.odt.co.nz/your-town/dunedin/50026/pianist-could-rise-world-stage

For what it’s worth, Jaroslav suffered a broken collarbone on Sunday, and can be seen carrying one of his superstar piano arms around in a sling. Feel better soon dude

There is always a high chance that a new startup will fail. The product won’t take, the cash won’t flow, and you shut down. Some people quote that 9/10 new businesses will fail in the first two years. Etcetera etcetera.

Many people - particularly in the web arena - are of the opinion that in order to be successful, you must fail first. We disagree here at The Distiller - if you have the passion and the willingness to learn then the chances of success rise dramatically - no matter if you have failed previously or not.

And this theory is in good company - have a quick read of this post from Jason Fried of 37Signals “Failure is overrated, a redux“. He lambasted the concept that failure is just part of the way to gain success - and points out a Harvard Business School study showing that the “only experience that counts is success”. Which makes sense, really.

So if you haven’t failed before, and you are just starting out, take heart. You don’t need to fail to have your project be successful, despite this common belief in the ‘failure-before-success’ nonsense in the web sphere.

Getting success is hard - but gaining failures to put as a notch on your belt is counter-intuitive. Just show that you have passion, build things that people love and want to buy, and all will be well with your world.

Google have just opened up their venture capital fund, Google Ventures. It’s not clear whether it’s available to international startups but it probably wont hurt to send them an email if you’re looking for some readies.

There’s also a write up on TechCrunch about it.

Despite the date this is not an April Fools joke.

Techcrunch has just annouced entries are open for TechCrunch50 2009.  Blog post is here.  Site is here. And you can sign up your startup here.

Competition will be fierce but to get to present at the conference would be a huge break for any startup and well worth begging, borrowing or stealing (actually I didn’t really mean stealing) the money for the plane tickets.

The entry criteria is only restrictive in terms of keeping you in stealth mode until the conference.  This pretty much excludes established startups.  But everyone else should seriously consider this as a brilliant platfrom to launch from.

I’m pretty sure Jason put Pocketsmith in 2008.  Maybe we can get him to do a post in the future with ideas and what to do and not to do (hint hint).

Perhaps the selection criteria is a bit questionable if Pocketsmith didn’t get through but entry is free and wil only take a few hours so it’s still worth a shot.

Good luck.

We’re proud to announce that The Distiller is a finalist in the PricewaterhouseCoopers Hi Tech Awards this year under the Outstanding Industry Initiative category! It’s wonderful to have our work acknowledged even at this early stage, and we’d like to thank our supporters, in particular Steve Bodmer at the Centre for Innovation at the University of Otago, and The Tindall Foundation, for their keen support of The Distiller.

We’d also like to extend our congratulations to the other finalists in this category, DigitalNZ and eDay!

After much preparation, we at The Distiller Lab have begun our first Sprint. All the startups presented at a mammoth four hour session at the Center for Innovation on Friday, and it was very good to see each others’ ideas outlined so clearly! We’re definitely going to have fun working together.

Watch this space over the next few weeks, we’ll update the site with information about the startups sprinting together, as well as what we seek to achieve by the end of our 12 weeks. For now, here’s a quick heads-up.

What are The Sprints?

The Sprints are a part of an evolving framework that has been modelled on successful startup and software development methodologies along with some conventional wisdom acquired by the founders of The Distiller. Sprints occur within a 12-week time-boxed period in which the founders of a startup concentrate on developing the business. The framework wraps in The Distiller’s philosophies of community development, support and interaction.

Each startup has a set outcome for the end of its Sprints. This will be related to the stage of development the startup is in, so the outcome could be the refinement of a business plan through research; the development of a working prototype; seed stage investment by angels; or commercialising an existing product.

Milestones are set for each two weeks within the 12-week period, at which point the startups at the Lab get together for Business Therapy, in which they discuss the outcomes of the previous fortnight and together, brainstorm solutions to challenges faced.

Why are The Sprints important?

We believe that the likelihood of a startup’s success is defined in part by the company it keeps. It’s not just about dollars and cents: a startup in its earliest stages is like a child, and a good foundation of sound business principles and social responsibility within a supportive family environment is an enriching experience regardless of the outcome.

Furthermore, it is equally important to build an online community through active participation in social networking, knowledge sharing, and outreach. A community however cannot be announced, bought, or declared open. Its very existence requires that we listen to the needs of a demographic, build a framework to serve it, and then actively maintain it.

Watch this space

The Sprints are as much of an experiment for us, and so we’ll keep you informed of progress. It is hoped that the framework, if successful, will be a model for similar organisations to practise in enabling startups.

Together we shall strive for success.

Alrighty! We are getting this ball rolling now that we have hit February and we are all back in Dunedin.

We are now accepting applications to join The Distiller programme. Just jump on over to the Join Us page and fill in a few bits about yourself and we will be back in touch. In addition, the About page now has more information about who we actually are and what we are dong here!

And! The first meetup is happening at South Bar, Dunedin on Tuesday the 10th of February 2009 at 5pm. Click on the little calendar over to your right to see more details. We’d love to see you there. Here is where South Bar is: http://www.schmap.me/thedistiller-meetup/

Stay tuned - we look forward to talking to you all soon!