The ToyFair has begun. We had a great time playing with all the toys, from new puppets, over Pokemons, all the way to boardgames we didn’t understand. The variety is great, but we couldn’t really see anything innovative. Oh and I learned everything about Barbie collector dolls from their sales rep. – very valuable info In addition to living a childhood dream, we managed to get good contacts from a number of big players – they all seem to wake up now and try to bring their products online, but not just that, they realise that they also need to engage with them!!!

We also had some fun outside the expo. I found my neighbourhood and we ate at a great mexican restaurant of death with a rather kitsch interior.

Our big day is tomorrow with the start of the EngageExpo… Stay tuned…

We started the day with a lumberjack breakfast consisting of 3 pancakes, 2 eggs, bacon and tonnes of super sweet sirup – oh and real tea. Stuart insisted that this is the way to do it in the US, after not feeling hungry for the next 6 hours I am not too sure.
We then did a little bit of shopping, which was a real necessity after I was part of a real boot strapped startup, as my shoe had a huge whole in it – which is not very pleasant in wet weather.
After my least favorite activity -shopping- we went back to prepare for the Expo starting tomorrow. Emailing and browsing tonnes of webpages makes youhungry and Stuart suggested we need some real American fast food – hot dogs at Crif New York’s number one wieners it was.

My hotdog required a coffee for digestion and then back to work. On the way back we passed through China town, which was buzzing in preparation for Chinese new year.

Now we are off to a party at the Ace Hotel….

This morning we had a very useful meeting with Patricia Young from UKTI. She will put us in touch with quite a few companies in NY, as well as some media agencies.

We then arranged a few more meetings and had a huge burrito – we were told we need to gain a bit of weight.

This afternoon we met Karl Schmieder from Messaginglab, nice guy with a good sense of humor. We will try to meet up with him again next week and might even have the chance to work out of his office. For the rest of the afternoon we camped out at the Ace Hotel on 29th Street, which seems to be the cool tech meet up place.

Tomorrow we will try to meet up with David from The Hatchery.

So far the Big Apple is very welcoming and everyone has been extremely helpful. But I am not sure if I ever will get used to their black water and tea. OK enough for today, my inner clock is telling me I should start getting tired – off to meet some friends.

(Update) We ended up listening to an opera in a church and had some healthy vegan food – really not what you normally would associate with the US.

We are on our way to New York for the EngageExpo, a trade show for kids products, ranging from internet based games, social worlds and real physical toys – yes they still exist and we hopefully have some time to play. In addition to realising a childhood dream of attending the biggest kids trade show in the world, we are presenting our direct marketing and ingame alert solutions – allowing business to engage with their demanding kids customers on THEIR channels. Kids just don’t use email anymore and businesses are slowly starting realise that. Comufy helps these business to message kids and teens easily on social networks and instant messengers. Twitter is also an options, but kids don’t seem to use it much yet.

During our stay we are also looking forward to meeting a few NY startups, i.e. Ray Bernaz from Socialibrium who was very helpful already putting us in touch with the NY tech scene and Graham Lawlor who has invited us to attend a ultralight startups event next Tuesday.

Enough about Comufy and why we are going to New York… More about the actual travel experience so far.

Thanks to UKTI, who have been great help all round so far, and British Airways, who have sponsored this flight as part of a program helping UK entrepreneurs go beyond the island. Virgin is no longer THE airline for entrepreneurs.

The experience on BA 0003 (yes that’s right one of THE Concord flight numbers – but unfortunately arrive before you leave is no more) has so far been very pleasant. Simple checkin, hardly any queues and very friendly cabin crew. Even the meal was tasty and warm Just had a quick chat with Gavin, the captain – nice personal touch I must say.

The only thing that has been missing was the quick cup of tea once things got moving. (Update) I nearly complained about not getting cheese and biscuits plus a desert, but Michelle the friendly flight attendant just brought me some extra cheese (If anyone from BA reads this: I am on BA0003 10.2.10, she deserves a promotion and promised not to strike).

Now a few more emails to confirm some meetings, a quick movie and maybe a power nap.

Update, the OnAir insight mobile phone system doesn’t let me connect to the Internet through T-Mobile – so this will be posted when we touch down. Even if they would let me connect, they probably would charge me an arm and a leg. Why didn’t BA just install inflight Wifi instead of an inflight mobile network that doesn’t let you receive calls and charges 1£ per SMS?

Looking forward to the Expo and to meeting our US startup buddies.

Phil