We got mail!

Just to confirm that the bgreen.cat domain is now registered for us and my bgreen email from now on is robmarchant@bgreen.cat. I kinda like the .cat domain, it's homey and reinforces our connection with Barcelona. We have a few others on reserve for later.

Website is on the way, but whoa there, not for a month or so yet, we want to do this properly. Are also planning an investor pitch very shortly, we'll keep you posted...

Our new logo

Now, I know I need to get out more, but I'm very pleased with our new logo. It's been done by a professional and everything.

Back to business: what's the store going to look like?

As we've been talking to friends, colleagues and potential investors over the last few weeks, a few people have been asking me "ok but what's this REALLY all about?" In response, I think seeing the mockup is always a great way to understand a business. So, here's an extract from our investors' Powerpoint, to give you some idea.

Design will be an important element - the store is intended to look cool - as will in-store campaigns on eco-issues. Note the two big video screens in the front, which will be an important part of these campaigns, engaging with customers, to attract them into the store, and explaining products.

Any thoughts, comments, feedback welcome.

And let's not forget the business opportunity: Washington summit

While most people's eyes are focused on Copenhagen, the world's businesspeople will quite possibly be paying more attention to this summit that's going on in Washington...



This underlines that what bgreen is aiming to do is just part of a global industry which is about to be very big indeed.

Debate on the whether is over, it's time to think about the how.

Copenhagen countdown - staying the right side of 2ºC

Less than a week to go to Copenhagen: to what might, when we look back in twenty or thirty years, turn out to have been the most important inflection point of our lifetimes between two possible futures: that of truly putting us on the road to resolving climate change, or not. In the UK, it is also quite likely to be the last important action of the Labour administration which started in 1997, and the country therefore has a short window of opportunity in which to act (frankly, it's incredibly unlikely, despite Cameron's protestations to the contrary, that a Tory administration would act in this area aggressively).

Our political systems, however, so adept in acting in the event of immediate threats such as military attack, seem hopelessly inadequate to act in the event of a slow-moving crisis. In the event of failure, even such measured and sensible people as Al Gore are advocating that "civil disobedience has its role to play" and, despite myself, he may just have a point.

Let's not fluff it.

Investor interest

I should also add that while the blog's been a bit quiet, we did our first investor pitch. The investor is a big name Business Angel who has founded one of the most popular websites in Spain, which is a market leader at the European level. He really liked the idea, and we're working on some changes he suggested to the business plan. We'll keep you updated...

Our video

Well I've just seen 36 clicks in 3 hours for our "last chance to see" of our video on The Good Entrepreneur, as I assume they'll take it down soon after the grand finale tonight. So thank you all for your support, it'll take us a bit longer given that we didn't win the competition, but we're still very much going and talking to investors. We're also scouring the national and international markets for any grants we might get (also helps us get equity investment as well, of course).

Anyway, for those of you who haven't seen our 1-minute Good Entrepreneur video (you must have been living on the moon for all my posts to have missed you), here's the link.

Yes, those spots on my face are real (thanks Mark for pointing that out).