Oh What a Night!

A massive thank you to all 200 of you who came to our event last night at DigitasLBi, we hope you enjoyed the evening as much as we did. It was fantastic to see so many friends in the room as well as new faces, and we can't wait to see you again at our next event. To relive all the action, you can watch the highlights of the evening made by Seenit:

We’d love to hear your feedback about Demo Day.  And what better way to get feedback than through one our startups! Just click onto this Sumo Insight smartphone optimised survey  http://bit.ly/su-mo2,  and tell us what you thought.  If you register your email address, Sumo will even put your name into a free champagne prize draw once you’ve completed it.

What's next? Well, we're already hungry for the next round and so watch this space for more details. In the mean time, make sure to keep in touch: https://twitter.com/ColliderGB

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Guest Post: How to Be a Good Listener by StashMetrics

_MG_5098At StashMetrics we talk a lot about how to be a good listener. Our company is set up to help brands listen to social media data, to understand the value of what they can hear and to turn that in to valuable insight - and so it was fascinating turning this on ourselves during the collision phase. 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 Sam Oakley, the co-founder at StashMetrics.

In this case it wasn’t listing to social data but the same principles apply, in the context of Collider this trying to understand the value of listening to all the advice and support we’ve been offered, to prioritize.

The truth is that, just as not all insight is good insight, not all advice is good advice (my Collider mentors excluded of course). As a startup, learning to “listen well” is so fundamentally important - I cannot overstate it – because you sure as hell can’t listen to everyone. In the three-month collision phase I’ve had advice of one sort or the other from at least 60 people, there’s gold in there, stuff that has fundamentally changed our business but there’s also a huge amount of potential distractions.

If I had any advice to startups considering Collider I’d say three things when it comes to listening:

1.     Work out what your assumptions you’ve made in your business model early on - test these and these alone. Test them in a way that is repeatable so that you can compare the answers you get later on in the programme with those from early on. We were late working this out and spent at least three weeks in Jan asking people questions to which we already knew the answers. (And keep a log of you spoke to, when and what they said).

2.     Don’t listen to the first person who questions your business model, (listen to the 3rd if all 3 agree). You were picked from god-knows-how-many entrants so you probably have an idea that’s sound enough. The Collider coaches are smart and experienced, if it’s clear that you need to pivot they’ll make you listen.

3.     The feedback you get early-on is incredibly valuable but you have to “listen smart.” We worked this out late on in month one and started a spreadsheet combining the advice given with the competencies of the person giving it. You get patterns pretty quickly and once you have a pattern you have insight. I reckon ours has shaved weeks off our tech development plan, valuable weeks.

In the end it comes down to the same mantra we use with brands, listening is brilliant, you can (and will) learn things that change your business but you need to know why you’re doing it and you need keep tabs on the context, otherwise things can get very noisy very quickly.

Guest Post: Seenit

It seems today there’s an online dating platform for just about everyone. From the practical, such as glutenfreesingles.com, to the downright strange, zombiepassions.com. Hopefully your interest in these links hasn’t taken you away from this blog, so I can explain why I’ve decided to build this analogy. 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 Edward Pearse Wheatley, the Creative Producer at Seenit.

Having recently joined Seenit I’ve had the pleasure of immersing myself in the Collider  program. And many of our encounters funnily enough have resembled a dating site in some way.

Go back a month. I was in my first week with Emily and Max, the co-founders of Seenit, working from Google Campus and any café that would have us.  Trembling from our fifth cup of coffee of the day, Collider offered some respite to our caffeinated bodies by inviting us to the pub.

We met, in my case for the first time, with our fellow Collider members. Like all dates, it started with an introduction, followed by a few drinks, then if the conversation went well a plan to meet again. The beauty of this gathering was that it was a room filled with like-minded people, with a penchant to help out their compatriots through the teething stages of building a tech company.

This week, it was much of the same again. Only this time, rather than meet in the protective confines of the Collider nursery, we were set loose at Iris Worldwide’s ‘South by South East’ event. Waiting by our designated tables, laptops energetically looping brand demos and logos, we confidently strut our enterprises to a crowd that was quickly consuming copious amounts of tequila, courtesy of the hosts.

This was a goldmine for promoting our startups to the kind of people that could and would actually put the tech into practice.

My father always used to say that he was never taught how to be a father. Starting and running a new business, it can sometimes feel that way to. But with Collider, from the perspective of a young and budding salesman, we have a truly helpful guide through these early stages.

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One Month Until Demo Day!

After 3 months of mentorship, we’re ready to showcase our latest cohort of game-changing startups to the world. It's going to be a potent mix of startups, investors, brands, agencies and friends of Collider. And booze. Plenty of booze.

The Collider Demo Day is at LBi's searingly cool event space on Thursday May 15th from 2.30pm until 5pm. Don't worry; there will be more than enough time for a drink or two after the pitches with the great and the good of London's advertising and marketing scenes.

Those invited will see our game-changing startups, hear from industry mavericks, and network with leading investors and world class brands. 


Agenda

  • 2.30-3: Welcome and registration
  • 3-3.15: Opening Collider by Rose Lewis, Co-Founder of Collider
  • 3.15-3.30: Guest Speaker: Sarah Wood, COO & Co-Founder of Unruly
  • 3.30-4.30:  Startup Pitches, compèred by Jeremy Basset, Global Marketing Strategy Director of Unilever
  • 4.30-4.45: Guest Speaker: Nadya Powell, Managing Director of MRY UK
  • 4.45-5: Winner announced and closing remarks
  • 5pm-late: Drinks and Networking

 

This event is invite only, so check your inbox to see if you're one of the lucky ones! If you think we missed you off our list, email us and let us know.

 

 

DevLab LIVE: 3 Day Event to Unite Brands & Startups with Collider

DevLab LIVE is a new 3-day event (9-11th May) bringing innovators from the startup, digital anddeveloper communities together with big brands to build amazing solutions to real business challenges!

Held at Level 39, Europe’s largest FinTech accelerator in Canary Wharf, the event will kick off with a day of inspiring talks and workshops, including a special panel from Collider.

On Friday 9th May from 10-11am we will be running a discussion called 'Working with startups. Working with brands.' The panelists will have representatives from both startups and brands, while Collider co-founder Rose Lewis will be hosting and keeping the fight clean.

Topics to be discussed include the minefield of 3-month payment terms, bureaucratic procurement processes, and pushy startups. Learn from both sides of the fence as we ask brands and startups about how to work with each other, as both can benefit hugely if they do so.

Take up this exciting opportunity to get creative with like-minded and passionate people by signing up at the Eventbrite page. Early-bird tickets are available until Friday 25th April - don't miss out, buy your ticket now!