FIXZR

They say, history repeats itself, there is nothing truly new, and the more things change the more they stay the same. All this means that your start-up is trying to grab a bit of someone else’s lunch (or the lunch they planned on grabbing). Knowing the big guys you are up against and figuring out how to use their size against them, is the key to either killing them or being killed. For those who squirm at conflict, lets say you are aiming to be their next must-have acquisition rather than wanting to hurt anyone.

A favourite way to really upset the big guys is to offer an equal or superior service at a much lower price. Now assuming that your balance sheet is several million times smaller that theirs you can only do this if you have a genuinely lower cost base (by an order of magnitude). The giant will be slow to change pricing (rationally creaming while they can), slow to shed costs (middle management are slow to suggest sacking themselves), and just slow all round as the entrepreneurial hunger is gone. Europe has seen a number of success stories in OpenSource software but is still lagging behind on creating game changing services - so I suggest the ‘how to kill’ series to right this wrong.

All the top web companies will be featured, and the audience will workshop how best to steal their lunch. We’ll get the best minds, the most far sighted sources of funding, and (to make things exciting) we’ll invite representatives from each of the companies discussed. Over the coming months I’ll come up with a politically acceptable name for the series, and maybe find someone to sponsor it!