I’ve been very quiet lately, mainly because there are a lot of changes happening at the moment back in Cape Town.
As many of you know, Synthasite is launching soon (final confirmed date for the Technology Preview / Pre-Alpha is 4th June 07). We are looking forward to showing the world what we’ve been up to. Just to set expectations, we’re not releasing a fully functional application, but instead we’re trying to get feedback from our users in the early stages of development, in order to ensure that Synthasite will ultimately meet expectations by the time we get into Beta. In my previous blog post on Synthasite, I explained that I will be taking over Synthasite as CEO and spinning it out of incuBeta as a separate company, with incuBeta still retaining a small stake. I also indicated that we were going to attempt to move it to Silicon Valley in order to be closer to the action.
To this end, I’ve spent the better part of the past two months chatting with a few of the VC players in the space, both in London & Silicon Valley in order to get feedback, and potentially, Series A funding. The feedback we got just from the meetings were excellent, but most importantly, after speaking with VC’s in London, the view is that if development work can be done in a lower cost marketplace, such as Cape Town and the business development team is based in the business area’s that really meets the requirements of most startups.
So, in order to cut a long story short, I, along with the Synthasite team, will be basing ourselves in Cape Town permanently to develop Synthasite, and instead of moving the entire team across (disruptions and all), we’ll instead look to setup a Biz Dev office when the time is right, in key markets. The best part is, if we keep Synthasite in Cape Town, then there is really no need for a Series A type round of funding.
In order to focus on Synthasite, it was announced internally, and now to the rest of the world, that I will be leaving incuBeta on a full time basis, and moving directly into Synthasite, effective 1 August. It’s been really great growing a startup into an award winning company, but my passion has always been startups and I’m finally able to move into a full time role doing that in Synthasite. I’m lucky that there is a strong management team in place at incuBeta to drive the company forward, and the people on the ground are very capable of delivering. In order to ensure that the company can operate independently of me, there will be a full operational and relationship handover before 1 August.
In many ways, this has been a lifestyle decision, and I’m going to also try to cut down on the tremendous amount of air miles that I continue to rack up! As many of you may understand, the disruptive nature that flying around the world has on a person, on an almost monthly basis will eventually wear you down! I would like to spend at least the next few months firmly grounded in Cape Town, enjoying the life there (and I’m in Johannesburg right now!). Charlene, my wife & co-founder, will also be leaving the company to pursue her studies further and we’re planning on taking some much needed time off and we’re going to spend those airmiles going to places that we haven’t yet seen over the next year.
On a final note, in addition to Synthasite, I have setup a small Venture Capital fund for Cape Town based startups, called Lingham Capital (no site just yet), and I will aim to assist them with small amounts of seed capital and expertise in building their businesses, all of which will need to be globally focused in the medium term. I do not intend on investing in more than 5 startups at any one time, including Synthasite. My only other investment so far is SkyRove, which is a Social WiFi business based in Cape Town and after 1 August, I will be assisting Henk (the CEO) with taking his business to a global audience.
It’s really sad to be leaving incuBeta, but I know that all my relationships both internally and externally are all intact - so it’s not really a goodbye! I’ll probably post more reflections on this, and a slideshow later this week - but this was just a relatively quick heads up.
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Comments On This Post
May 28, 2007 at 9:31 am
[...] Town based, incuBeta founder, Vinny Lingham announced last night that he is stepping down from incuBeta to focus on startups. On a final note, in [...]
May 28, 2007 at 10:26 am
Vinny, it has been a great pleasure working with you at 2 different jobs. Both were really great experience! I believe you have made the best choice and will make Synthasite a very successful product within your short time.
May 28, 2007 at 11:01 am
I, and we as a company, will miss you Vin. i know we’ll see plenty of you and it’s not a good-bye but a good luck!! thanks for all your support, guidance and endless knowledge!! all the best with Synthasite.
May 28, 2007 at 11:34 am
[...] Colin gave us an interesting debriefing on Bullardgate while Erik really drilled home mobile phone usage as a medium to deliver content to users and finally Vinny made his big announcement. [...]
May 28, 2007 at 11:52 am
wow Vin, what you are Charlene have accomplished is incredible. besides creating a phenomenal business you have created a great Lingham brand. The knowledge you have passed down to us is invaluable and each time i am at a conference I always realize that!
Best of luck with all the endeavours, happy traveling and keep in touch!
Jen
May 28, 2007 at 1:53 pm
This is all very exciting! The local VC fund is much needed to excellerate innovation on our local shores..
“Who the man!”
May 29, 2007 at 12:05 pm
[...] Vinny Lingham, the catalyst behind the South Africa’s most successful Search Engine Marketing company, IncuBeta, announced at the recent 27 Dinner in Jozi that he is focusing his energy in the next while on his “Dreamweaver within a Web browser” application Synthasite, while remaining a director at IncuBeta. Read his post with details on the move here. [...]
May 30, 2007 at 8:34 am
Thanks guys - I appreciate all the sentiments!
May 30, 2007 at 6:37 pm
Hi Vinny, what I forgot to re-ask at 27 was: can a microformat behaviour be incorporated into synthasite? So when adding contact details, it will save it as a hCard, same for other microformats? would be great step toward semantic web
May 31, 2007 at 9:12 am
Hi Derek,
Yes, Synthasite does support the incorporation of microformats. Although there are no microformat components in the toolset at this time, there is no reason that these components cannot easily be created.
We have a clear vision for Synthasite, but we also understand that the product will be exponentially better if we allow the developer community to contribute to the toolset. This is why an open architecture is one of our primary design objectives for Synthasite.
May 31, 2007 at 5:07 pm
Vinny -
Congratulations, and thanks for sharing so openly how you are moving forward. This is an exciting time for you I’m sure. I’m sorry that you’re not going to be coming here stateside, but I really understand the perspective of being able to get further with resources in Cape Town vs. Silicon Valley. That’s the reason we’re staying planted here in New Orleans. I know Synthasite is going to rock! Keep us posted on the launch. Best, Chris
June 1, 2007 at 1:25 am
How about helping to fund http://www.mediarati.com and http://www.veetube.com
June 13, 2007 at 3:35 pm
[...] resulted in a number of deals - here’s Henk Kleyhans from Skyrove: Although I had already met Vinny from Lingham Capital before, and even discussed the possibility of them investing, it was [...]
Join the Dicussion