DataMarket - A Startup Profile

DataMarket.com is a startup out of Iceland. I have met with Hjalli a couple of times, spoken to him quite a bit and used DataMarket services on some of the presentations and have been following the company. The company started in June 2008 and Hjalli has been around the block in the startup journey a couple of times, he successfully created and sold a company in Iceland and I believe he is a 3rd time entrepreneur. You can read all about him in his blog, he has a distinct voice within the Icelandic startup culture and he is a big proponent of Transparency and DataMarket was way to address that issue. Although a lot of his opinion and comments are in Icelandic, so I glaze over them :) Initially, I really felt that DataMarket's business model was weak because you don't see the light of the day if you are an intermediary for data and given the advent of new visualization technologies it is quite easy to hack a graph from structured data. The customers of data want data from reliable sources and you had to be a source of data to be able to sell data and typically people buy data from a Credible and Authentic Source like the IMF or the World Bank or The Economist etc. I believe the market for data is big but probably getting smaller with all the publishing tools out there. I could not put my fingers on the Value Proposition of DataMarket.

DataMarket just announced that their portal and services can be utilized by third parties to publish data, I believe that is a very interesting value proposition. In addition, they are getting credible sources to use DataMarket's portal to channel their data. I don't know the financial performance of DataMarket to comment whether they are able to make progress or not but given that they just announced they were able to secure a significant round of funding in Icelandic terms, I presume they are on track. I think breaking into the international market needs a different kind of thinking. The team composition that Hjalli has put together needs work IMHO. I have a big issue with Startups who emphasize to much of their importance on the idea and very little on the team, the strategy for customer acquisition and putting together a truly international team.

And the Winner of Startup Weekend Akureyri is...

Drum roll... Entrepreneurship! Yes, the winner over the weekend is the concept of Entrepreneurship. It was exciting to see over 100 people working on a problem, listening to feedback and presenting their ideas and getting recognized for their effort. As much as I like the idea of people getting recognition for their ideas, Ideas do not equate to launching a business. I have written about "Startup Ideas - Why ideas are not the problem". There were 19 teams that presented their ideas. The companies that I thought really created a business over the weekend were:

Video taken from previous Startup Weekend Events in Iceland

• Campalo.com and Campalo.is - a booking and reservation application over the web for Camp sites around iceland
• Disulistar.is - a hyper local curated list of things for everything from Top 5 restaurants for business meetings in Reykjavik to Task list to do press release. You pay a small fee for not having to spend the time to research the list yourself

Of course both of these companies did not win the award because their idea was not revolutionary or "cool" but both of these probably will be able to build a sustainable business. I think the other ideas and teams need to be recognized as well. Here is the link to a slideshow of pictures from my Twitter stream.

1. Whale Buddy - A Multilingual App for Smart Phones that enables a better experience for tourists on a Whale watching tour
2. Life Line - Making the rescue suits and life jackets fitted with GPS device, Nano technology and Diode lights to enable finding the missing persons at sea.
3. Viral Trade - An online market place for digital goods used in online games
4. Tannstra - A toothpick made from Icelandic straw
5. Active Site - A photo market for pictures taken underwater off the coast of Akureyri, I guess it could be applied for any all underwater pictures.

There were 12 more companies, I have to admit did not find them very interesting that is probably because of my lack of understanding of Icelandic. 

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Revolution against Finance

I saw the interview of Steve Keen on Silfur Egils and I am sure if not all many of the Icelanders did too.



I have written about the Asset Bubble that is possible in Iceland and I have started to see green shoots of it already. Check out the housing prices to see the asset bubble formation. It really bothers me that nobody wants to bell the cat, I speak to my banking friends and they are all waiting for the good old times to come back. It is not going to happen, maybe it will for a small group of people... much smaller than the last time and that is what casuses social rifts. I think the most important statement made in the interview was that we have moved away from Finance for Industrial and Productive things to Finance of Financial things. The double leverage that is possible with financial instruments that make $1 get multiplied by 10 and 10 again in the short term produces $100 but in the long term does not produce anything. In the meanwhile that $1 carries the risk of destroying $100 in value. No wonder Warren Buffet called derivatives Weapons of Mass Destruction. Should we worry about this problem?  absolutely! You think Iceland is different because Iceland allowed the banks to fail? think again, look at the balance sheet of Icelandic Government, a majority of the liabilities have been allocated to re-capitalize the banks... guess who has to pay those liabilities? the tax payer.

I agree that we need to re-think financial economics, but lets not throw the baby with the bath water. The original premise that financial capital was created to make productive things has been lost in this debate. I am sure there are many ways to solve the current debt problem and Steve Keen gives some suggestions but there are other ways as well.

Lets take the case of Iceland, everyone wants to speculate on Real Estate once again... I mean really? concrete is more valuable than solutions to problems the future generation is going to face? Top 10 companies in the market capitalization are not in Real Estate the last time I looked. We need to focus on what creates value in Iceland. I have had many discussions with the executives in the banking sector, believe me there is absolutely no learning in terms of changing the ways of doing things. Every bank wants to clean up their balance sheet so they can go on building up the asset bubble on real estate. No-one is thinking about which sector or industry should they be investing in. I have written about my vision for Iceland and why we should be investing in Entrepreneurship, the sector that I wrote about is highly scalable, employs high technology and highly skilled labor force, is environmentally clean and things made in this sector actually can be sold anywhere in the world. How much capital is deployed in this sector by the Iceland you ask... Nothing, Nada, Zilch! The classic reason that I get is it is risky, what is risky? speculating on real estate or investing in Entrepreneurs who work tirelessly to really solve a nagging problem.

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Startup Iceland in KickStarter

So, I want to create a documentary of the journey of Startup Iceland. Who would want to see this documentary? I don't know and I don't know if I can get anyone to fund this either. I have been a big fan of KickStarter, thats when the idea broke out hey why don't I use KickStarter to fund the documentary? It is not new, it has been done before but I am sure anyone who wants to create a Startup Community would want to see this documentary. Never the less, I created the project and submitted my proposal... I am just having my fingers crossed to hear back from the KickStarter team. The documentary will basically be built around the startup community here in Iceland and the run up to the Conference that I have written to you all about, if you have not signed up yet... PLEASE DO, I promise you it would be spectacular success or an Epic failure either way you can see the journey through this documentary. I know exactly the right people to bring on board to do this. What do you think? will I get funded to get this documentary on the road?

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