In his keynote address on the first day of the 360 degree IT event at Earls Court, London, deputy government CIO Bill McCluggage outlined his plans for the government to make greater use of open source tools.

Although McCluggage believes the technology should be able to deliver cost savings compared with proprietary technology, he invited the industry to prove this to him. He said: "I have not [yet] seen a business case that has articulated open source as cheaper than proprietary."

He added: "I have asked organisations to provide case studies proving that open source works and is better."

McCluggage stated his desire to create a level playing field for open source software, and enable large ICT contracts to be split into smaller components with a maximum value of £100m, which would allow smaller open source companies access to government contracts.

He said his strategy was for government IT procurement to become smaller, more agile, flexible and efficient, and that open source had a key part to play.

"Legally we're not allowed to specify a product, but we can push open standards and government departments to consider open source," he said.

McCluggage stated that the key savings are likely to be found in desktop productivity tools, none of which is currently open source.

"We have over 600,000 desktop licences across central government, and four to five million in the wider public sector. Therefore the prize is significant in the drive to reduce the overall operating costs of desktops and standardise them," he said.

He was open about the difficulties experienced in the past with larger, more unwieldy ICT procurements, such as the Department of Health's NPfIT.

"[Splitting projects into smaller components] should allow a higher success rate of ICT delivery, and more manageable risks," he said.

He explained that the key ICT challenges for the public sector have arisen through the siloed and fragmented development of IT.

"The NHS has 877,000 devices with 577,000 connections in NHSmail – one of the largest networked systems in the world," said McCluggage, adding that the cost of legacy systems was huge.

He summarised his strategy with three key words – Simplify, Standardise and Automate – explaining that he wants to open silos, enabling the sharing of projects and resources, and an end to the expensive duplication of cost and effort. He also wants to see an end to large, long-running projects with suppliers safely locked in for the duration.

Finally, McCluggage was keen to emphasise the coalition's procurement strategy, stating 25 per cent of government contracts should be awarded to SMEs, a key element of the Conservative manifesto.

The drive for open source was part of the Liberal Democrat's manifesto. McCluggage reaffirmed that all government tenders would be published in full and free of charge online.

The Dieline Wine's Latest Top 10 Wine Designs

1. Puro Uno

This week's latest Top 10 Wine Designs! See all 10 below, be sure to click the images to see the full post.

 

2. Paul Sapin

3. Penelope

4. Before & After: Soncni skol

5. étoile Tête de Cuvée

6. Lote 44

7. Return of the Living Red

8. Killibinbin Wines

9. Castillo de Maetierra

10. Elvin

(Editor’s note: Clate Mask is co-author of the New York Times bestseller Conquer the Chaos and CEO of Infusionsoft,. He submitted this column to VentureBeat.)

The lifelong “company man” has become a relic of the past. New businesses are being launched in record numbers as the Internet lowers the barriers to entry and levels the playing field.

But most startups fail. In the next 12 months, 600,000 new small businesses will be created in the U.S. alone. By the end of the year, half will have shut their doors forever.

It’s chaos running a startup. And chaos turns entrepreneurial dreams into a nightmare that can bury startup owners who can’t keep up with customers and prospects.

The symptoms of chaos are often little things that are overlooked: Missed little league games and disappointed loved ones. All nighters and cold dinners. Slowly, the business consumes the entrepreneur’s life and too often, destroys everything.

I have spoken to thousands of small business owners over the last decade and they have all experienced chaos at some point. My partners, and I experienced it as well while growing Infusionsoft.

But it doesn’t have to be inevitable. In our new book Conquer the Chaos: How to Grow a Successful Business Without Going Crazy, we detail a six-step process to help entrepreneurs grow their businesses quickly and more effectively. Here’s a quick summary of the method:

Build your emotional capital. Emotional capital is the currency you use to wake up every day and fight the battle. It’s the passion, enthusiasm and positive outlook that propel you through your day, keeping you driven to achieve your goals. It’s the balancing of work, family, and emotional and physical health.

Assert your entrepreneurial independence. You decide the fate of your company. Conviction is essential to making things happen.  As you navigate difficult decisions you will be tempted to question just about everything you do. Self-doubt leads to seeking approval and advice. Entrepreneurial independence requires you to strike the balance between ignorance and arrogance — learning what you need to know and what you need to ignore. By the way, one of the reasons business owners seek additional input is because their objectives are not clear. If you haven’t decided the objectives of your company, figure it out. And figure it out fast.

Practice disciplined optimism. If you are going to survive chaos – and survive it well – you must be prepared to handle all the pain and unpleasantness that comes with running a small business. It starts with an undying belief that your startup will achieve the success you have envisioned, while at the same time confronting and attacking the brutal facts of your current reality

Centralize and organize your stuff. Entrepreneurs face especially complicated situations. Corporations have hundreds, even thousands, of people to do the same job you’re trying to accomplish on your own with a small staff. Unless you’re supernaturally organized, you’ve got information, reports, records and financial statements everywhere. What if you decide to take a vacation or you’re sick? To build a solid business foundation – and get one step further out of the chaos –  you’ve got to centralize your operations no matter what size your startup is. If you don’t get organized, it’s a safe bet you’ll go crazy soon.

Tap into the magical power of follow-up. The moment we realized how important follow-up was to our company, Infusionsoft, we quickly transformed our small business into a multimillion-dollar company. Now, several years later, we’ve seen thousands of businesses grow fast by fixing their follow-up. When you fail to follow up, you’re losing out on incredible opportunities and causing yourself more pain and frustration. You’re stunting your growth and prolonging your partnership with chaos.

Burn the to-do list and move from manual to automated. Automation is the key factor to saving you time, money and manual labor. But automation also tends to be the one principle that is missing from most small businesses. Automation is intentional and purposeful and it will propel the entrepreneur out of chaos into liberation. Big businesses have learned to automate everything possible. But most small businesses are havens for manual, grunt labor that wastes time, costs money and enslaves the business owner to the business.

We’ve found that once these strategies are in place, you can focus on and actually see results in growing the business like never before. Chaos will try to creep in, so it’s up to you to pay extra attention to it and squash it when it appears. The first step is recognizing the symptoms. Once you do that, you can conquer it. And that elusive “freedom” of being your own boss becomes a reality.

 

(Editor’s note: Jason Cohen is an angel investor and the founder of Smart Bear Software. This story originally appeared on his blog.)

I recently reviewed hundreds of startup pitches at Capital Factory, an early stage accelerator program for tech startups. Of those, almost none had unearthed 10 people willing to say, “If you build this product, I’ll give you $X.”

Think about that: Hundreds of people were ready to quit their day jobs, burn up savings and risk personal reputation - all without identifying ten measly people actually willing to pay for what they’re peddling. Short-sighted, no?

Put simply: If you can’t find ten people who say they’ll buy it, your company is bullshit.

Aren’t you sick of every startup blogger on Earth badgering you about this? Steve Blank says “get outside the building,” Eric Ries says “seek validated learning,” Sean Ellis says “seek product/market fit,” Drew Houston says “the only way to learn on a $0 budget is to talk to people.”

I say “find ten people who say they’ll buy.”

But entrepreneurs are still not listening. They repeat these mantras at Lean Startup Meetings but don’t do it.

They’re understandably scared of being proved wrong, especially now that they’re all worked up about the new business idea, having told friends and family they’re doing this.

But jeez people, you’re not even trying. And worse, you’re inventing lame excuses for why you’re not trying.

“I’m scratching my own itch. Since I’m my own target customer, I already know what to build.”

Phooey! By definition, if you’re a startup founder you’re explicitly not your customer.

“Scratching your own itch” is how all three of my companies started, but it’s only that — the start. It’s the spark of inspiration, not the strategy. It’s the grain of sand tickling the oyster, not the pearl.

I challenge you to find one founder of a real business who thinks “I’m the customer” is the only market validation you need.

“There are millions of potential customers, so it doesn’t matter what only ten of them think. I need to just start; later I can survey and learn something statistically significant.”

If there are millions, it’s trivial to find ten. If you can’t find even ten, then either there aren’t millions or those millions aren’t interested in you.

Businesses don’t start with millions of customers, they start with one, then ten, then a hundred, and then a thousand. But most don’t get past ten. If you haven’t gotten ten to at least say they’ll buy, where do you get your hubris to proclaim that thousands actually will buy?

“My customers can’t understand mock-ups. I have to build it first.”

You shouldn’t need screenshots or PowerPoints to convince someone in your target market that what you’re doing is compelling. If your concept is so esoteric that you can’t describe it in 30 seconds at a cocktail party, it’s either too complex or you don’t understand it yourself.

Even if I concede that some folks can’t grok mock-ups, remember that your first customers will, by definition, be early-adopters who are OK with alpha software. If you can’t find a few of those and get them excited about your product, maybe your product isn’t exciting.

“I suck at sales/marketing; I need to build a product so compelling it sells itself.”

The world is filled with decent products that make no money. Need empirical evidence? Here’s a list of the top 100 Twitter clients. Here’s another.

Now… how many do you suppose are decent pieces of software that basically work?  (My guess: 80%) How many do you suppose produce any revenue?  (My guess: 5%) Finally, how many do you suppose produce enough revenue that, after hosting and marketing expenses, results in a profitable company where the owner doesn’t need a day job?  (My guess: <1%)

Conclusion: If your goal is a business (not a hobby), building charming, novel software isn’t enough. Ability isn’t enough. It’s fun and exciting, but it won’t create a business.

Writing code might be what you love, so you myopically decide that’s what you’ll do. But what you should do is just the opposite: Attack the part of the business you’re least sure of and least qualified for.

If you’re still not convinced, think of it as project risk management. In a big software project do you tackle the high-risk, ill-defined stuff first, or do you postpone that to the end? Obviously you address the unpredictable stuff first — most of the project risk is due to the unknown, so the earlier you can sort out uncertainty the more time you have to deal with the consequences.

I’m making the same argument, except the “high-risk unknown” is “everything that’s not code.” Your code will be good enough; it’s the other stuff that will probably sink your ship — unable to find customers or unable to convince the target audience they should open their wallets. There’s no sense in postponing it.

“My friend/brother/co-worker/dentist thinks it’s a great idea.”

Your mother thinks you’re smart and good-looking, but that doesn’t mean I do.

It doesn’t matter what non-entrepreneurs think because they’re not versed in product/market fit, squeezing blood from evanescent budgets and using Facebook for advertising. In fact it only barely matters what real entrepreneurs think. (They might not be expert in your problem domain. They could have outdated notions. They might be biased against certain ideas and technology.)

The only thing that matters is that people are willing to give you money. Business “experts” can argue all day long that it makes no sense to buy shoes over the Internet, but as long as people give Zappos $1 billion per year, it doesn’t matter what experts say.

When ten people say they’ll give you money if you build this thing, that’s the only validation that counts.

Is your great idea good enough? Can it grow in this slow economy? Can it become profitable, and return on any investments it requires?

Well, there's no way to know until you try, right? Hardly. There are some ways to prepare yourself, test your idea, and improve it before you actually found a company around it. We've compiled the best examples from recent Inc. articles and Inc.com guides of tips for the very early steps of building a start-up.

1. Scope out your industry.

Or, if you're just starting to think about entrepreneurship in general, find the best industry to fit your style and talents. For example, this year's burgeoning industries include interactive technology (from mobile app design to tech-savvy translation), wellness (healthy beverages), and little luxuries, such as baked goods. When you start honing in on a specialty area, seek out counselors and talk to industry veterans. You can go to SCORE, the SBA, the Women's Economic Development Agency, or scores more. The Internet, your local library, the U.S. Census Bureau, business schools, industry associations, can be invaluable sources of information and contacts. For instance, you might approach business schools in your area to see if one of their marketing classes will take on your business as a test project. You could potentially get some valuable market research results at no cost. Read more.

2. Size-up the competition.

Study your competition by visiting stores or locations where their products are offered. Say you want to open a new restaurant. For starters, create a list of restaurants in the area. Look at the menus, pricing, and additional features (e.g., valet parking or late night bar). Then check out the diners those restaurants appeal to. Are they young college students, neighborhood employees, or families? Then, become a customer of the competition. Go into stealth mode by visiting its website and putting yourself on its e-mail list. Read articles written on them. Sign up for e-mail alerts about search terms of your choice on Google News, which tracks hundreds of news sources. After you study it, deconstruct it using Fagan Finder, a bare-bones but very useful research site. Plug the address into the search box. You will be able to quickly learn, for example, the other sites that link to it, which can reveal alliances, networks, suppliers, and customers. Business data aggregators such as Dun & Bradstreet and InfoUSA provide detailed company information, including financials, although the services are not cheap. Your aim is to understand what your competition is doing so you can do it better. Read more.

3. Second-guess yourself.

"The biggest mistake I see these days is thinking that a business idea will automatically turn into a viable business model," says Terri Lonier, president and founder of Working Solo, a New Paltz, New York-based business strategy consultancy, and author of Working Solo: The Real Guide to Freedom and Financial Success with Your Own Business. Then again, what if the idea really is viable? "A lot of people start with a kitchen table idea," says Marla Tabaka, a business coach who writes The Successful Soloist blog for Inc.com. "It's a great idea you come up with your cousin at dinner. But then the business booms, and your growth gets out of control. You need a plan." Another important consideration is your personal financial resources. Make sure you have a considerable amount of capital set aside, especially because in a sole proprietorship you assume personal liability for all activities of that business. If you borrow money and can’t repay it, your personal assets are at stake. Read more.

4. Think about funding. A lot.

Can you bootstrap your company? Or are you going to need a small business loan? Might an entrepreneur in the family be able to invest, or should you look for venture capital or an angel investor? Money is a big topic for entrepreneurs, and you'll want to know your options early on. In order to get investors to open up their checkbooks, you’ll need to convince them that your idea is worthy and also be willing to subject yourself to increased scrutiny and give up a percentage of your company. That’s why it’s a good idea to first ask yourself whether you really need a professional investor at all, says David Henkel-Wallace, a serial entrepreneur who has raised $60 million from VCs. "If you’re starting a web software or mobile software company, you might be able to bootstrap it, which has the advantage that you get to keep all the money you earn," says Henkel-Wallace. "You could also look into borrowing from friends and family – or even take out a second mortgage – for the same reason." If you decide your business can only get to the next level with the aid of a professional investor, then you need to figure out what a potential backer looks for in a budding company, says Martin Babinec, who raised six rounds of funding through the business process outsourcing firm he founded, TriNet, which now boasts annual revenues in excess of $200 million. Start doing your research now, and don't talk to investors until you have a strategy that involves foreseeable future liquidity. Read more.

5. Refine your concept.

Adrienne Simpson initially intended to run a traditional moving company out of her home in October 2002. The idea came to her after relocating her mother from Georgia to Michigan. "I thought I'd put everything in a box, put it on a truck and send her on her way. Oh, no! Mom started walking me through her home, pointing at things saying, 'I'll take that, let's sell that, and I want to give that away,'" she recalls. By the second year of operation, Simpson shifted gears to make her Stone Mountain, Georgia-based company, Smooth Mooove, specialize in transporting seniors—and their beloved pets—and providing such value-add services as packaging, house cleaning, room reassembly, antique appraisals, estate sales, and charity donations. Her crew does everything: put clothes in the closets, hang drapes, make the bed, fill the refrigerator. But even still business was stalling. "I knew how to run an existing company, but I didn't know how to run a start-up," says Simpson, who worked 20 years for Blue Cross/Blue Shield and 10 years with Cigna Healthcare. Seeking money and marketing advice, Simpson went to the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) office in Atlanta and was connected to SCORE (Service Corps of Retired Executives) counselor Jeff Mesquita. "When you position your company you have to think outside of the box in terms of what makes you different from the competition," says Mesquita. "Adrienne described that what she does is move seniors from A to Z, so, when they arrive to their new home it is like walking into a hotel room." The only thing her clients have to bring is the clothes on their back (and maybe their pet under their arm). That's when Mesquita suggested the business name change to Smooth Mooove Senior Relocation Services. That same night, Simpson went to a networking event. When people asked 'what do you do?' and her response was 'I have a senior relocation service.' Right away people said 'Oh, you move seniors." The business took off from there. Read more.

6. Seek advise from friends, mentors … or anyone, really.

A mentor can be a boon to an entrepreneur in a broad range of scenarios, whether he or she provides pointers on business strategy, helps you bolster your networking efforts, or act as confidantes when your work-life balance gets out of whack. But the first thing you need to know when seeking out a mentor is what you’re looking for from the arrangement. What can your mentor do for you? Determining what type of resource you need is a crucial first step in the mentor hunt. Lois Zachary, the president of Leadership Development Services, a Phoenix, Arizona-based business coaching firm, and author of The Mentee’s Guide: Making Mentoring Work for You, recommends starting with a list. You may want someone who’s a good listener, someone well connected, someone with expertise in, say, marketing, someone accessible. Ideally you could find a mentor with all of these qualities, but the reality is you may have to make some compromises. After you enumerate the qualities you’re looking for in a mentor, divide that list into wants and needs. Who's best as a mentor? Look within your family, friends, business community, academic community, and even at your competitors – well, not your direct competition, but you get the idea. Read more.

7. Pick a name.

Naming your business can be a stressful process. You want to choose a name that will last and, if possible, will embody both your values and your company’s distinguishing characteristics. But screening long lists of names with a focus group composed of friends and family can return mixed results. Alternatively, a naming firm will ask questions to learn more about your culture and what's unique about you - things you'll want to communicate to consumers. One thing that Phillip Davis, the founder of Tungsten Branding, a Brevard, North Carolina-based naming firm, asks entrepreneurs is "do you want to fit in or stand out?" It seems straightforward. Who wouldn't want to stand out? But Davis explains that some businesses are so concerned about gaining credibility in their field, often those in financial services or consulting, that they will sacrifice an edgy or attention-getting name. "However, in the majority of cases, clients want to stand out and that's a better approach when looking at your long-term goals. Even the companies that say 'I just want to get my foot in the door' will usually begin wishing that they stood out more once they pass that first hurdle." Read more.

8. Get a grasp on marketing strategies.

You don't need to be a marketing whiz, but if you’re trying to build an idea from the ground-up, you'll likely need to build an accompanying marketing strategy from the ground up. In doing so, you need to be clear on who your customers are, because you don’t have any time to waste on marketing to those who aren’t. "That’s really the biggest challenge, determining who exactly your customers are," Lonier says. "Many times [business owners] think they understand who they are, but you need to be willing to interview and test potential customers, particularly in the early days of a company, in order to be able to build those relationships." One way to make marketing easier is through joint-venture marketing, Tabaka says. When she owned a coffeehouse in Naperville, Illinois, she realized that her company and a major drugstore in the same shopping center could work together and support each other’s marketing goals. Another important and relatively easy way to get your name out into the market is building your web presence through social media like Twitter and Facebook. Be sure you familiarize yourself with and utilize Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to make it easier for people to find your website. Read more.

9. Do a little test-run.

"The best way to test your idea is if you're employed full-time and can sell your product or service in the marketplace on weekends," says Sapp. If the business is already your day job, then you have to move quickly to test, verify, and tweak your model," he adds. Try surveys, polls, and focus groups to gain insight into attitudes about your business idea. Solicit feedback on the cheap by using online survey tools available through such services as Zoomerang.com, Surveymonkey.com, and Constantcontact.com. The goal is to get to know your customers intimately. What turns them on? What causes them to tune out? Are they impulse buyers or do they like to deliberate over their buying decisions? There are a lot of products that people like but don't buy, says Sapp. The price might not be right, for example. "Use social media to hone in on certain groups that can become your focus group," says Susan Friedmann, a nichepreneur coach, in Lake Placid, New York and author of Riches in Niches: How to Make it Big in a Small Market. "Check out chat rooms, communities on social networks like Ning or Facebook, industry groups within LinkedIn," she says. "What are people discussing? Letters to the editor or articles in trade publications are resources for finding out about challenges in that particular industry. What are people writing about? What do people want to know about?" Knowing the answers to these types of questions may help you refine your idea. Read more.

10. Start searching for future talent.

This might sound premature, but don't forget that your business is supposed to grow someday. Keep your eyes peeled all the time for people who might fit into your organization – even if you can't afford to pay them yet. No matter how small the internet has made the world, experts still recommend in-person networking as the No. 1 way to recruit talent. "I've done a lot of placing people into positions, and I have never used a job board as a way to do that," says Rich Sloan, co-founder of StartupNation. 'Personal [interaction] is so much more powerful and important to me." So, if you meet someone interesting or knowledgable at a networking event, or even if you get particularly impressive service somewhere, be it a museum gift shop or helpline, ask that person a bit about themselves, what kind of business they see themselves in in five years – and the best people around will stick in your mind for when you need them. Read more.