Each startup will be writing a guest blog to share the highs and lows that come with being an early stage startup. This is your chance to get a sneaky peek into what it is like to be part of Collider and even grab a chunk of wisdom on the way.
This week’s is written by Bob Haynes, the Director of Ad Venture.
Looking back through the 9 week programme, it is amazing to see how Ad Venture has changed, and that’s not just in reference to the name change!
As a team, prioritizing has never been one of our strongest points, and this has become even more evident during the Collider programme. It seems as if as soon as we believe things are under control, a client decides to throw in an obstacle which completely throws our weeks plans! Trying to fit in an important meeting in with a customer and an equally as important Collider day is virtually impossible. This was the case during the Unilever Brand day in week 5, but luckily it turned out not to be too much of a problem in the end.
The day at Unilever was probably the most valuable to date in terms of networking and giving us a brilliant opportunity to refine our pitch and analyse our strengths and weaknesses. Each 15 minute slot we were faced with a different point of view, and with that a different critique, some of which were completely foreign to us. One point, which was really interesting, was how targeting may not be as important as we thought. Head of strategy for Surf pointed this out to us and after so much positivity from other department heads, his comments brought us back down to earth. After delivering our elevator pitch he pretty much dismissed our product straight away explaining how his KPI was purely to reach as many people as possible, this made us really struggle for the next 14 minutes…
The rest of the ‘speed dates’ were great, and it was brilliant to hear other suggestions to how we can adapt out service for different brands. After the last round we were well and truly exhausted, but we came out with many follow up meetings and even a Unilever mentor!