Creating a marketplace

As you might imagine, starting a new portal is a hectic time. Strangely, as a business consultant, July and August have never been slack periods for me since I went independent in 1997. This is just adding to the excitement.

I am totally sold on the Business-Scene concept and the incredible value-add for the very modest membership fee (there's even a free membership option with quite a lot of functionality). It's not my product but it has come into my part of the world at exactly the right time. Future blog entries will talk about weaning Welsh businesses off of public sector support as the Objective 1 money inevitably dries up.

Getting initial momentum is the challenge and in my two regions in South Wales I'm giving away some freebies to those who can help me build enough content by September/October to give early adopters something to participate in and get value from.

It's refreshing because my building network is populating itself with highly motivated, competent "doers". Being a pragmatist myself it's nice to meet others with the same approach.

What I am being reminded of is that business should be fun. I have always followed my nose in that respect and am probably much poorer financially but much richer as a person as a result.

So the momentum starts to build and early indications are that Business-Scene in South Wales is going to become a valuable resource for SME's looking to grow.