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April 2012 Issue
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CONTENTS
DIASPORABlack River Chocolate: 72 per cent cocoa, 100 per cent Jamai-can p.20
DO GOODUsing sports to help at-risk youth p.8
NEWS p.7
EDITOR’S NOTEGetting ahead on the technology curve p.5
TECH NOWBehold the ‘resolutionary’ iPad p.9
BUSINESS LOUNGEZipTechnologies: A history of innovation p.12
Crowdfunding: Using the Internet to finance your big ideap.16INSIGHTSImprove competitiveness to decrease outsourcing p.19
Y-FOLLOW@wired p.26
START UPSInsight Studios: O!ering creative marketing solutions p.23
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t is no secret that, generally speaking, Jamaica is be-hind the technology curve. However, our limitations in terms of resources and capital have not curbed the innovative, creative spirit of our people. In fact,
our local technology players have continually defied the odds to create applications and services that are as good as anything available in the first world.
One such innovator is Noel King, who has been a pioneer in the local tech industry since the late 1980s. His first company, Computer Business Systems, implemented the first local area network in the Caribbean. In the early 1990s, the company went digital as the ‘PC revolution’ opened up into the informa-tion highway, rebranding itself ZipTechnologies.
The company prides itself on riding the crest of the wave, con-stantly evolving to keep up with current trends in the US mar-ket. This factor has allowed ZipTechnologies to attract clients from amongst Jamaica’s top companies and across the Carib-bean, even selling one of its products, developed by its New York a!liate, to Facebook in 2010.
While most Jamaican tech entrepreneurs might not have the same capacity as ZipTechnologies, there are several lessons to be learned from how the company has evolved.
Last week, the US Senate approved legislation sanctioning crowdfunding, a method of raising capital that allows the gen-eral public to make equity investments in startup companies and small businesses. This is a step in the right direction to help drive business creation and the Jamaican government could possibly take this move into consideration.
Meanwhile, online crowdfunding continues to grow, with various sites like IndieGoGo and Kickstarter helping individu-als and companies raise money to bring their ideas to reality. There are many Jamaican projects on both platforms, and we caught up with two Jamaicans who have used the platform to support their projects.
It is clear that Jamaican innovation is alive and well, but we still need to become even more forward-thinking if we are to take full advantage of the myriad opportunities available to us in the global technology marketplace. There might be con-straints, but if we look hard enough, we can certainly find a way around these di!culties.
Tracey-Ann Wisdom
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Getting ahead on the technology curve
Editor’s Note
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Apply now for Caribbean Idea Marketplace Matching GrantsApplications are now being accepted for Caribbean Idea Marketplace match-ing grants, funded by the United States Department of State. The deadline for applications is May 31.
The Caribbean Idea Marketplace (CIM) is a business competition platform that encourages Caribbean and diaspora entrepreneurs to forge partnerships around innovative projects that will cre-ate employment and economic oppor-tunities in the region. CIM will provide up to US$100,000 in matching grants to each winning project.
For more information, visit www.caribbeanidea.org.
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Wanted: Bright IDEAS for Energy Innovation ContestEnter the IDEAS Energy Innovation Con-test in Renewable Energy for a chance to win up to US$200,000. The applica-tion deadline is April 30. The contest is open to individuals, enterprises and or-ganisations from across the Caribbean. All proposals must be submitted online and be in accordance with the contest guidelines. Shortlisted semi-finalists will be announced by May 21. A panel of experts will evaluate final application and the winner will be announced mid-July.
For more information on the IDEAS En-
ergy Innovation Contest in Renewable Energy contest, email [email protected].
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EduFocal goes liveEduFocal, the social learning platform featured in last month’s Start Ups, was o!cially launched on March 15.
The platform, created to help prepare students for the GSAT and CSEC ex-aminations, was endorsed by education minister Ronald Thwaites, who said the time has come for Jamaica to look be-yond traditional teaching methods. He stated that EduFocal will provide “an en-tirely new vista for many students who have di!culties with the ordinary ‘warp and woof ’ of the classroom.”
The EduFocal website, is now live and will cost $200 per month or $2000 per year to subscribe to the interactive learning community.
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Inaugural Market Mixx Awards seeks to inspire entrepreneursEntrepreneurs will take centrestage at the inaugural Market Mixx Awards (MMA), which will be held on April 28 at Carlos Café in Kingston. The awards were developed by Market Mixx found-er Alrick Telfer to encourage and re-ward entrepreneurs for the work they have done in key areas such as innova-tion, creativity and customer service.
Business owners and businesses were nominated by the public and the winners will be decided based on the number of votes and other factors determined by the judges.
Branson Centre and Huffington Post launch Global Mentorship PilotThe Branson Centre of Entrepreneur-ship (Caribbean) and the Hu!ngton Post Small Business Board of Directors recently launched the Global Mentor-ship Pilot. Twelve directors represent-ing eight businesses were matched with the first cohort of entrepreneurs. The mentors spent two days getting to know their mentees, holding discussions with local businesses and visiting the entre-preneurs’ companies. Mentoring o!-cially started on March 19.
“This is the start of a long-term rela-tionship with the Hu!ngton Post Small Business Board of Directors. Our aim is to develop the global mentorship model with other organisations to mentor our next groups of entrepreneurs,” said Maisie Allen, Branson Centre Partner-ship Manager. “We feel it is important that the entrepreneurs are linked with experienced business people in Jamaica and the Caribbean. We’re happy to talk to any experienced business owners or leaders who are interested in joining us as mentors.”
Visit the Branson Centre’s Facebook page for more information.
News
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EduFocal founder,
Gordon Swaby
amaicans love sports, from playing a community ‘scrim-mage’ football game to watching our athletes take gold at the Olympics. This has helped make it easy for A Ga-nar (Spanish for ‘to earn’ or ‘to win’), a youth develop-
ment programme created by Partners of the Americas, to reach out to at-risk youth across the island.
The programme, started in Latin America in 2005, uses the principles of team sports to help youth aged 16-24 years old to find jobs, learn entrepreneurial skills or re-enter the for-mal education system. “A Ganar was conceptualised looking at how to not only use sports as a tool to teach life skills and employability skills, but how it can even create a shift in the consciousness of young people and what they’re about,” said country representative, Andre Wilson.
A Ganar operates in four phases: phase one teaches youth to translate sporting skills into employability skills such as team-work, communication, discipline, results orientation and con-tinual self-improvement; phase two involves certified technical or vocational training, while phase three involves an intern-ship or apprenticeship; and phase four, which takes place after graduation, consists of follow-on activities, where their prog-ress is tracked.
“Mentorship runs parallel with all the phases. If there is inabil-ity to provide one-on-one mentorship, there’s actually group mentorship and we recommend the ratio 10:1,” Wilson ex-plained. “Largely, we believe that most youth really can bring to life what it is that they want to do. It’s pretty much channel-ling all that energy and o#ering guidance.”
The local A Ganar programme was started in 2009 and is fund-ed by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). The programme, slated to train 500 young people, began in 2010 with 255 youths. This first cycle was based in Kingston, through five implementing partners - Jamaica Cricket Associa-tion, Kintyre/Hope Flats Benevolent Society, Half Way Tree Community Development Committee, Violence Prevention Alliance, in collaboration with Whole Life Sports Ministries and Youth Opportunities Unlimited.
Cycle two, which involves rural communities, was im-plemented through BREDS Treasure Beach Founda-tion in St Elizabeth, Youth Enhancement Service in collaboration with the St James Football Association and the Oracabessa Foun-dation in St Mary. A Ganar also works closely with Peace Corp Jamaica along with several other youth and community develop-ment initiatives.
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A Ganar: Using sports to help at-risk youth
Do Good
Based on the success of the programme so far, USAID has o#ered to extend funding for another four years. A Ga-nar will now reach an addition-al 200 youth across the island, including 120 to be engaged through the Jamaica Social Investment Fund’s ( JSIF) pro-grammes in the communities of March Pen, Tawes Mead-ows and Whitfield Town.
Of course, more mentors will be needed as the programme expands, so Wilson is appeal-ing to interested persons to come on board. “Some youth will tell you that they would prefer to have someone sit and talk with them than to have someone giving them money, because it helps,” he said.
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Andre Wilson,
A Ganar country
representative
Behold the ‘resolutionary’ iPad
Apple aficionados, tech junkies and mere mortals alike could hardly contain their excitement when the specs of the new iPad (no, it’s not called the iPad 3) were revealed. Although none of the up-grades to the last prototype are particularly futuristic, the new tablet does come with some great features. Here are five upgrades that should make your user experience even better:
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ALL IN FOCUSThe 5-megapixel iSight camera lets you capture sharp, clear images regardless of light limitations. Other features include autofocus, tap-to-focus and tap-to-set exposure functions and built-in face detection that automatically balances focus and exposure across up to 10 faces. The camera also captures video in 1080p HD and automatic video stabilisation ensures your recording is free of bumps and shakes.
RETINA DISPLAY
This is the reason the new iPad is being called ‘resolu-tionary’: With four times more pixels than the iPad 2 (2048 x 1536 resolution) and 44 per cent greater colour saturation, this is even sharper than HDTV. So your documents and emails are clearer and your pictures and movies richer and more life-like.
UPGRADED PROCESSOR
The smooth retina display would not be possible without the speedy and powerful new A5X chip. The iPad comes to life instantly with a touch of the Home button and your apps are always ready to go. Its quad-core graphics process-ing literally makes the iPad feel responsive, whether you are swiping, pinching and scroll-ing, editing images or videos or playing games. And you still get up to 10 hours of battery life.
LIGHTNING-FAST 4G LTE CONNECTIONThe new iPad is designed with cellular antennas that lets you get online almost anywhere you are. Don’t worry that Jamaica isn’t fully aboard the 4G train yet; the device also works on GSM, CDMA, HSPA, HSPA+ and 3G networks, so we are covered. Even more revolution-ary is the fact that the new iPad can act as a personal hotspot for connecting up to five devices over Wi-Fi, Bluetooth or USB, if your carrier supports it.
BE A DICTATOR
The iPhone 4S has Siri and now the iPad has its own voice dictation fea-ture. While it doesn’t have a cool name and won’t help you find the nearest fast food place, it will help you dictate your documents and messag-es, which will be saved as you speak and can later be sent as emails.
Real Business. Real Talk.
Business Lounge
ZipTechnologies:
The first thing you notice upon entering the ZipTechnologies Limited workspace is the Egyptian hieroglyphics on the wall. Well, it’s not quite Egyptian. Nor is it hieroglyphics. The drawings are actually scribbles done by company founder Noel King’s children many years ago, but they add a touch of whimsy to the décor and signify the cre-ative energy that has sustained the small web development company since it was es-tablished in the early 1990s.
A history of innovation
By Tracey-Ann WisdomPhotos by Warren Buckle
ZipTechnologies
founder, Noel King
he intention here was to build online applica-tions. In its lowest form, it’s a website. In its highest form, it is a very mature, entire online
application and we now take those things for granted,” King explained, drawing on accounting software as an example of how people have come to rely more on online applications as technology has evolved. “Now, we will go online and use ap-plications like Quicken, Outright or Freshbooks and not give a second’s thought to those applications being updated every day or every week or every month. That’s sort of the new paradigm in our environment and we exist comfortably there. So we’ve ended up where we’re the largest developer of those kinds of applications in the Caribbean.”
The ZipTechnologies story actually began about a decade earlier in the late 1980s when King, a graduate of Howard University in Washington, DC, finally heeded the call of entre-preneurship after several years work-ing at Citibank, establishing Computer Business Systems (CBS). This was the age of the ‘PC revolution’, so he start-ed out selling hardware. His first cli-ent was Lascelles Demercado, which bought a Novell network server, the height of tech innovation in those days.
“We, in essence, installed the first personal area network in the island. Then we did the same thing in Grenada for Neal and Massy and we got quite a bit of work. We were basically at that time in hardware and a bit of programming and we developed some payroll applications and things like that,” King recalled.
A new kind of incubatorBy the early 1990s, King went digital as hardware began to take a backseat to software in the tech arena and renamed the company ZipTechnologies. He calls the company an incuba-tor, based on Graham Wallas’ 1922 book The Art of Thought, which describes the four stages of creativity as preparation, incubation, illumination and verification. The incubation phase is where the great ideas flow, and King’s team has certainly churned out idea after fresh idea over the years.
The core of ZipTechnologies is creating web applications, such as live support, content publishing, blog platform and shopping cart systems. The company also provides web design and site maintenance, content development, social network marketing, web analytics, consulting and other services for local and re-gional clients in a number of sectors, including banking, auto re-tail, energy and law. Clients include Scotia Investments, Victoria Mutual, Salada, Institute of Jamaica, Kingston Industrial Garage, Toyota Jamaica, Walkerswood, Jamaica Broilers and Jamaica Public Service Company.
ZipTechnologies also creates its own web applications, such as IsleGifts.com. The idea for this sales website came about during a bazaar at Devon House, where King thought about giving the vendors a way to continue selling their wares after that and similar events were over. However, the success of that venture has been limited by high shipping costs.
The first world edge Working closely with his son Saadiq, the chief technology of-ficer who is based in New York, King and his team are able to provide results that are influenced by what is current in the first world. Beyond innovation on the computer, ZipTechnologies has ensured constant success by looking to external market sources for revenue. “The New York segment has gone in a di#erent direction, where they went into developing apps in an e#ort to see what would happen there in terms of revenue,” King said.
One of the products they developed, a live events-driven so-cial network called Hot Potato, was bought by Facebook in August 2010.
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We, in essence, in-stalled the first person-al area network in the island. Then we did the same thing in Grenada
for Neal and Massy and we got quite a bit
of work.
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ZipLawBased on its range of services and reach into the Caribbean and US market, ZipTechnologies occupies a unique space in Jamaica’s still-developing tech industry. The company is about to take a further step into the tech stratosphere with its revamped ZipLaw (http://www.ziplaw.com/) application, dubbed ZipLaw 2.0.
ZipLaw is a 17-year-old legal research tool that is allied to the ZipTechnologies brand. Over the years, it has become the top litigant support service in Jamaica. The site is a database of all the country’s legal documents, including the Constitution, Gazettes, case laws, international treaties and recent Bills and Acts. “We sat down and came up with this product and it got so interesting and the stu# we thought we could do with it was so remarkable that it just sort of took on a life of its own. We didn’t even realise until we were well into it that there was nothing else like it in the Caribbean,” King said.
“We’re actually rolling it out in such a fashion that any English-speaking Caribbean island can go and put up their laws,” he added. “The market is not big enough for anybody to make a profit from it, so it has been a product of the heart, so to speak. But we think now we could morph it into a business model like Wikipedia or Wikileaks, where the price would be very a#ordable to everybody and you ask for donations twice a year and it could be sustained long after we are not here.”
Growing Jamaica’s tech industryWith such a wide range of applications and services as well as its reach into the wider Caribbean and US markets, ZipTech-nologies occupies a unique space in Jamaica’s tech industry. However, King argued that the industry would be more ad-vanced were it not for unnecessary bureaucratic procedure and lack of flexibility.
“The challenge in building technology applications is the word ‘like’. You get really, really great people who have accom-plished really, really great things in a meeting and when you propose a technical solution to a technical problem, [they say] ‘but I don’t like that’. You try to get through to them that the point of technology is to remove those types of words from the discourse. That’s how you get the best,” he said.
Despite the shortcomings in the industry, King is not short on praise for the local tech talent pool. “We have some remark-able technical people in the island. I could call five or six or seven names of young guys that are in charge of some compa-nies in Jamaica that are as bright as anybody I’ve met,” he said.
To really see growth, King is calling for more relaxed govern-ment regulations in order to make it easier to get equipment into the island at lower prices. “We are so close to this massive English-speaking technology incubator, the US. They should really look at it a bit closer.”
Something else to look at is getting more involved in the boom-ing mobile apps development sector, particularly for Apple and Android devices. “I’d stay away from BlackBerry because they’re having their own issues,” he advised.
King is also advocating more use of open source software, which can save companies significant amounts of money. “We should probably be doing what Cincinnati is doing, where they chucked out Microsoft and said open source software is free,” he said. “It has 80 per cent less features, but nobody here is us-ing those 20 per cent leading edge features. It is crazy as a poor country, that we’re not using all the open source software and we’re not the best at it in the Caribbean.”
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Part of the ZipTechnologies team (L-R): Randene Alleyne-
Bowley, social media manager; Loraine Sin Quee, sales
and marketing manager; Noel King; Simone Whilby,
general manager - design and development and Jesse
Thompson, help desk manager
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Business Lounge
eta-Ann Smith is currently wrapping up her studies at the Edna Manley College for the
Visual and Performing Arts, where she is majoring in Illustration. To complete her Bachelor of Fine Arts, Smith is working assiduously on her independent study project – a Jamaican children’s book, which must be done before final exams in May. She will also need to stage an exhibi-tion in June. However, pulling everything together (art supplies, printing costs, dis-play equipment and more) will cost in the region of US$2,000.
With most of her savings wiped out last year due to illness, Smith has turned to the internet for help reaching her goal. In December, she set up a funding campaign on IndieGoGo.com, which raised US$125. She will be setting up an-other campaign in the next few days to
try to reach her target. “I tried family and friends, but the recession has made things rough for everybody. I wrote about 20 sponsorship letters, but only received one ‘yes’. I got something from them, but I didn’t want to rely on one particular source,” she explained.
What Smith has done is called crowd-funding, where individuals pool their re-sources to support initiatives established by other people or organisations. The concept is not new, but utilising the plat-form of the World Wide Web certainly opens up a much larger donor pool than asking for donations from your family, church or community groups.
While crowdfunding is most often used to raise moderate amounts of money for creative endeavours such as writing books, recording albums and producing
films or financing causes like environ-mental campaigns, it has also been used successfully to start small businesses. Crowdfunding is also behind at least one major recent innovation – the iPhone elevation dock.
Created by Casey Hopkins of Elevation Lab in Portland, Oregon, the dock was posted on Kickstarter last December 14 and reached its target of US$75,000 within eight hours. However, it went on to raise a whopping US$1,124,440, from 10, 275 backers by its February 11, 2012 deadline. The dock has received major publicity and earned ecstatic reviews from some of the most respected pub-lications and blogs in the United States, both tech-centric and news-focused. Wired even called it “the dock Apple should have made in the first place.”
Crowdfunding: Using the Internet to finance your big idea
The cast of Sabrina Marshall’s Kingston House series,
which was partially financed through crowdfunding (L-
R): Conray Richards, Kadeem Wilson, Taheera Tam,
Julie-Ann Bailey and Kevoy Burton.
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Crowdfunding is certainly an exciting prospect and there are di#erent op-tions to suit a variety of needs. Besides IndieGoGo and Kickstarter, other pop-ular crowdfunding sites include Artist-Share, Sponsume, PledgeMusic and Spot.Us.
Million-dollar projects like the Elevation Dock and Double Fine Adventure-have made Kickstarter a serious source of funding and marketing for both start-ups and established companies, but it is solely focused on the creative industry. If your project falls into the design, film, technology, music, gaming or similar categories, you might benefit from cam-paigning there. IndieGoGo is a bet-ter option if you are seeking funding for causes, starting a business or even health research, and it is also great for those in the creative industry.
There are some other conditions to note if you are interested in going this route. For instance, Kickstarter only makes backers pay if a project’s goal is reached. With IndieGoGo, you can ac-cess whatever amount of money you have raised. Additionally, both sites charge platform fees – Kickstarter takes five per cent for successful campaigns; IndieGoGo charges four per cent for successful campaigns and nine per cent if the project was unsuccessful and you decide to accept the funds raised.
There are a number of other past or current Jamaican campaigns on Kick-starter and IndieGoGo, including Sabrina Marshall’s drive for Kingston House, a local television show chroni-cling the issues facing teenagers today.
“I used IndieGoGo to help raise money for the demo of Kingston House only, not the series. The demo was part of the pitch I used to present the concept of Kingston House to the Jamaican TV networks in order to give them a visual
sense of what the show would be like, and it worked. I’ve seen this approach from classmates I went to graduate school with in London, and decided to give it a try,” she explained.
Marshall raised US$1,190 of her tar-get this way. “I reached my goal of US$5,000 via friends and family con-tributions outside of IndieGoGo,” she said. “The site takes a percentage of the total contribution, so it was more beneficial for friends and family mem-bers in close geographic proximity to personally hand me their contributions or do a wire transfer, which is what oc-curred. Those who lived abroad made donations through this website, which is where that total came from.”
Marshall expressed reservations about the platform fees IndieGoGo charges, but admitted that crowdfunding does have its benefits: “The link provided makes it easy for you to send to your friends and makes it more convenient for them to use their credit or debit cards and make their contributions on-line.”
Smith, on the other hand, likes the fact that the site discloses the fees up front and plans to accept whatever she rais-es from her campaigns. “My donators, few as they were in the first campaign, will all receive their perks as promised as a token of my gratitude,” she said. “Even if I never reach my original target with the new campaign, any amount I do earn will help in covering the costs of my final year Illustration project and exhibition.”
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I tried family and friends, but the recession has made things rough for everybody. I wrote about 20 sponsorship letters, but only received one ‘yes’. I got something from them, but I didn’t want to rely on one particular source.
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A bookmark of Charlene, the main
character in Peta-Ann Smith’s up-
coming children’s book.
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Insights
utsourcing, which is the practice of contracting work to individuals or companies external to an organisation, has been a custom within many companies for years.
However, with several Jamaicans outsourcing overseas, there are some who are undecided about its benefits, especially as it relates to the impact on the development of local talent and the economy. Based on their goals, companies will go in search of individu-als and companies who can turn their ideas into reality. That’s where outsourcing comes in. Some employers simply believe that they can’t find a local company that is able to o#er exactly what they want.
If you’re a local startup who is ambivalent about outsourcing, then it is important to put your company in prime position to prevent other enterprises from looking past you. Here are five ways to improve your competitiveness:
Improve competitivenessto decreaseoutsourcing
It is unfair to demand that your fellow entrepreneurs give their business to you, yet the quality of your service is way below acceptable standards. Do your homework and ensure that you are at the top end of the quality curve, o#ering service that is attractive and depend-able. If you wouldn’t pay for low quality service, don’t expect others to.
This truly should be one of the first things you learn about operating a business. A satisfied customer is one who will not only return to your place of business, but re-fer others as well. Treat every customer with respect and always ensure that they are satisfied with the level of service you provide. It is also crucial that you take customer complaints seriously and do the necessary follow up.
Yes, it’s expensive to run a business and there are many overhead costs that impact on your budget, but asking the customer to absorb these through exorbitant prices isn’t always the best long-term option. If someone can get the same item at a di#erent company for a cheaper cost, you had better believe that they won’t be using your services.
You need to see your business outside of Jamaica and even the Ca-ribbean. Globalisation has made it increasingly easier for companies to stay in Jamaica and do business any-where in the world. With information communication technologies and social networking sites, the possibili-ties are endless for you to start o#ering world-class service.
Don’t tell a custom-er that you can deliver a job on Thursday and don’t. People should know that they can trust your word and plan around it. Excuses don’t cut it and if there’s something that will prevent you from delivering on the agreed date, communicate that immediately. Compa-nies want results when they need it, so e!ciency and professionalism are key.
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Diaspora
amaica is recognised around the world for a number of things: reggae music and Bob Marley, Blue Mountain cof-fee, extremely talented athletes and, whether we know it or not, our cocoa. One of only eight countries that
produces fine-flavoured cocoa, Jamaica has yet to fully take ad-vantage of this distinction, even though there is a ready market and cocoa prices have doubled since 2005.
While the agriculture ministry hastens to catch the boat, Lon-don-based Marvia Borrell is savouring the sweet taste of suc-cess. Last September, she teamed up with Belgian entrepre-neur Claude Lemmens to create Black River Chocolate, a confectioner company in the UK. They received their first commission immediately after launching at the Speciality and Fine Food Fair in London.
“We were invited to Switzerland to work with the Interconti-nental Hotel Geneva to provide the dessert for the diplomatic dinner attended by ambassadors and other dignitaries from around the world,” said Borrell, a self-professed serial entre-preneur originally from Montego Bay. This is high praise indeed, as the Swiss are world-renowned for their chocolate.
Jamaican cocoa is equally renowned for its unique flavour and high fat content and is often used to upgrade the taste of other cocoa beans and chocolate products. Realising that there was literally no single origin Jamaican cocoa product on the mar-
ket, Borrell and Lemmens seized the moment. “We believed it would be a missed opportunity not to create a chocolate brand that is truly Jamaican, showcasing our versatility and unique taste,” she said.
Black River Chocolate launched in the UK last December with an assorted praline collection which comes in 250, 125 and 50 gramme boxes, 100 gramme chocolate bars, five gramme Napolitains (traditionally served with tea) and one kilogramme couverture bars (highest quality chocolate with up to 39 per cent additional cocoa butter) for catering companies.
“We have had some great reviews from the press as well as, and most importantly, fantastic reviews from our clients,” Bor-rell said.
Although it is early days yet, Black River Chocolate, named for the area in St Elizabeth where Borrell’s grandfather was born, has been invited to participate in several trade competitions. She has her fingers crossed that the products will do well, and is also working to make the chocolates more widely available.
“We are currently in discussion with major retailers and well-known luxury shops in the UK and Europe. We are currently looking for retailers in Jamaica who would like to stock the product, especially retailers in high tra!c tourist areas, hotels and gourmet shops and supermarkets,” she said.
Black River Chocolate72% cocoa
Jamaican cocoa is renowned for its unique flavour and high fat con-
tent and is often used to upgrade the taste of other cocoa beans and
chocolate products.
100% Jamaican
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Marvia Borrell, the Jamaican co-
founder of Black River Chocolate
Insight Studios has been in operation since March 2009. I started the company but teamed up with a partner, Carlton Lindo, two years later. My role is lead designer, cre-ating graphics (logos, print ads and similar marketing materials), websites and television adverts. Lindo’s role is marketing strategist, conceptualising marketing initiatives for our clients. Being a former producer, he also does professional radio voice overs.
INSIGHT STUDIOS: Offering creative marketing solutions
By Keresa ArnoldPhotos by Warren Buckle
Leon Robinson,
founder of Insight Studios
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graduate of Wolmer’s Boys School and the University of Technology (UTech), where he earned a Bachelor’s in Business Administration, Leon Robinson shared how he created multimedia development compa-ny Insight Studios, which specialises in cre-ative branding solutions for companies and individuals through the use of graphic de-sign, web development and motion graphics. Here’s Robinson’s entrepreneurial journey in his own words.
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Some of our clients include InfoTech Jamaica, Fi-nancially SMART Services, Key Insurance and Ja-maica Auto Club. We provide dynamic and cre-ative solutions that aid greatly in their marketing e#orts. Our clients have praised the quality of our work and we have high levels of customer satisfaction.
I was inspired [to start my own company] partly by famous entrepreneurs, but mostly by my fa-ther. He would always be the first to rise and last to bed. My desire was strengthened when I learned that the vast majority of wealthy people were entrepreneurs and after I experienced the boredom and humdrum of o!ce work.
I was always a fan of computers, but I was most-ly interested in the creative aspect, creating my first ‘Hello World’ webpages and doodling in MS Paint in high school. When I attended UTech, I discovered Macromedia Fireworks, and began teaching myself graphic design.
Four things [that make a good graphic artiste] are creativity, design theory, the ability to communi-cate what the client wants and self-education. A good website is a critical marketing tool, as it cre-ates a perception in the customer’s mind about the quality of your business’ o#ering. It provides information about the company and helps to facilitate a buying decision, and sales are virtu-ally guaranteed when a person persuades them-selves instead of a salesperson. Approximately 55 per cent of Jamaicans are on the web, and the prevalence of smartphones makes having a website more important than ever. If people can’t find you online, then quite frankly, you’re losing sales.
A major challenge [when starting the company] was capital. Being a college student didn’t help things either. I devoted every spare dollar I could to the business. I also faced a lack of support. Entrepreneurship is a long, lonely road, and most people don’t get it. I overcame this by making friends with entrepreneurs, joining entrepre-neurial organisations and getting a mentor.
In five years, Insight Studios will be an established name in marketing, providing creative solutions to companies across various media. We plan to explore innovative advertising media, form stra-tegic alliances with a few established companies and spearhead a public awareness campaign fea-turing a well-known entertainer.
“I devoted every spare dollar I could to the busi-
ness. I also faced a lack of support. Entrepreneurship is a long, lonely road, and most people don’t get it.”
Start Ups
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If you have an interest in new and emerging technologies and how they a#ect business and culture, then you will appreciate wired.com, the online version of the magazine that has been in publication since 1993. What’s great is that they don’t just tweet at you. Despite having over a million followers, they still make an e#ort to connect. Here are a few reasons you should follow @wired:
@Y-follow
If it’s breaking news about inventions in the world of technology such as games, apps or even predicting how people will interact with technology, then you can bet your last dollar that it will be written, posted, tweeted and retweeted by wired.
With many corporate Twitter accounts, you don’t really know who you’re tweeting. Not true for Wired. Every week a di#erent editor assumes con-trol of the account. This way, you’ll get a variety of di#erent content depending on each person’s inter-ests. Check the account’s bio to see who’s tweeting.
They create words. Those who follow breaking technological trends will know that wired was cred-ited for creating the terms “crowdsourcing”, distrib-uting tasks to a network of people; and “the long tail”, which was used by writer Chris Anderson to describe the sales strategies of companies such as Apple, Amazon and Netflix.
Not only do they have witty and funny tweets, but wired also has an annual Vaporware Awards, which “recognises the products, videogames and other nerdy tidbits pitched, promised and hyped, but never delivered.” For example, the Duke Nukem Forever video game was on Wired’s list for 12 years before finally being released in 2011.
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