www.openbiz.be

How to open business registers & public company data in 54 hoursPresentation by Toon Vanagt (@Toon) & Eric Rodriguez (@wavyx) on @openbizbe

#Twunch 2/3/2011 Rooftop terrace cabinet @VincentVQ

www.openbiz.be

Start-up weekend Brussels 2011

Startup Weekend is an intense 54 hour event which brings together people with different skillsets - from software developers and graphics designers to business-minded aspiring entrepreneurs - to pitch ideas, form teams, and attempt to transform a mere idea into the beginnings of a viable startup business over the course of a weekend…

www.openbiz.be

Public Belgian company data are:

• Scattered over several websites:– Balanscentrale NBB / Centrale des Bilans BNB (http://

bcc.nbb.be/BCCIA0101/WEB/actions/startbcc?lang=N)

– Kruispuntbank ondernemingen/ (http://kbopub.economie.fgov.be/kbopub/zoekwoordenform.html)

– Belgisch Staatsblad / Moniteur Belge (http://www.ejustice.just.fgov.be/cgi_tsv/tsv.pl)

– …• Unstructured • Hard to explore (interface, cookies, pop-ups)• Hard to share

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Hard to use: change settings on browser…

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Heavy legal disclaimers: prison penalties

• Upto 5 year of prison for copying data from public registers for commercial use

• (http://statbel.fgov.be/nl/ondernemingen/KBO/Pubd/PuS/Beperking/index.jsp) “Op het misbruik van Public Search staan straffen van vrijheidsberoving vanaf drie maand tot vijf jaar engeldboetes van 25 tot 500 euro”

• Not allowed to redistribute data for free (http://ec

onomie.fgov.be/nl/ondernemingen/KBO/ond/Comm/Beperkingen/index.jsp) “U mag de gegevens niet gratis ter beschikking stellen van derden, behalve als u daarvoor het akkoord heeft van de Beheersdienst van de KBO.”

Private data service providers sell structured public data and personal info

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Why OpenBiz.be

• Difficult for non-experts to get quick overview about financial and personal information of company stakeholders

• Lack of transparency compared to many other countries• Information spread over several sites• Existing paid models targeted at companies with big data

acquisition budgets and information needs• Diminish risk for SME’s of dealing with wrong suppliers or

non paying customers• Let others experiment with public government data (save

tax money)

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What Would Google Do? (@jeffjarvis)

• Crawl public web sources• Extract useful data (OCR)• Structure information• Offer easy search & fast consolidated results• Add value with alerts• …

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Quick demo: Jean-Claude LogéFormer Manager of the Year and founder of Systemat resigned without press release nor coverage

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Search & share published records on Twitter & Facebook

• Find local companies (eg: ‘Kortrijk’)• Find unmarried entrepreneurs (eg

‘mademoiselle ‘ for matchmaking or female entrepreneurial empowerment organisation)

• Find ‘starters’

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Quote

Unlike Facebook, there are no privacy options you can set as a Belgian company stakeholder. Government regulation aims to protect third parties and therefor those who own and manage companies are identifiable on personal level to be accountable…

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Useful links• http://brussels.startupweekend.org/• http://OpenBiz.be/• http://twunch.be/twunches/dakterras-van-het-kabinet-van-minister-van-ict-20110302-1200• http://economie.fgov.be/nl/ondernemingen/KBO/ond/Comm/Beperkingen/index.jsp• http://bcc.nbb.be/BCCIA0101/WEB/actions/startbcc?lang=N• http://kbopub.economie.fgov.be/kbopub/zoekwoordenform.html• http://www.ejustice.just.fgov.be/cgi_tsv/tsv.pl• http://www.buzzmachine.com/what-would-google-do/ & http://twitter.com/jeffjarvis• http://open.gov.uk/• http://www.419eater.com/html/419faq.htm

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Extra time

• Next slides are for reference and might be used during Q&A

« Initial » Business Model- Customer Segment

- SME in Belgium (240.000)- Extensible to non-profit organizations

- Potential revenues- Freemium model with subscription for alerts - Pay-per-click for subscription alerts « allergic »

- Costs- Cloud infrastructure – minimal operating costs- Viral Marketing – no direct sales

- Partners- Economic organizations- Public business curators

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http://www.slideshare.net/erikjonker/benefits-of-open-government-data-2103552

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FEATURE: ALERTS

link to original

document

Pay-per-click

What do you get

Watchlist (size) 1 to 24 25 to 74 < 150 UnlimitedMonitoring (search) - €/month FREE 4,00€ 7,00€ 20,00€ 0,20€

Alerting - €/month FREE 3,00€ 4,00€ 10,00€ Marketing

Weekly "new" list - €/month 150,00€ 10,00€

Yearly cost (call for discount) FREE 84,00€ 132,00€ 360,00€

Number of users using the website is not limited within a company

Subscription-based

PRICING MODEL

Extra time: what about free search results but paid alerts?