9 Tech Founders Tips for Cannes Lions

In only a few days’ time, you’ll be heading to Cannes Lions! We’re just excited as you are. And for a first-timer, Cannes will be overwhelming – swarms of people, parties at every corner, and so many things to participate in,  So here are 9 things to remember to keep yourself grounded and have a successful few days. Ask Questions, No Pitching

You’re going to meet a lot of people, some will be potential customers, others maybe even investors. Don’t put them on a pedestal, they’re just like you and I. Be respectful and have your one-liner ready explaining how you might be able to help them solve their problem/challenge. Be sure to have different ones for brands, agencies and investors.

Think about the questions you’ll ask them before explaining what you do to better tailor your explanation – are they a connector, a customer, or a potential investor? Remember to keep the pitching to a minimum – no one likes to be talked at.

Sell Solutions

These people want solutions to existing problems, not products. They don't care about your tech, they care about whether you can make the famous (we are in Cannes, dahling)! Tell them how you’ll be able to make them more money or save them a ton of money.

Hustle Your way In

Hustle - big time. This is where your preparation will come in to play. You’ll know exactly who you want to meet, and where to be prior to checking in for your flight. Have your business cards at the ready. Want to get into that exclusive party? Make sure you know who to ask about that.

Be clear on the Ask

Make sure you know the types of answers you’ll get to the questions you’re asking. Know exactly what customer feedback you need, and be clear on who they can intro you to. The more specific the more helpful they will be.

Set specific objectives

Your game plan needs to be set before hitting the tarmac. Set realistic goals that will make these two days’ worth it. Eg. Meet 3 agency people who look after mobile campaigns, or 2 brands from FMCG. Sunbathing on two beaches doesn’t count.

Take cards

As they’re always handy, but there’s a high chance you’ll lose them. Use LinkedIn there and then rather exchange cards if you can – the internet doesn’t get lost as easily. How about that Cannes Connect app? Have you downloaded it yet?

Reach out

Don't stay put in one place. People move around, and you might miss an opportunity by staying at that party for one more drink. Go with the crowd, but also know when it’s time to walk your own path through the festival. And talk to strangers.

Sleep

Make sure you are well rested before heading to Cannes. You need to be on your best form. And be sure to get some sleep in Cannes. No one likes an early morning meeting where you’re still boozy from the night before.

Smile & Have Fun

You are in Cannes after all. Allow yourself to get wrapped up in the hype to get your adrenaline pumping, but keep your feet firmly planted on the ground. Enjoy the buzz of the industry celebs, but always keep your objectives in sight.

Rose and Ali from Collider are going to be there, and would love to get to know you all over a drink. But, you should only be talking to us, and to each other, when you have over achieved your objectives – not before.

And for all the Collider companies - we will be watching you…

A MadTech Summit Recap

Last week, we held our first ever MadTech Summit at the beautiful Collective spaces in the heart of London. It was a chance for the Collider brand and agency partners to come together, be inspired and share best practices and challenges. The theme, More than MadTech, brought to light the opportunities for MadTech in the connected verticals, AI and VR. Short, inspirational talks on the future of responsive organisations by the legendary Gabbi Cahane, and from the founders of Juke Deck and Visualise – two cutting –edge companies working in AI and VR respectively.

Following this, a longer workshop designed to help the brand and agency mentors think through how they’re engaging with innovation in their organisations at the moment. Each person worked in a group of two or three with someone from another of Collider’s brand or agency partners. Here are some of the themes from the morning session:

Talent development

Big Brands and agencies spend a lot of time and resources on talent development and retention annually. One way brands and agencies are doing this is by introducing their teams to new ways of working and thinking – Collider runs a ‘How to Work with Startups’ workshop as part of the programme. This gives people interested in becoming involved in innovation the practical skills and mindset to go into any meeting with a startup.

Empowering your staff

Through talent development, people working at brands and agencies also become empowered within their organisations. They have been exposed to something out of their comfort zone and come away with knowledge others in their organisations don’t have. This also gives individuals a sense of agency within an organisation and they feel empowered to make decisions. Where large corporates once faced bottlenecks in the innovation process, this begins to disappear as more people have the skills to make decisions.

Camelot have begun startup secondments to empower their employees. Staff members are encouraged to spend a day working with a Collider startup to learn about what life is like on the other side. Check out how our first ever secondment went.

Trials & Revenues

A common challenge our brand and agency partners face is procurement. This process can take over 6 months from beginning to end – a time lapse which can kill a startup. With Unilever, we helped them come up with a procurement process cut down from 90 days to 30 days for startups.

There is More to MadTech

Our good friend Rod Banner recently wrote an article defining what MadTech is and why you need to take note of it. It comes down to anything helping brands and agencies better find, understand, engage with and sell to their consumers. By automating it, personalising the experience, enticing all of their senses in new and exciting ways, or providing the marketeers with previously unmeasurable data. And this definition is not tired solely to what we usually think is MarTech or AdTech - programmatic advertising, social media analytics, or influencer engagement. But it includes the likes of; Power of the crowd, Future of Content, AI, Mobile Tech, Smart Devices & Wearables, In-store Engagement, Big Data, Customer Loyalty, and Multi-Channel Innovation. There's more to MadTech thank we think.

The 10 Collider Startups Heading to Cannes Lions

[spb_single_image image="14228" image_size="full" frame="noframe" intro_animation="none" full_width="no" lightbox="no" image_link="http://locomizer.com/" link_target="_blank" width="1/1" el_position="first last"] [spb_text_block pb_margin_bottom="no" pb_border_bottom="no" width="1/1" el_position="first last"] It's that time of year; the marketing and advertising professionals are all packing their summer gear and heading down to the sunny south of France for the annual festival of creativity - Cannes Lions. This year, in partnership with the Unilever Foundry, they've launched the Foundry50 at Cannes. This programme is bringing 50 of the world's leading MadTech startups to a unique, new two-day event that brings together the worlds of data, technology and ideas at the 62nd annual Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.

And we're ecstatic to say that one fifth of those startups attending Cannes this year are Collider alumni. Yes, 10 Collider startups will have the unique opportunity to speed-date with industry leaders, pitch on the Unilever demo platform and will be introduced to organisations attending Lions Innovation.

These startups were chosen from over 300 applications in March and April because of their unique approach to marketing and advertising tech. These startups are solving real-life problems brands and agencies face everyday - and are doing it with a creative flair. Any brand or agency who is loooking at working with startups should take advantage of the Foundry50 and begin immersing themselves in the startup world.

As part of the regular programme, Cannes Lions attendees will have the chance to speed date the startups on the 25 and 26, along with seeing their five minute pitches throughout the days. And they're representing all of the emerging MadTech trends. From social media analytics, influencer engagement, retail tech, video, AI and VR, there's something for everyone's interests.

Here are the 10 startups to watch out for at Cannes Lions in 2015:

[/spb_text_block] [spb_single_image image="13858" image_size="full" frame="noframe" intro_animation="none" full_width="no" lightbox="no" image_link="http://locomizer.com/" link_target="_blank" width="1/4" el_position="first"] [spb_single_image image="14229" image_size="full" frame="noframe" intro_animation="none" full_width="no" lightbox="yes" image_link="http://livinglens.tv/" link_target="_self" width="1/4"] [spb_single_image image="14066" image_size="full" frame="noframe" intro_animation="none" full_width="no" lightbox="yes" image_link="http://miappi.com/" link_target="_self" width="1/4"] [spb_single_image image="13773" image_size="full" frame="noframe" intro_animation="none" full_width="no" lightbox="yes" image_link="https://twitter.com/pixoneye" link_target="_self" width="1/4" el_position="last"] [blank_spacer height="30px" width="1/1" el_position="first last"] [blank_spacer height="30px" width="1/1" el_position="first last"] [spb_single_image image="14233" image_size="full" frame="noframe" intro_animation="none" full_width="no" lightbox="yes" image_link="https://www.powrofyou.com/" link_target="_self" width="1/4" el_position="first"] [spb_single_image image="14084" image_size="full" frame="noframe" intro_animation="none" full_width="no" lightbox="yes" image_link="http://www.preceptiv.co/" link_target="_self" width="1/4"] [spb_single_image image="14206" image_size="full" frame="noframe" intro_animation="none" full_width="no" lightbox="yes" image_link="http://www.reallifeanalytics.com/" link_target="_self" width="1/4"] [spb_single_image image="14231" image_size="full" frame="noframe" intro_animation="none" full_width="no" lightbox="yes" image_link="http://seenit.io/" link_target="_self" width="1/4" el_position="last"] [blank_spacer height="30px" width="1/1" el_position="first last"] [blank_spacer height="30px" width="1/1" el_position="first last"] [blank_spacer height="30px" width="1/1" el_position="first last"] [spb_single_image image="14232" image_size="full" frame="noframe" intro_animation="none" full_width="no" lightbox="yes" image_link="http://syncspot.net/" link_target="_blank" width="1/4" el_position="first"] [spb_single_image image="14230" image_size="full" frame="noframe" intro_animation="none" full_width="no" lightbox="yes" image_link="http://stashmetrics.com/" link_target="_blank" width="1/4" el_position="last"] [blank_spacer height="30px" width="1/1" el_position="first last"] [blank_spacer height="30px" width="1/1" el_position="first last"] [blank_spacer height="30px" width="1/1" el_position="first last"]

Collider completes £1M Investment into Class of 2015 Startups

Collider, the leading MadTech Accelerator in London, completes their Class of 2015 investment with a second round of £550,000 into six of the most promising marketing and adtech (also known as MadTech) startups from the Collider Class of 2015. After Collider’s Class of 2015 Demo Day at the end of April, these startups were hand-picked by the individual investors to receive up to £100,000 follow-on funding as part of the Collider Accelerator programme. They will now participate in a further 8-month long programme. This is geared towards high growth and preparing the founders to raise a late seed to Series A funding round in 2016. This programme will focus on getting the startups initial traction through commercial trials and deals.

Rose Lewis, Co-Founder of Collider says; “We have found a gap in startup funding which exists between seed and Series A. This is where a significant number of startups fail. This second round of funding will give these amazing MadTech startups the runway they need to gain the necessary traction to raise series A more quickly.”

These six companies have founders from around the world including; Israel, Slovenia, the UK, USA, Australia, Hungary who have all chosen the UK as their company headquarters. The startups solve enduring problems big brands and agencies face on the customer journey including; brick-and-mortar retail analytics, short form video, tracking ‘dark social’ sharing and targeted mobile advertising.

The six selected startups:

[one_third] [/one_third] Brandvee is an audience development platform for media brands that finds, tracks and targets the most influential customers who drive conversion.

[one_third][/one_third] Burst makes big data from little videos and have built the world’s first social video analytics platform which helps organisations understand how to spend more effectively on short-form video.

[one_third][/one_third] Pixoneye  uses people’s photos and videos that they have stored on their mobile devices in order to extract very clever data about them, completely anonymously. By understanding the user through their photos we are able to serve the right ad to the right user no matter what app they are using!

[one_third][/one_third] Real Life Analytics enables targeted advertising on any digital screen. Using patented visual recognition technology we can enable every screen to recognise who is in front of it and serve them exactly the right targeted content in milliseconds.

[one_third][/one_third] Storesense interprets customer journeys in traditional brick-and-mortar stores using passive Wi-Fi. Our advanced proprietary algorithms drive actionable retail advice – from low traffic zone warnings and optimal in-store advertising position suggestions to the best locations for resting areas.

[one_third][/one_third] SyncSpot harnesses the power of entertainment to move people by offering exclusive content that can only be accessed once a customer is at a specific location.

Guest Post: A Day in the Life of Miappi

** This is a guest post by Julia Merritt, Portfolio Strategy Manager at Camelot a Collider Brand partner. Julia piloted a secondment programme **

Being a member of the Collider Programme at Camelot, we were offered the opportunity to spend a day with a digital start up in order to live and learn – in real time – about the challenges start ups face.

Through my existing links with Miappi – a start up that aggregates social content into a simple interface – I was lucky enough to spend the day with them last week.

The day kicked off with a pitch at a digital agency, where I met the CEO of Miappi, Andrew, having ‘ran’ from a previous pitch at another agency. It was great to sit in on a pitch to a digital agency and Andrew and his colleague Dave showcased what Miappi could do. The demo spoke for itself and it was really well received – so much so that other agency team members were pulled in to see the demo working and Andrew launched into his elevator pitch – the meeting went really well!

Heading back to Miappi’s offices, impressively located on the Southbank with views to die for, the serviced offices were a hive of activity. Miappi rent office space for the 6 strong startup, and use the communal meeting rooms and social areas. Full of other start ups and small businesses – this free space allows for great networking and exposure to a wide range of different contacts.

A bit of a contrast to the corporate environs of a business park in Watford! Beer, coffee and soft drinks on tap, open plan, hot desks, arcade games, ping pong and a few resident dogs kept the vibe relaxed but buzzing.

Sitting in a technical development session, it was fascinating to see the developers work in progress prototypes and how they worked through challenges together, adapting and changing to continuously improve their offer. Never standing still, continuous improvements and adapting to new clients requirements ensures the product is flexible and can offer something for everyone.

Chatting with Miappi, what struck me the most was the way they are living and working ‘in the moment’. Whilst we are working on our 5 year plans – they are working on plans for the next 5 months. Whilst this brings its challenges – particularly around having to initially work at a loss while the offer builds; working in such an agile way engenders a sense of urgency, excitement and freedom – allowing for more spontaneity and adapting to new opportunities as they arise.

This is a learning I will take back to the business to see how we can ‘sprint’ smaller projects to test and learn, in amongst the larger projects that do take longer to achieve.

It was great to get an insiders view of a startup - literally running between meetings, seizing the moment, adapting and ideating – it demonstrated speed of thought and flight of foot. Thank you!