Have Theo and Deborah backed a winner?

Last week saw the launch of Smarta, a new advice and social networking destination for budding entrepreneurs. But is it a smarter way to do business than existing sites like Business Link and LinkedIn?

Well it’s certainly prettier than Business Link and there’s some great resource on there, as well there should with Bebo founder Michael Birch, Dragons Theo Paphitis and Deborah Meaden, plus Yo! Sushi founder Simon Woodroffe backing the venture.

Its success remains to be seen in the community it can build. I worry LinkedIn is too ahead of the game now. Smarta only has a handful of faceless profiles slowly being added to the site. Will we spend time getting our profiles and network to the same level as where we’ve invested elsewhere?

On the technology front, while Smarta is in Beta, I still think LinkedIn is also ahead. Even at a basic level LinkedIn can invite people to my network via Outlook and manage contacts with a superb plug-in. Smarta makes you faff about with exporting csv files. LinkedIn’s open API also means the wider community can add features & functionality I may find useful - Huddle workspaces currently has my interest.

A final thought is that Smarta’s very focus on start-ups may prove a weakness. On LinkedIn I can network with people at different stages of business. With Smarta catering towards new businesses there’s potential for this to turn into a community solely of entrepreneurs and wannabes all talking about the great things they’re gonna do if they can get the money.

Sorry to sound cynical but if there’s anything watching Dragon’s Den  teaches is that there’s an awful lot of people starting businesses who will never have a clue, no matter how much advice you give them.

On the flip side though, there is already too much cynicism about new business in the UK so I for one will stay part of the community and watch with interest to see how it develops.