BBC

“A government-backed website, designed to champion the UK’s start-up businesses has inadvertently linked users to malware, it has emerged.

StartUp Britain, which launched on Monday, linked to a page hosting fake anti-virus programs, according to security firm Sophos.

It will be an embarrassment for the government, which has been widely promoting the initiative.

The link was removed shortly after launch, according to StartUp Britain.

It told the BBC in a statement: “There were some issues with a link on the website at the launch. This issue has been addressed and any links that were not operating as intended have been amended or removed.”

I can understand why some people have reacted although some of the extreme reactions baffle me. I think they will ultimately make it right and hope they are given the chance as like you, I know some of them well and know their intentions to be entirely honourable.

My blog is here http://www.warrencass.com/startupbritain-my-thoughts/

I think it’s very interesting to see #SocialMedia take its course. Clearly people have ‘spoken out’. This is not a feature of MassMedia and this is why I choose to engage in social media.

Everyone is welcome to their opinions. I mentioned Oli Barrett in my blog post…

Titled ‘StartupBritain OMFG’
http://www.blokesontheblog.co.uk/startupbritain-omfg/

To reiterate what Ling said, the people who have given comment have done so. This is impossible to do via a newspaper, television, radio, but socially online, it is do’able. My blog post is my opinion.

Thanks to Ling for sharing, Gareth Coxon for sharing it.

We are not here to line the pockets of a few capitalist who want to make our Prime Minister look like a tit. The entrepreneurs know what they are doing. I’m surprised they’ve done it, that’s all.! Would I put my future in their hands? No. They seem happy to devalue markets, export core skills.

Oli said on Twitter he wasn’t used to this level of negativity. I think the so called ‘negativity’ is actually constructive feedback that should be taken onboard, probably prior to making our whole country look stupid.

A whole series of conservative voting graphic designers have said they’ll move their votes from Conservative next time round. It’s a shame, especially as they are often at the heart of developing green shoot companies.

My points about Advertising Standards, Companies Act, Trading Entities, Data Privacy, etc are all what you expect to protect consumers, yet these seem to have been waivered.

If you get 10 minutes, read my blog:
http://www.blokesontheblog.co.uk/startupbritain-omfg/

I’ll probably make another blog in a week or so.

I really do hope the creme-de-la-creme start working in the interests of others.! At the moment it looks like a cess-pitt. It seems they’ve collectively tapped in to what underpins everything that is very bad with the current ‘thinking’.

I’d rather see a new panel.

On a more constructive note. They should keep this thought in mind.
“It does not matter what you do, but whatever you do, aim to be the best !”

This is clearly something they all aimed for when starting their own businesses, but they appear to have forgotten. When people have one, or even a string of successes they begin to believe they are invincible and then become lazy. this is what i meant by “believe their own PR”.

I think they have disappointed a lot of people, because we know they should be able to do better.

What makes you think the founders of Startup Britain aren’t responding to the criticisms?

Oli Barret just tweeted: “Grateful for all of the constructive feedback about #StartUpBritain – please keep it coming. As a team, we’re making changes already #day2”

I was taught to own up to my mistakes, and I do !
People need to stop defending this rubbish and the people who created it should hold up their hands, and say sorry.

It is a pile of self congratulating s**t, and a great example of what can be achieved when people start to believe their own PR.

It’s supposed to be “non-profit-making” but they take the profit from links like the Glasses one. That free advertising has a value. This is just a scratching backs exercise.

I have offered Oli Barrett that I will give a free tank of petrol with every new car leased to a business via the site… but they don’t seem to want MY link on there.

Dwayne seems to be lining up to get a KashFlow link on there… is that his motive?

It is all very insidious IMO. Plus it breaks ASA guidelines regarding the valuation of the free stuff. By it’s nature the part of the site aimed at “starting” is aimed at consumers who may start a business, so they deserve consumer-level protection.

This is all very pants, sorry to say.

Ling
LINGsCARS

I am definitely on the side saying that its a good start. As their Twitter states, this scheme is a startup in itself and some of the comments people are saying are very harsh considering its just another private company!

If anything, please pass this message on, ‘THIS HASN’T BEEN CREATED BY THE GOVERNMENT’.

Lets say that an English designer uses 99designs/ and wins some work after working for free then winning the competition, he might spin a quick £200, but with the competition fighting against them every single time they go for a job, odds tell you that he’s going to get a payday around….every 99 times maybe. 99 hours is over two weeks work. Not many people can live comfortably on £200 every two weeks.

Simulatenously the people who would have received the design work previously (the full time, professional designers) based in the UK miss out on this work that may have previously been there’s through SEO efforts or other advertising, PR, etc.

So while the guy who does spec work will eventually find it unsustainable the other designers who have missed out on the work the spec guy took now lose as well.

First up is the fact that there is so much FUD being tweeted about that indicates it’s everything from a government lip service campaign to a privately funded joke that you quickly realise that Startupbritain really could have done with an “About Us” page right from the get go… The fact that Cameron is right IN YOUR FACE! from the first page wasn’t helpful at all and immediately sent quite a few mixed messages…

Next we turn to the whole Graphics mob who, with pitchforks aloft, are keen to burn the heretic who used a non-British talent to get the site off the ground. Again it’s the whole mixed message thing… When you have “Britain” as the target market, part of the name and pretty much a focal point of the campaign, it does seem just a teensy bit naive to assume using a US source for graphics would fly under the radar (Can we say “Oops!”).

…BUT… the point Duane makes about keeping costs to a minimum is also valid… All you have to do is look through many business forums about businesses looking to cut costs, importing Chinese goods, outsourcing code work to India, etc… to realise that it’s a fact of life that UK doesn’t necessarily equal cost/benefit. THAT is a whole other can of worms but does a cost effective UK based alternative exist? Perhaps a niche to be explored?

Isn’t the whole reason for our manufacturing industry rushing down the toilet bowl, down to the fact that populace doesn’t want to pay for UK industry to make what China can make for a fifth?…

Anyway, sorry, I’m leaving that hot potato to burn through to the Earths core but moving on… I have to admit I find the whole “offers” package pretty pathetic and self-serving. Yes, ok, it could be argued that it MAY serve to benefit a few folks and I can’t argue with the idea of “Enlightened Self Interest” but really, I’d equate most of those offers as glow worm in a dusky room, versus 100 watt bulb at midnight. None of them are truly meaningful and IMHO the biggest issue with them isn’t value but VALUE OVER TIME.

It’s this “TIME” issue that everyone has skipped over but seriously, how many businesses, not just “start-ups” (read: burn money, build, hype, hype, sell, sell, run, sell!) was able to get off the ground in a month, much less three. What about a supportive infrastructure to ensure you (and your family) aren’t cast out onto the street while you work hard to get things moving? For me it was a very understanding wife and even then it’s taken nearly 18 months to get to the much needed turnover to make it all viable. So, no… those offers are meaningless really and as suggested earlier, actually potentially dangerous to the uninformed (read: n00b entrepreneur).

So here I hit my last negative in all of this… Startup Britain is often compared to the US equivalent but to be honest the name is about the only comparative. There are none of the tax breaks or similar supportive measures that encompass the US version and those are likely to make the difference… quite a considerable one.

Right… as I said, that’s my last negative… 24 hours of semi-sleep, a lot of coughing and time to think has born in on me, one last thing… The simple fact is that this campaign is not just one ruddy website, nor is it just about the offers (cr*p or otherwise) on the site, nor the simpering politicians making all sorts of back-patting noises of no substance (good PR though)… It’s actually about telling people that it’s possible to get an idea off the ground.

The types who can’t look further than the website and see all the impossibilities of it all, won’t succeed anyway.. The folks who are lucky, hard-working and who can use this as a wake up call, to dust off ideas and run with them… they may just succeed…

Either way perhaps the point is that the point got missed.

At the end of the day, if this scheme doesn’t change it will continue to annoy the majority of SMEs + will fail.

We should tell the truth and say it is very very poor, a rush job, no budget, with 50 Googled offers and 100 Googled links slapped up.

The almost corrupt way in which the “board members” push their own products (20% off pairs of glasses? WTF), and the rest of the VERY POOR “offers” which frankly can be beaten by looking at the junk mail coming through your letterbox, is all very poor. If you take advantage of all the “FREE” offers and discounts, you would need to spend about £15,000 on stuff you really DON’T need and open accounts you don’t want to get the discounts. Like £25 of AdWords etc

Many of the links are crazy and lacking, under Working from Home – “shedworking” anyone? “A lifestyle guide for shedworkers”. FFS. I guess that suits Great Britain’s entrepreneurs? And a link to an Amazon book. And that’s it for the subject of WORKING FROM HOME.

The link to the American company doing logos is stupid and has attracted tons of criticism. I mean, just WHY promote that?

The 4 steps to starting a business: 1) Find an Idea, 2) Write a Plan, 3) Buy a Kit … (ooops, what? Yes a £20 kit. From a sponsor) …and 4) Get a Logo … (from the US company).

Now, really, that is patronising, very thin, and crap. 4 steps to nowhere. The first two kind of make sense… I suppose. But a “pack” telling you how to start a business, and logo being the thing you need to go to top it all off, is just mindbendingly simplistic.

The collective responsibility means no one’s head is on the line for this mess. Although to be fair Oli Barrett (good man) has been nice on Twitter. This is hideously embarrassing for anyone, but these people who got this going are supposed to be “the best”. If any of them has invested more than one hour of work into this, I would be most surprised. They have paid an operative to construct it, and that’s that.

This is a PR attempt by Seven Hills PR (and free for the Government) and is started by many seven Hills clients, read thishttp://www.sevenhillsgroup.co.uk/news/2011/03/27/seven-hills-launches-major-hm-government-backed-startup-britain-campaign/ – they certainly got their money’s worth from the press launch.

The execution of the website is very poor, I see they have now started to slowly remove Cameron from the front page… and the massive backlash on Social Media against this s(h)ite shows the anger of small businesses about the patronising and childish and grabbing way they are being treated. It’s basically, sh1t.

It’s a link farm with pretty images.

Will it improve? I hope so, but in another way I hope it dies. Why? Because entrepreneurs just don’t need this childish “help” and “advice”, they need to toughen up and take the kicks and fight… not look for tea, sympathy, 20% off glasses (available everywhere on the web) and non-offers to create and grow their businesses.

A very poor 1/10 to this (largely) PR exercise.

Other business websites (others are available, heh) and forums which are totally free, provide far more advice, information and benefit for small business.

Ling
LINGsCARS

It’s worth zooming in on why they’re pissed off and get some clarity.

Firstly, 99 Designs isn’t a design agency. It’s platform/market place for cheap design. Some of the detractors have said that the services offered in the other links are expensive and not suitable for a startup that should be keeping costs down. So I assume those people aren’t also against the promotion of 99 Designs (unless for the next reason, below). It doesn’t make sense for a startup to spend a lot of money on branding design at the very start. Get something that will suffice, push your service out there and once proven then you spend money on “proper” design services.

That only leaves the fact that it’s a US-based service, not a UK one. So are people that are objecting on that point seriously suggesting Startup Britain should take a protectionist and anti free market approach and not endorse anything not made in Britain? Sure, if there’s an equally good UK equivalent of the 99Designs platform/marketplace then that should be promoted instead, but I’m not aware of one.

@FarhanLalji on twitter said it best in response to @AnnHawkins saying “try telling that to UK desginers”. He said: “that’s like telling British PAs that virtual PAs are going to make them obsolete. Focus on providing value dammit”

Is that a real grown up comment. So get any old crap to market, no matter that it’s ill founded, ill concieved and poorly executed.

Did anyone talk to a budding entrepreneur before devising this site?

I am not so inscensed by the poor quality (though that is still disgraceful) as the cynicism of the project. All the ‘offers’ could be got locally and feed into local economies, helping other small businesses, not large corporates.

And all the advice could be gleaned from some basic web searches.

And what about the design and web elements being sourced from San Fransisco? That is indefensible.

A lot of the offers you can get yourself elsewhere if you look around. Startup Britain themselves said at the launch they’re not necessarily providing any new offers, but collating a lot of what’s already out there in to one place So to criticize them for not providing new offers when it’s not what they’re trying to do is a bit shortsighted,

Agreed, some of them are also of little relevance of dubious quality. The glassesdirect one being an obvious example of purely self-serving link to benefit one of the founders. But to write off the whole initiative because of this flaw is again shortsighted .

This is a launch of something new, ofcourse it’s not perfect. Give it time to evolve based on all of the feedback and then judge it.

you’re mere supporting of this campaign, shows you in the same light. Rushed, not thought through, little consideration of what has been said. Calling people like #NaySayers and #Moaners is really bad.

We can all call people names.

Mike Chitty is not a #Naysayer. I am not a #Moaner. What is the case is that this very poor attempt by a PR Company to work in the interests of its clients has turned out to be a PR Disaster.

They might be able to pull the wool over your eyes Duane. Fact is, the people that this PR aims to convince have been using these social media tools since they started. Even the epitime of the eBook Community is not happy..! LOL.

This is a great lesson in online PR.

** YOU’RE ALL FIRED **

the problem with YOUR VERSION of elightened self interest, is you are basically “doing bad, dressing it up as good and expecting to be praised for it”. Well, you will do well, but at the same time, you will create a huge divide.

Good luck with your enlightened self interest.

http://www.bmmagazine.co.uk/Start-Up-Britain-launch-receives-warm-reception.1295

I know, or know of, all of the founding partners of this venture, and yes it was a bit celeb heavy, but so what. In today’s media world you need that to spread the word out.

Yes at launch the offers may not be that amazing, but who on day one of their business had their offering nailed down?

I am a bit confused by Erika and some of the comments that this will cost more than the £1500 it would save a business, how so? There is no fee and any fee income that Start Up Britain will receive will come directly from Blackberry, or Google, or Regus etc etc so I am really struggling to find the argument here?

People need to get behind this and give it a few months, yesterday brought out everything I hate about the British mentality.

The people involved in this are fast losing credibility. Entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs… you mean, “done by me for me”, without a thought of anyone. It’s disgusting.

My blog is here.

It’s titled “StartupBritain OMFG”.
http://www.blokesontheblog.co.uk/startupbritain-omfg/

These sites annoy me, they prey on the unsuspecting – and i will do something about it !!

Many of the offers are just poor – one month free at O2, £30 Google Adwords voucher, 20% off a pair of glasses?!?! It’s just a promotion vehicle for clients of SevenHills PR, backed by their old mates in government. They don’t help startup businesses at all. The web links are just pointing at other people’s content. Even the spelling on the site was terrible.

I would much rather see a KashFlow link on there. Surely, you must agree!

Apparently the Fujitsu 30 day trial is worth £3,000! That would mean £3,000 per month following the trial for a Startup!

I blogged about it here – http://kbne.ws/startupbritain

From lots and lots of bitter experience there tend to be “doers” in life, and there are people who would rather criticise the doers rather than “do”. And they are invariably people who’ve never got off their bums themselves to try to do something like this.

Those who are “doers” tend to be a lot more careful to *wait* until all the facts are in before criticising someone else’s efforts.

Startup Britain isn’t perfect. Yet. But then what is? Especially when it’s been pulled together so hastily.

I’ve had the pleasure of spending a bit of time with Oli, and I know he’s a good man with all the right intentions.

I’ve got lots of hope for the project, and I’ll stick my hand up to offer help long before I think of criticising. I hope others do too.

I ask one question

Are you part of the solution OR part of the problem ?

Most of the things they suggest in “Starting” are “busy work” tasks that wannabe entrepreneurs think represents progress in building a business but which rarely matter until further down the road. Registering trademarks, investigating patents, and finding office space aren’t even vaguely relevant until you can actually prove there’s a market for what you want to offer and, critically, that they will buy it or sign up for it.

I hope this campaign will continue to raise awareness of entrepreneurship and the bounties it offers, but the formula they present is perhaps the least effective way to start a business. If one wastes time getting an office, filing a patent, having a logo designed, or partaking in most of this “busy work” before one actually sells something and figures out how to repeat the process, one is shooting oneself in the foot. Branson could have told them that.

It is the less experienced novice start-ups I am concerned for. They are being ‘sold’ a commercial package of support, heavily endorsed by Government and influential business celebs. In the absence of objective advice, many may be just naieve enough to buy a lot of products they can’t afford as they start businesses. If as you suggest and others have tweeted, startupbritain is really just a discount voucher site, then that’s fine, but it should be honest about that. To pretend to be a genuine source of ‘support’ is disingenuous at best.

Exactly.

This new initiative combined with the recently announced Entrepreneur Visa bode well for our (much) future plans to take Anglotopia to Britain.

Very exciting stuff.

You did say it wasn’t perfect but I thought this was a joke at first. Sadly not.