Tech of Tomorrow at Internet World!

Collider will run their Tech of Tomorrow pitching programme at Internet World on the 18th & 19th June within The Market Place Theatre. 

Collider's Tech of Tomorrow @ Internet Worldprogramme will allow a maximum of eight startups to present their innovative tech products/services to a panel of judges and to an audience of over a 100 professionals across the two days.

On the Wednesday, all eight startups will present in front of the judges and visitors then on the Thursday the winner will be announced and get the opportunity to speak about their winning product/service in front of a live audience.

How to get involved?

Collider will select six startups from their accelerator programme with the remaining two places up for grabs by applying through http://www.f6s.com/techoftomorrowinternetworld/apply. We will work closely with Collider to select the best two applications to join the other six on the stage!

*Booking opens Friday March 14th. Deadline for submission is April 18th.

Think you and your business have a viable tech product/service to present infront of a b2b audience? The winning startup will recieve free publicity and marketing around their product/service as well as a professional video of their presentation to be used as you wish! Follow Collider for the latest news on who has been accepted@ColliderGB

It costs nothing to enter the Tech of Tomorrow @ Internet World Programme, only time & creativity!

For further information please contact Orlaith @ iwmarketing@ubm.com 

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About Internet World

Internet World, founding event of London Technology Week, is the only event that enables you to define and deliver all aspects of your digital strategy; from online technology, business fulfilment and infrastructure to connectivity, legislation and online security.

Internet World also includes Big Data Show and in 2014 welcomes longstanding US brand Interop, thus becoming the most comprehensive face-to-face event for those defining or delivering their organisation’s digital strategy.

As a visitor to Internet World you will benefit from a cutting-edge education programme, practical workshops, training and networking with your peers.

Register free here – http://www.internetworld.co.uk/collider_reg/

@iw_expo  #iw2014

Guest Post: Why I Love/Hate the Mum Test

I hate the Mom’s test.... oh no, actually I love it! 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 Carl Wong, the Director of LivingLens.

 So as we reach the end of week 4 of the Collider programme, it turns out that it’s time for me to write my first ever blog.  Now, I can talk for England (‘Yes we know’ I can hear you thinking), but articulating engaging, witty prose in the written form is something I struggle with a little.  Who know’s why?  Maybe you do indeed, but regardless, be gentle with me should you decide to critique these first tentative efforts...

Anyhoo, end of week 4, and I think I know how it feels to be a dog, or perhaps more appropriately, a mayfly.  I feel like I’ve done 7 months worth of thinking and decision making in these last 25 days.  Each day finishes with me wishing we all lived on Pluto  in order to get more done (length of time it takes for Pluto to complete one rotation on its axis 6 days 9 hours 18 mins), albeit we’d probably be a little more chilly.  Here are a number of words I have added to my game of Investor Bingo recently;  Hypothesis, Use Case, Roadmap, Runway, Stable Release, Power Users, Pivot (we’ll come back to this one!), Dev Sprint, Elasticity (really not sure about this one), MVP, Follow-on.  I’ve yet to have a conversation with anyone in the world of Collider were I haven’t got 4 corners and a granny shouting house outside of 3 mins....

So let’s talk about the Pivot.  When does a small change or re-positioning become the fantastical Pivot, and when does a Pivot become a mistaken wild goose chase up one’s derrier?  It feel to me that LivingLens, our earstwhile market research video platform, is well on its way to pivoting.  Our small idea has grown a crystalis and is transforming into a BIG IDEA.  It fills me with both excitement and fear thinking of the possibilities, and the challenges of making it happen, but its genesis can be found a few weeks ago at the damn blasted Mom’s test session.  The Mom Test is a book by Rob Fitzpatrick.  The general vibe is How to talk to customers & learn if your business is a good idea when everyone is lying to you.   ‘Don’t go after the sale, focus upon Product Market fit.’ They said.  ‘ No, no, no!’ I screamed (sort of) – ‘I’m this close to the biggest decision makers I’ll meet, and I will therefore MAKE them love my product!’ I also screamed sort of.  Well, Rose slapped me about, and Miles made me read, and after some internal mental battles, and a fair whack of practice, turns out I was wrong.  Very, very wrong.

I love the Mom’s test.  Fact.  You won’t find a bigger convert around.  It has helped us massively.  By letting go of the sale, and treating each meeting like some market research fieldwork to glean problems and opportunities, we’ve uncovered some ‘truths’ we didn’t know existed.  These new ‘truths’ have transformed our thinking, and are evolving our video platform into putting the consumer in front of anyone, anywhere, using any device, effortlessly reaching precise consumer insight film within moments.  Our service will become a product. We’ll crawl the web as well as your content, and we’ll package it all up in the funkiest UX you’ll see.

Read the book, and let go of the sale.   It may up with a pivot, but it’s the only path to true success!

Want to work with startups?

/ COLLIDER SEEKS A PROGRAMME INTERN

Collider is an accelerator programme dedicated to startups which help brands understand, engage with and sell to customers. We are looking for an enthusiastic intern to assist our busy team in delivering an awesome programme to transform our startups into businesses.

/ MAIN RESPONSIBILITIES

• Community management – help creating and updating social media, blogs and our website ensuring all content is relevant and up to date

• Event management – support with venue booking, catering, general logistics before and at the event, diary invites, communications to any speakers, follow up etc

• Investor management – including management of funding plans for   startups, arranging investor events

• Governance – help with reporting, document completion

• Diary management – arranging coach, investor and brand meetings, booking meeting rooms, diary co-ordination etc /CONTACT

Please email your CV to rebecca@collider.io and we will be in touch.

Guest Post: 3 Top Tips from Unrival

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 Hue Painter, the COO from unrival.

Riding the wave

As first-time startup founders, it’s the emotional journey that makes it memorable for us at unrival - Super highs, and of course those painful lows, that we often experience in the space of a week, sometimes even within one day (or hour!).

But it’s riding this wave that keeps us going. The biggest challenge we’ve found, is staying focused, when everything around us can seem to be in a constant state of chaos.

We’ve found that as a tech startup, you are a beacon for everyone wanting to give you advice on what you “should do” which can become overwhelming (advice overload).

So we’ve found surrounding ourselves with a small, trusted group of coaches and mentors, helps to keep us somewhat sane and on track. This guidance has hugely helped us to filter the noise. You could almost call it personal counselling.

But and there always is - with serious reflection over the journey so far, 3 key lessons/pieces of wisdom that we have learnt so far - LISTEN NOT PITCH, THINK BIG and FEAR.

LISTENING NOT PITCHING

The Collider process so far has provided an intense number of opportunities for us to meet, and engage very senior people from brands that we never would have had the chance of meeting – if not for the programme.

The immediate thought on meeting these people is “OMG, I have to tell them everything about what we do, and show them how great it is”. The lesson learnt here is, that we have two ears for a reason, as doing 2x more listening than talking - leads to a better result for all these meetings. Internally we now call this “don’t show up and throw up” – sorry if this isn’t a lovely visual.

THINK BIG

Definitely has been hard for us to digest, as you can have such tunnel vision and be so purely focused on solving the problem for one area that you miss the opportunity of widening the scope of your proposition. This is where talking to lots of people and listening can really broaden your horizon and actually uncover new concepts that you may not have thought of.

FEAR

It’s good, but make sure it doesn't stop you from taking risks. In the business we’re all in, we have to make tough decisions. The best piece of advice we’ve received on this is:

“Whatever you decide, as long as you can look back and for whatever reasons for that chosen path, you can be happy and confident in your choice at that time.”

The worst thing you can do is not make a decision because of the fear of failure.

So here we are in the middle of the Collider programme, and we can honestly say, we are excited by the next challenges that are most definitely going to be thrown our way. Bring it on!!!

LivingLens Win the Future of Tech

6 of our startups pitched at TFM&A, battling over who could be crowned 'The Future of Tech'. The panel comprised marketing experts were judging them on their pitch style, clarity of explanation, and the potential of the product to change a market. The six startups were:

• CampaignAmp
• LivingLens
• Moment.Us
• Seenit
• StashMetrics
• Sumo Insight

Our panel was made up of ex-SVP of Unilever Andy Porteous, Janine Hawkins who was previously Global CEO of WPP, and Dan Thwaites from iris ventures.

It was a tough call but the judges decided that LivingLens was the winner! The judges described how " they were able to present the problem they are solving in a clear way. It is true that brands keep repeating research, and at great expense, when they may have the answer already. The LivingLens product came across as new and innovative, and Carl was able to deal with the questions from the audience in a professional way."