Tomorrow’s Web

My favourite word to define my trip to the Tomorrow’s Web conference yesterday: surreal. The whole event was very interesting and enjoyable during most parts (though there were a few uncomfortable moments during the New Media panel..), but still, it was very fun.

Myself and Greg both had to leave Coventry at roughly 6:10AM to grab a train to Euston station in London (though we almost missed the train as I somehow left the train tickets in the taxi, whoops…). After arriving at Euston we started to walk around having no clue where to get on the underground. Though, we eventually found the stairs to enter the underground - after noticing the great big sign that said “Underground”..

We then began our journey to Elephant & Castle station via the London Underground. After our time on the tube we managed to arrive at the Keyworth Center at around 8:15AM (I think) and were able to grab some good seats!

The day definitely had some interesting talks (my favourite talks of the day were Anna Debenham’s and Nick Pellant’s) and it was nice to hear a few of the thoughts that my fellow developers/entrepreneurs had :).

But it must be said, my favourite part of the day had to be the start-up pitch. Why? Because I got to present mine and Greg’s business to Hemione Way, Jason Bradbury and Milo Yiannopoulos! The great thing about pitching the business was that we didn’t really receive any negative feedback whatsoever! Just a few ideas on ways to monetize the business! Milo’s suggestion was through white labeling if I remember correctly where as Jason’s thoughts were to just forget about monetizing the business for now and focus on getting the product as perfect as it can be and then employing someone else to come up with revenue models for us - I like this idea, though it may not sound that good if we ever seek more investment! When I look back and think that I just got to pitch my business to some truly amazing people the only word I can think of is surreal as that’s exactly what it was.

All in all, it was a fantastic day and the whole conference experience has made quite an impression on myself and Greg as we are now debating the idea of hosting our own web conference later in the year or in early 2010!

Well hey there, I’m Simon!

Hey, I’m Simon! I’m a 17 year old web developer slash entrepreneur from Cheshire in the UK. I love building and coding websites (which is a good thing considering it’s my job!). I’ve been building websites since I was around 11 years old and when I turned 16 I received my first job offer (which I quickly accepted!) to be a full-time PHP developer at a social networking website called Youmeo! I worked with the cool guys at Youmeo until the end of May (2009), which was when I decided that I had spent a fair amount of time at the company and so it was time for me to spread my wings and try something new.

Since leaving my job with Youmeo, I’ve entered the wonderful world of business and I’m soon to be the Co-Founding Director of GNRation Limited which is a website “factory” that I own and run along side Greg Cooper and Davar Fazaeli. Our latest snippets of web goodness include SearchMerge.com, Zood.com and Today.im.

The realms of business and social media are both big interests of mine and I hope to be able to contribute something to the both of them in the coming months and years!

If you ever need to get in touch with me or just fancy a chat then I’m always available through my Twitter, Email or sometimes through Skype.