[quote style=”boxed”]Knowing when someone else could do it better and they can deliver. It’s too easy to try and do everything yourself, but you’ve also got to make sure the job gets done. I’m still learning this.[/quote]
Ben Byford is an entrepreneur, a tech writer, web designer and consultant. After his Masters in Creative and Cultural Entrepreneurship he went on to work freelance and fulltime for small and large companies advising and implementing web and design strategy, most notably for Virgin. Ben has been working on Eulergy.com for the last two years and launched the platform into public beta September 2013. Ben is passionate about technology, design, media art, and skateboarding when given the time.
Where did the idea for Eulergy.com come from?
After being frustrated with the lack of access to businesses while studying my Masters. I wanted there to be a level playing field for me to connect with companies about my research which I knew was very specific and hopefully very useful to a small select group of companies of which I was studying.
What does your typical day look like and how do you make it productive?
I work from The Cube in Shoreditch, London. From there my day would be spread over coding, business strategy, helping with marketing activities (which are currently delivered by our paid intern) and other work. I use trello.com (super loose task tracking) with my team which has worked well so far but can become cumbersome if people aren’t vigilant. We all work separately currently, so I try and get together with everyone once a week and all together at least once a month.
How do you bring ideas to life?
Patience and alot of talking to different people about the idea to help make it better and help me better understand it.
What’s one trend that really excites you?
The maker movement is very exciting, along side things like kickstarter and etsy. I’m also interested in how people can create their own businesses or learn new skills using things like codecademy.com and how that effects traditional business ideals.
What is one habit of yours that makes you more productive as an entrepreneur?
Knowing when someone else could do it better and they can deliver. It’s too easy to try and do everything yourself, but you’ve also got to make sure the job gets done. I’m still learning this.
What was the worst job you ever had and what did you learn from it?
I’ve had lots of terrible jobs as my home town mainly had factory work available while I was growing up. One job I was fortunate to have was at a small product design company run by three friends. Their relationship was very dysfunctional which made for a horrible work environment. You can learn a lot from badly run companies.
If you were to start again, what would you do differently?
Get all founders with a shared vision first so there’s less problems down the road of crossed wires and purpose.
As an entrepreneur, what is the one thing you do over and over and recommend everyone else do?
Tell people, tell everyone. You’ll soon weed out the good ideas from the bad. Don’t do the bad ideas. Seriously! there’s soooooooo many bad ideas out there that people are spending part of their lives creating. Remember that it’s time you could be using on other things.
What is one business idea that you’re willing to give away to our readers?
Some way to decentralise the provision of services that banks provide away from banks. Imagine a wallet on digital money that your free to automate yourself or to invest yourself, knowing where the moeny is going instead of simply not knowing when you give it to the banking system.
Tell us something about you that very few people know?
I used to do fire juggling in bars in Andorra for a bit.
What software and web services do you use? What do you love about them?
Dropbox (I love everything about it!), Trello, Github, instapaper (great app for saving articles for later reading on the tube etc), Feedly (great simple rss reader app), tweetdeck.
What is the one book that you recommend our community should read and why?
Permutation City by Greg Egan, it will blow your mind. Also You are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto, by Jaron Lanier, a get off your technology will solve the world high-horse book.
What people have influenced your thinking and might be of interest to others?
(web stuff)
(policy and research)
(web stuff)
Connect:
Ben Byford on Twitter: @benbyford
Eulergy on Twitter: @eulergy
Mario Schulzke is the Founder of ideamensch, which he started a decade ago to learn from entrepreneurs and give them a platform for their ideas.