Christopher Sladdin

Undergraduate in Business & Accounting

[sladdincj]

Behind the Scenes at Scottish Edge Round 7

The Scottish Edge has, over the past few years, become a cornerstone of Scotland's entrepreneurial initiative, with more than 130 businesses receiving funding which has resulted in the creation of 479 additional jobs and an additional £21.6m in turnover generated within the Scottish economy. I've been invited to attend the final of the competition's seventh round, to interview the finalists (see links) and go behind the scenes to offer a new and unique perspective. Here's how the day unfolded.

8:00 am: An Ecosystem which Attracts Attention It's still dark as I step off the tram at RBS Gogarburn and make my way to the conference centre a mile or so down the road. This is the first time I've attended a Scottish Edge final so it is difficult to know what to expect. Sure, I've met plenty of Edge funding recipients before through the likes of the Startup Interviews, some of whom are pitching for additional funding today, but the beauty of the Scottish Edge is that it brings together entrepreneurs from far and wide. From an audience member's perspective, the Scottish Edge is a showcase of the most innovative entrepreneurial talent, not only in Edinburgh and Glasgow but also in the northern-most reaches of the country.

I'm early so enjoy a quiet look around the exhibitor's hall as the businesses and entrepreneurship support groups set up. Naturally, RBS are present as our hosts for the day, but Scottish startups are also lucky to receive the support of other organisations like Harper Macleod, Microsoft, and Johnston Carmichael. There is, without a doubt, a growing interest from established organisations in grabbing a piece of the startup market. Between the accountancy and legal firms are a series of well-known support agencies, including Entrepreneurial Scotland and Bright Red Triangle, both of whom will offer support to today's winners.

9:00 am: Pitching Begins As one might expect with any event that takes place on a working Monday, the auditorium is less than half full as we take our seats for the first round of pitches. With twenty-three finalists in the main Scottish Edge competition, their five-minute pitches and ten minutes for Q&A will be split into four blocks of pitches, the first starting at 9 am and the last finishing just before 5 pm.

Billy Mitchell and Scott Wallace of Smart Compliance are up first, pitching their award-winning carbon monoxide detectors to the panel. It's an unenviable task, being first, not least because you'll have to wait another ten hours to find out whether you're bid for funding has been successful or not. Following them are Cognitive Geology, FINDRA, AllDay Designs and snap40, ensuring that the morning session covers every industry from oil and gas to clothing, and pushchairs to real-time monitoring medical devices. These startups also demonstrate that Scotland's entrepreneurs come in all shapes and sizes, some experienced, other's recent graduates.

Last up in the first session are Intelligent Point of Sale. I hardly need to tell you what their product is. With their entire team on stage, their pitch appears to go off without a hitch, until the judges begin their questioning. "Your statistics about market size; does every one of these businesses use a cash register?" asks one of the panel. The answer, inevitably, is 'no'. The questioning continues and I'm left feeling uncertain as to whether or not their pitch will be a success. Only time will tell.

11:00 am: Pitching, Take Two We reach the first networking break and, with the help of Judith, the Scottish Edge's recently hired social media fanatic, I interrogate a few more finalists in front of a camera for the day's video blog. Despite the move by more and more employers and entrepreneurship groups to use video applications, everybody seems a little hesitant. I can't imagine why.

Thirty minutes later and we're back in the auditorium for the second set of pitches. Again, the businesses taking part represent every industry imaginable. Up first are Space Budgie, a BAFTA-nominated games studio. Behind them are CarGo seat, Pick Protection, and Photon Force. Rounding off the set are Rotomotor Ltd, and Highland Hustle who are pioneering an international series of ceilidh-based workouts.

Within the second set are two businesses which catch my attention as they represent some of the excellent work which Scottish Universities are doing to encourage and enable entrepreneurship. The first is Pick Protection; founded by Rebecca Pick while a student at the University of Strathclyde, this startup is, some might argue, the best-known student startup to come out of Scotland in recent years. Although not launching until 2016, her innovative new rape and lone working alarm has already featured in most national newspapers and in a number of high-profile magazines including Cosmopolitan. The second is Photon Force, a University of Edinburgh-based startup run by Richard Walker, which recently won the top prize at the Converge Challenge 2015.

1:00 pm: High Scorers and Low Scorers Lunchtime arrives, and, perhaps not surprisingly, so do plenty of people. As such, when we head back into the third pitching session, the auditorium is reaching near capacity. Before I discuss the next batch of pitches, however, I feel it is important to discuss how the Scottish Edge funding criteria work as, after all, the judging panel haven't been taking notes all morning for nothing. As such, I sat down with Evelyn McDonald, CEO of the Scottish Edge to talk about the judging process.

"The judges are scoring [each business] against six assessment criteria," Evelyn tells me. These include business growth potential, entrepreneurial spirit, innovation, customer focus, utilisation of the Edge funding and awareness of risk and cost. Scored out of ten, the panel then review the total scores when allocating the funding. "At the end of the day, there will be some clear high scorers, and sadly, there will be some clear low scorers. But generally, in my experience, there's a large group in the middle and there will be a lot of conversation that goes on around that," says Evelyn.

Plenty to think about then when reviewing the third and fourth sets of pitches. Up first this afternoon are Nomadix Media who, much to the entertainment of the audience, appear on stage with what looks like iPad's strapped to their backs. They're looking to grow their wearable digital technologies business which is used for marketing and advertising in five countries. Behind them are Digital Connextions, and Coast & Glen, who's Fishbox allows customers to subscribe for deliveries of fresh fish. Yep, you did read that right. Newlyweds Magnus and Fiona Houston have found, like so many others recently, that the subscription model is the way to go in business and, although I don't want to imagine fresh fish appearing through my letter box, their pitch certainly got the attention of the assembled crowd. The pitching session continues with GM Flow Measurement Services, Pinstripe Inventories and Optomize all taking to the stage.

3:30 pm: Behind Closed Doors As darkness falls outside, I'm lead into a hidden conference room on the first floor. Lord Willie Haughey and Bob Keiller are sat at the end of the other end of the room, sharing a joke as they wait for the other members of the judging panel to arrive following the third set of pitches. I'm introduced as the Scottish Edge's official blogger and vlogger - a term I am still not entirely comfortable with - and offered tea or coffee, before being invited to take a seat between the pair.

As the other judges return from the auditorium, I ask whether the pair would be happy to be interviewed as part of the video blog. "Sure," says Bob Keiller, before adding "just interview Willie first and we'll all pile on afterwards to say 'I agree.'" It reminds Lord Haughey of a time when he pitched for a business, only to have a competitor pitch that he would "take whatever I said and add ten thousand pounds on top of it." Nevertheless, he gets up, stands near one of the windows and my camera comes out.

"How has the day been so far?" I ask. "I think the standard of the pitches has been great," Lord Haughey responds. "I was here two years ago and I think the standard is even better today than it was then." Knowing that all of the finalists will receive individual feedback on their applications, regardless of whether they are successful or not, I ask Lord Haughey if he has any advice for future finalists. "Don't be too optimistic about your three-year forecasts," he says with a chuckle.

Up next is Bob Keiller, the current CEO of the Wood Group and future chairman at Scottish Enterprise. "The sheer variety of the businesses we've seen today, and the quality of the people pitching those businesses, has been fantastic," he tells me. He emphasises the need for entrepreneurs to communicate their passion for their business idea when pitching, something we've seen plenty of so far today.

With that, I leave the judges in peace and head back downstairs to interview one or two more finalists before the final pitching session, featuring Ocelot Chocolate, Float, the Isle of Skye Candle Company, AppointMentor and Vistem.

5:00 pm: Networking, Networking, Networking If there's one thing which is crucial to the success of entrepreneurs, it's networking. Just as well then that, like every other group in Scotland, Scottish Edge provide ample time to meet fellow attendees and finalists. My blogging now over (although not my tweeting, as many pointed out), I made use of the two-hour dinner break to find out more about some of the finalists in the main Scottish Edge competition and to meet some of this year's Young Edge, Wild Card Edge and Higgs Edge winners. More recent spinoffs of the Scottish Edge, these competitions offer funding opportunities to startups and entrepreneurs who might otherwise be ineligible or unable to obtain funding.

The Young Edge competition offers up to £10,000 in funding to companies who's directors are all under the age of thirty, and many previous winners have gone on to participate and win funding in the main Scottish Edge competition. This year's winners - the winners are announced in advance of finals day - include Kitsch Drinks and Turtle Pack - both of whom I have interviewed recently, - as well as Spark and Rocket, EuroBiotix, Synchronise IO, Edinburgh Room Rentals, Orrin Equestrian Products, Reinvent Life Sciences, MindMate and Dronely.

In the Wild Card Edge category, winners include Amiqus, Barking Rad, Bellfield Brewery, Curious Chip, Cutitronics, Fairsquared, GNUHOW.com, Prickly Thistle, Phoenix Instinct, Soltropy, Sunstore Technologies and We Data. In order to be considered for this category, companies must be pre-trading but, as with the main competition, be able to demonstrate innovation, either in their product or service offering, or in their business model or operations. Unlike the Young Edge winners, however, these winners are unaware of exactly how much funding they'll be taking home and so must wait until this evening to find out.

Finally, there's the Higgs Edge category, a new award which acknowledges the most promising early stage science, technology and engineering businesses, which the judging panel believe have the greatest chance of scaling and globalisation. Krotos, the first of three Higgs Edge winners, are demonstrating their software, known as 'Dehumaniser' which is used by the world's top film and game studios including Sony, Sega, 20th Century Fox and Disney to create monster noises through vocal processing. More recently, they've made the software available to consumers through an iPhone application. Another winner are Epipole, a company who are seeking to eradicate preventable blindness by building a mass market monitoring and screening platform to monitor eye diseases. Their new product, launched this month, is far too technical for me to understand, however, I am told that they have received plaudits from clinicians and distributors around the world so they're obviously doing something right. The last Higgs Edge winner are Soluis Labs who, throughout the day, have been building anticipation among the audience through their sealed-off construction of a large, black dome in the corner of the exhibitors hall. Now open, Judith and I are given a tour; they're building fascinating virtual reality products and, inside the dome, we find ourselves surrounded by a near 360-degree tour of the moon and planets. Needless to say, it's pretty cool.

7:00 pm: The Moment of Truth Back in the auditorium, I find myself sat at the back as the finalists, their teams and a full audience fill up every seat for the evening awards ceremony. The question is who will win the funding they need, and who will be left disappointed? David Shearer, Chairman of the Scottish Edge introduces the evening with a message for all the finalists; "a no is not a 'no', it is a 'not yet'." In fact, as Evelyn reminded us earlier, there are many startups who have failed to secure funding during previous rounds, only to return and triumph. Up first are Krotos, the first Higgs Edge winners. As the category is new, we have, until now, been uncertain as to how much the company might receive in funding. They take home £100,000.

We move on to announce the first batch of main Scottish Edge winners. Float are first to win, taking home £100,000. snap40, previous winners of the Scottish Edge, are next, taking an additional £30,000 in funding. They're followed by AppointMentor (£50,000), Nomadix Media (£50,000), the Isle of Skye Candle Company (£50,000), Ocelot Chocolate (£30,000) and All Day Designs (£75,000). These are huge sums of money which provide a lifeline to companies between funding rounds, offering them the chance to develop their product or service offering further, with the support of the Scottish Edge and their partners. If waiting ten hours was not enough, the remainder of the Scottish Edge finalists are told to wait until the second batch of winners are announced. In the meantime, Soluis Labs, our second Higgs Edge winners, appear on stage, taking home £100,000, much to the delight of the team.

Next up, our guest speaker for the evening; Duncan Logan, Founder and CEO of RocketSpace joins us via web link from Shanghai where it is 3 am local time. That has got to hurt. He shares a number of insights from his experience in Silicon Valley, working with some of the world's most recognised startups including Uber and Spotify. "There is no shortage of capitalism, the shortage that we have in the Valley is talent," he says. Good news then for any tech entrepreneurs who don't like the cold Scottish weather. He also highlights the importance of building a team; "entrepreneurs build a team, the team builds the company."

Back to the awards and first up are the Wild Card Edge winners who finally discover how much they've won. You'll find all of the details on that here. The Young Edge winners are also recognised.

In what is, without question, the biggest announcement of the night, Epipole are next on stage, presenting their revolutionary technology. No, that's not the announcement. The announcement is how much they've won; at £150,000, this is the highest ever funding award at any Scottish Edge event. The audience breaks into rapturous applause.

Finally, the moment of truth for the remaining finalists, the second batch of winners are announced. CarGo Seat, Wild Card Edge winners just six months previously, are first, taking home £75,000. They're followed by Smart Compliance and Photon Force, each taking home £50,000 and £65,000 respectively. Proving that anything is possible and that the judging panel can be deceptive, Intelligent Point of Sale follow, taking home £50,000. To end the evening, Fishbox, Space Budgie and FINDRA take home £50,000, £30,000 and £75,000 respectively. It's a bumper haul. In fact, during the course of two hours, the Scottish Edge distributed more than £1.2 million in funding!

9:00 pm: The Road Ahead As I leave the Scottish Edge final at the end of a marathon day, it's interesting to consider what lies ahead. For the successful startups, we can hope to see their products and services evolve as a result of their Scottish Edge funding and support in the months ahead. For the unsuccessful startups, we hope to see them at the next round. And what about you? Evelyn, always thinking ahead, tells me that they're already thinking about Round Eight and she would encourage you to apply.

Did you attend the Scottish Edge Round 7 final? What were your highlights? Do let me know by joining the conversation in the comment section below!

[sladdincj]

A Future Roadmap for The Startup Interviews

People tell me that I enjoy picking up projects and then putting them down again. That might be true. Today, I'm announcing that The Startup Interviews, the series of long-form articles profiling Edinburgh-based entrepreneurs and startups, is drawing to a close. For now, at least.

It's not that I've run out of startups to interview - given the current startup climate in Edinburgh, I'd argue that was impossible. Rather, the decision I'm taking is based on time pressure and a temporary lack of new ideas.

Finding the Time As any journalist will tell you, writing long-form articles requires time. A lot of it. Indeed, to produce one Startup Interview will often require a total of ten hours, split between arranging the interview (0.5 hours), drafting interview questions (0.5 hours), interviewing the entrepreneur (1 hour), transcribing the interview (3 hours), outlining the story (1 hour), writing the article (2.5 hours), sourcing imagery (0.5 hours) and finally editing and publishing the piece (1 hour).

As a final year undergraduate, finding ten hours of spare time to sit down and hammer out an article when you're juggling courses and a 16,000 word dissertation is not an easy feat. In fact, it's well-nigh impossible. As the holiday season is coming up, however, I've found the time to squeeze in three upcoming pieces (more on that below) as a bonus, but this won't be a regular occurrence.

Churning out the Text When I first launched the series back in February, it was very easy to churn out two articles a week. Fresh on the block, and with only a few interviews completed, fresh questions for future interviewees were easy to come by. Twenty-one interviews later, however, I'm struggling to come up with new and interesting questions to ask interviewees which will inspire you all by offering a new perspective.

One could choose, as many do, to continue writing and regurgitate the same topics on a weekly (or monthly, as they now are) basis, however, I don't think that this is fair or interesting. So, until some new and interesting questions come to mind which can offer a fresh and insightful perspective of Edinburgh's startup community, I don't feel there is any point in wasting your time. After all, there are plenty of opinions on all of the usual topics in the existing articles. This isn't, of course, to say that I won't come up with new topics to quiz my interviewees about, it is merely to say that it isn't going to happen tomorrow.

The Roadmap So, now that I've dropped that bombshell, where do we go from here? Well, you haven't seen the last of The Startup Interviews just yet. As mentioned earlier, there are three more interviews on the way in the coming month or two featuring some great Edinburgh and Fife-based startups (MunchTogether, EuropeOnline and ShotScope) so do look out for them in the coming weeks. After that, however, there will likely be a period of silence. This is not to say that there won't be more interviews in the future, there just won't be any in the next few months as I complete my degree and come up with some new and interesting perspectives to offer my readers.

If, however, you are interested in some entrepreneurial content which isn't in the form of a Startup Interview, then keep an eye out on my personal blog (you're reading it) for some upcoming posts about understanding student entrepreneurs, perspectives on Scotland's entrepreneurial ecosystem and more. Thanks for your continued support.

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A Weekend of Idea Discovery - 3 Day Startup 2015

What happens when you bring together more than eighty students for forty-eight hours and challenge them to build eight new businesses to pitch to a panel of venture capitalists? This was the challenge set at 3 Day Startup in Edinburgh last weekend when a group of undergraduates and postgraduates from Scotland’s universities came together to develop startup ideas ranging from video applications to Rose oil extraction devices and Celtic wedding consultancies. Here’s how the weekend panned out.

Having participated in the event last year where I joined the Teadough team, this year, I had the pleasure of attending as a mentor. Mentoring is a rewarding experience because it allows one to watch and have an influence on the progression of each group from a startup idea on Friday evening to a fully-fledged pitch on Sunday afternoon. Every team dynamic is different and, as much as one might think there is a ‘right way’ to pitching, every pitch is different at the end of the weekend.

Day 1: The Initial Pitches The one sticking point about 3 Day Startup is that, no matter how many great ideas the group might have, only eight of them can progress through the weekend. Any more than eight would be carnage – and the pitching evening would take three hours at a minimum! Nevertheless, the weekend starts by offering everyone an opportunity to put forward their ideas for the group’s consideration and, as is always the case, this year saw some fascinating and adventurous ideas. Everything from augmented reality experiences to event planning websites, the now common ‘Tinder for X’ style apps to student marketplaces, and tour guide applications – like that of GetGuidEd – to tools offering personal data analytics. After some debate and intense questioning (including my favourite question, ‘what are you hoping to achieve in a weekend?’), eight ideas were chosen and the assembled student entrepreneurs opted to join a team of their choosing. As is often the case, some teams chose to work into the night – I mentored a group in the pub for a fair few hours – while others chose to get some sleep before the weekend ahead.

Day 2: Market Research & Execution Day two started bright and early for the teams with some market research exercises. One of the key elements of the 3 Day Startup weekend is to get out of the building and validate one’s idea by talking to customers. Last year, talking to customers resulted in the Teadough team ditching the iPad recipe app we had planned in favour of a make-your-own doughnut kit, a rather significant change in plan. This year’s teams were spotted out on the Royal Mile and in a number of high-end hotels in Edinburgh, talking to customers and potential suppliers and partners for the future. As one of this year’s entrepreneurs, Kai Yik told me, 3 Day Startup is an opportunity to “learn the right process” of building a startup – if there is such a thing as ‘the right process’.

The rest of the day was spent back at Assembly Roxy – our adopted home for the weekend – in teams, with mentors talking to each team about their findings, how they might evolve to meet the needs of their target market or, in some cases, helping to facilitate a complete pivot in their startup idea. The afternoon also challenged the teams to consider their pitches – in time for a feedback session in the evening – and what they would be looking for from the venture capitalists on Sunday evening. At such an early stage in the game, pitching for an investment would be both premature and highly unlikely to be successful, but mentorship was a key demand from the majority of the teams.

Day 3: Finishing Touches & Demo Night As the team entered the final twenty-four hours of the competition, the pressure of delivering a pitch to a panel of four venture capitalists kicked in. Teams set about re-designing their presentations in response to feedback, pitches were rehearsed and feedback sought from mentors (I, for one, listened to at least fifteen pitches in the course of ten hours) and Maia, our facilitator from 3 Day Startup, gave the teams some last minute tips on responding to panellist questions. The highlight of the third day was the Demo Night, which saw members of the public, including a number of established entrepreneurs, attend alongside our panel of venture capitalists to watch each team pitch their product or service. It was a great evening and showcased just how far the teams had come since Friday evening’s initial team pitches. Some ideas were barely recognisable, others had a much greater level of finesse and some convincing demos and prototypes to ‘wow’ the audience.

Participants’ Views Of course, this is just my opinion and overview of the weekend (and it isn’t the first time I’ve written a post about this event) so I decided to sit down with some of the participants and understand their motives for attending 3 Day Startup this year. For many, the weekend offered the opportunity to be inspired by others’ ideas and immerse oneself in the entrepreneurial environment which exists at the University of Edinburgh. Wai Yee, who described himself as a law student who wanted to run his own business, told me that “3 Day Startup is not just a networking event, it is an opportunity to learn.” Another participant, Filipe, was using the event as an “introduction to the startup scene,” telling me that he now sees himself as an entrepreneur, “someone who can take an idea and make it a reality.” Others, like Elle who participated in the Caledonia Wedding consultancy team, described how the event enabled her to learn new practical skills which she could use as part of her studies.

And will any of the startups born this weekend continue in their journey? This was one of the questions of greatest interest to those of us who attended last year’s event – three of the six companies pitched last year continue to trade today. It wasn’t one hundred percent clear, however, a number of the entrepreneurs seemed keen when asked at the after party. Only time will tell.

3 Day Startup is a global student entrepreneurship programme. The Edinburgh event was hosted by LAUNCH.ed and Enterprise Campus. You can find out more about the teams by following the #3DSEDIN tag on Twitter.

[sladdincj]

What practical innovation could transform healthcare? PwC’s summer 2015 interns pitch their ideas

How can we transform the healthcare sector? This summer's PwC interns - of whom I was one - took up the challenge and developed a number of innovative solutions to some of healthcare's biggest issues. Here's how things turned out.

Together with Sophie Mould, Mike Jones, Rosannah Smith and Chloe O'Connor, we proposed the 'Your Health' platform, a secure platform that empowers individuals to make better decisions about their health and lifestyle by providing you or me with access to our health records. It would also reduce divisions within healthcare services like the NHS by streamlining the medical data collection and retrieval process, enabling relevant medical professionals to access your data whenever and wherever it is needed.

[sladdincj]

Share Your Story: The Key to Success

The age of selling products and services is over. With such a wide range of products and services available to them, today’s consumers are looking for more from the businesses they transact with. Today’s businesses need to sell their stories to win over customers and grow their market share. Here’s why.

In 2014, 300,000 new businesses were formed in the UK according to the Department for Business Innovation & Skills. That’s 300,000 new businesses which will vie for their potential customers’ attention, your custom and your cash. So why should consumers choose to buy your product and not that of a competitor? Why should I use your service when I already trust that offered to me by the more-established business across the road? These are questions that consumers are asking themselves every day. The simplest answer to the question is, of course, not to bother with the hassle of switching my allegiance – an opinion commonly seen in the energy industry. So what can businesses – and especially startup businesses – do to win over customers and grow their market share?

Share Your Story A few months ago, I wrote of the importance of entrepreneurs sharing their stories so that other aspiring entrepreneurs could learn from them. But actually, sharing stories of entrepreneurship can have a much bigger effect than simply inspiring others.

If you are a business owner, ask yourself this: are you in the industry because you wanted in on the action, or are you here because you had a great idea and wanted to solve a problem which you recognise as affecting thousands or millions of people? With any luck, the answer will be the latter – business who operate simply for financial gain rarely produce quality in my view – and, if that is the case, ask yourself a second question. Do your customers know why you are in the industry you’re in?

In the digital age, many consumers are acutely aware of the stories behind some of the world’s biggest brands – take Apple, Facebook or Google as particularly high-profile examples – and, in many cases, our awareness of the journey such companies have followed to create their products is what sells them to us. Do you buy a MacBook because everyone else has one or do you buy it because the company has a long-established reputation for elegance, performance and, most importantly, consumer awareness?

The same principle also applies to smaller businesses. Startups will, in my view, be much more successful in competing with multi-national, established brands if they tell us, the consumers, why they’re in it, what they believe in and entice us because of shared values or beliefs. This doesn’t mean slapping a label on your packaging (although it is a good start), it means moulding your entire brand around your story. Here are a few examples which might convince you:

Teadough, the Edinburgh-based doughnut startup, are gaining traction because of their focus on family and history (their ancestors invented the doughnut) and, for many, this is a sign of passion and quality. Do Krispy Kreeme have a story and, if they do, what is it?

Innis & Gunn, the Scottish beer producer, have attracted a worldwide audience for their beers, but their products and branding always tell their story and how their business formed from an unexpected discovery. What is Heineken’s story?

Cultured Code, the Stuttgart startup who produce the Things to-do app, have always made clear their passion for simplicity and functionality, traits that come across in their products which have been adopted around the world. What is the story behind the other, lesser-used apps in the iTunes store?

A key point to make is that sharing one’s story isn’t hard. Take a read of some of The Startup Interviews, for example; these startups and entrepreneurs have sold their story by simply sitting down and answering some pointed questions for an hour or so. Interviews are one way of sharing your story and enticing new customers. Other ways are just as simple. Here are a few ideas to consider next time you’re looking to grow your market share:

Social Media: Simply sharing some behind-the-scenes shots of your product being made and the people involved breaks down barriers and increases your business’ transparency in the eye of the customer. Customer satisfaction is important, but a social media campaign which focuses on one happy customer after another is no longer enough.

Packaging: Think about your history, why you’re in the business and what your values are as a company and write it up as short story to put on the back of your packaging – that way, the interested consumer can understand your product as they consider buying it (remember that most of us don’t use social media while shopping in Tesco).

Press Relations: Next time you land yourself an interview or feature in the press, make sure to sell your story, not your product. If you enlighten the reader as to everything I’ve mentioned already, the reader will already be more likely to buy your product than they would be if they simply read a regurgitated product launch press release.

[sladdincj]

Engage Invest Exploit 2015

Yesterday, I was privileged to attend the Engage Invest Exploit conference (otherwise known as EIE) which was hosted by Informatics Ventures. The event, which brings together sixty startups within the energy, information technology and life sciences industries is known to many as Scotland’s leading startup showcase and attracts the attention of investors, venture capitalists and supporters from around Scotland, the UK and the world. For me, the event offered an opportunity to witness the technologies which we can only expect to become ‘native technologies’ in the next five to ten years and to hear from some of the brightest and most influential people in the world of entrepreneurship.

Today, I want to summarise a few of the key points from the conference’s afternoon keynote (I only attended the afternoon so can’t discuss the others) and to highlight some of the great startups who pitched at the event in the hope that we might become early adopters and supporters of their ambitions.

Keynote Points There can be, dare I say it, a slight possibility of forgetting that investors offer more than just capital – they can bring a wealth of knowledge and experience to the table of any startup as well. This was a point that came across in the keynote speech by Heidi Roizen, Venture Capitalist and Stanford Lecturer in Entrepreneurship, and Kim Polese, the Silicon Valley Entrepreneur who played a key role in the launch of Java. Both emphasised the need for entrepreneurs to consider what they were looking for from an advisor and investor but they also remarked that the relationship is two-dimensional. Not only should entrepreneurs seek the knowledge and experience of their mentors but they should also consider what they are giving back in that relationship. Entrepreneurship, and business in general, is no longer about transactions – it is about forming meaningful relationships.

Heidi Roizen also spoke of the importance of startups’ culture and environment in response to a question about relocating startups to Silicon Valley so as to benefit from larger venture capital firms. She noted that although it can be helpful to have one or two individuals on the ground with whom to communicate, startups should also stay true to their origins and grow from these bases, something which Scottish startups including Skyscanner and FanDuel have been particularly effective in doing.

Their keynote had three other lasting reminders:

“Put some controlled randomness into your life.”

“Negotiation is the art of finding the maximum intersection of mutual need.”

“AngelList is the future of investing.”

There are some things to think about.

Startups of Note Picking out the highlights from the sixty startups that attended on Thursday is a challenge. I’ve spoken about the great work that Swipii and Mallzee have been doing in an article about the SIE Summit and the innovative work of Parkure and Onyu have both featured in my Startup Interviews series, so, to avoid boring you, here are the companies to look out for which I haven’t already written about.

PingGo – A tool for every entrepreneur who wants to get the word out about their company and products, this new platform aims to take the hassle out of PR through a series of fully customisable templates for media releases, a media planner and a range of other tools. Users should have no difficulty in making their voices stick out from the crowd in the relentless battle for media attention. Oh, and it could make for a time-saving tool for those well-versed in PR too.

TreePress – An early candidate for a Startup Interview (which I need to reschedule), TreePress launched to great acclaim in the amateur theatre industry back in April. Their online marketplace makes it easy for playwrights to publish their works and for theatre groups and schools to perform them. The marketplace offers everything from comedy to drama and musicals with the ability to search scripts based on cast size and performance length. In their own words, they’re “making theatre easily accessible for everyone, everywhere.”

snap40 – The winner of the Scottish Institute for Enterprise’s ‘New Ventures’ competition and the recipient of a SMART:Scotland Grant, the average consumer probably won’t notice the technology being produced by snap40. The company has, however, the potential to play a major role in the future of healthcare through it’s ability to detect the warning signs of patient deterioration from within patients’ own homes. Demand for such technology can only increase as the UK’s population ages and hospital facilities become increasingly scarce. You can expect a Startup Interview with Christopher McCann, the company’s founder, in the months ahead.

Dehumaniser – One of the final pitches of the day (but arguably the funniest) was that of Dehumaniser, a great piece of computer software which enables film makers, sound engineers and general enthusiasts to transform voices in a live environment. Already popular within the industry, the product has caught the attention of many including technology magazine WIRED. Pick any creature you want to create, start talking or impersonating and your voice will instantly be transformed into a gorilla, dinosaur, whale, you name it. Having produced standalone versions of their software, the company (who are supported by LAUNCH.ed) are now focusing on building a platform version to increase their industry presence. Of course, however, there were also loads of other great startups at the event and you can find out more about all of them here.

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Ideas & Opinions on Entrepreneurship

This week, I’ve been incredibly lucky to attend two great events in Edinburgh focusing on entrepreneurship, a topic which, as you all know, I am particularly passionate about. The first event, iVTuesday, run by Informatics Ventures at the University of Edinburgh, featured a speech by Deputy First Minister John Sweeney and was followed by another talk by Chris van der Kuyl, chairman of 4J Studios. The second event was the Scottish Institute for Enterprise‘s annual summit which brought together inspiring entrepreneurs from around Scotland and some big names from the startup industry. Today, I want to summarise some of the big ideas and important opinions which came out of both events.

iVTuesday, Informatics Ventures If I am honest, I wasn’t particularly bowled over by the Deputy First Minister’s talk on the importance of innovation and entrepreneurship for Scotland’s economy. He did a very good job at being a politician (no surprise there) but I came away from the talk feeling like I hadn’t learned anything new. Nothing he said was particularly inspiring, rather, he simply pointed out his government’s focus on helping the country innovate – a message I can read on their website or, with more of a neutral standpoint, in the Financial Times.

What did inspire me, however, was the talk which followed. Chris van der Kuyl, the chairman of 4J Studios, spoke of the incredible talent we have in Scotland, the inspiration which has come from Scotland’s first billion dollar businesses – Skyscanner and Fanduel, and how we will never live in a period of change this slow again given the constant evolution of ideas. He struck home with the crowd with a pointed opinion regarding government and the potential changes to the freedom in which universities operate, noting that universities are the source of creative talent and innovative thinking and that, by restricting them, we could seriously damage this key source of entrepreneurship with devastating effects on the Scottish and British economies in the years ahead.

Scottish Institute for Enterprise Summit I always talk about how the best way of learning is by listening to other’s stories and learning from their mistakes and successes. That is one of the main reasons I began The Startup Interviews, as I recently wrote in my blog post Learning from Startups’ Stories. The Scottish Institute for Enterprise’s annual student summit offered just that – a chance to meet some of Scotland’s youngest entrepreneurs, network and hear from some of Scotland’s biggest entrepreneurial success stories such as Mallzee (the ‘tinder for fashion’), Swipii Card (the local Tesco Clubcard) and others. There’s far too much to write about from the summit in one post so I’ve picked out a few highlights:

Fiona Godsman, Chief Executive of SIE, reminded the audience that young entrepreneurs have an incredibly broad skill set which can be used in so many environments, whether one chooses to launch a startup business or opt for a graduate job instead.

Cally Russell, CEO of Mallzee, stressed the importance of making mistakes at startups and how the experience can be much more valuable for a young company than spending days or weeks pondering over a decision.

Alex Feechan, Designer and Owner of FINDRA, noted that startups can still succeed with little to no funding if there is a clear and strong vision behind them, using her experience of turning down an unfavourable yet crucial investment offer to demonstrate her point. She also reminded entrepreneurs to conduct proper market research (you can read more on market validation in my post here).

Louis Schena, Co-Founder at Swipii Card who won the SIE New Ventures competition in 2014, returned to the conference to share the experience he’s had in his first year at the startup. He emphasised the need to have fun (a free high five goes a long way to winning in new markets, he claims), that entrepreneurs don’t have to be organised, that you don’t have to have a business plan to succeed at first and that LinkedIn is an absolute must for students and entrepreneurs alike. I couldn’t agree with him more on any of those points!

The day closed with some more networking and a reception for the finalists of the SIE Fresh Ideas and New Ventures competitions (of which I was one) and it was inspiring to hear what other entrepreneurs around Scotland have been getting up to. I can’t wait to interview a whole load of them in Edinburgh and Glasgow in the coming months so keep an eye out for their stories here.

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Learning from Startups’ Stories

It’s now just over a month since I begun publishing my series, The Startup Interviews. So far, seven interviews have been published, each around eight-minutes late and featuring some of Edinburgh’s best startups. So far, we’ve featured everything from tourist guide applications like GuidEd to food startups like 2 the Kitchen and CheesePlease, ticketing companies like SparkSeat and companies like Parkure who are on the hunt for a cure for Parkinson’s. So why am I writing them and what can we learn from the series so far?

Top Tips are Pretty Useless To me, there’s a limited use to all of these top tips posts one finds lying around the internet. Yes, some of them can be useful (I’ve written one myself) but they’re not going to inspire you to follow your passion and get your business off the ground on their own. So how should we be teaching entrepreneurship? Personally, I’m most inspired by talking to entrepreneurs in person and I believe that many of you feel the same way. This is why The Startup Interviews are built around in-depth discussions with entrepreneurs about their projects, experiences, challenges and aspirations — this way, we can learn from what they’ve done and understand why they did it.

The Art of Storytelling Today, we’re so caught up in a world of rolling news coverage that we often forget to pay attention to the detail. My aim with The Startup Interviews was not to publish another transcript of an interview (there are far too many other publications doing that) but to immerse the reader in each entrepreneur’s startup. I want you to feel like you’re with me in the room, interviewing the entrepreneur and discussing their projects. In my opinion, blogs and transcripts have a limited use. There’s no emotion for starters. How are you supposed to know whether an entrepreneur saying ‘I hate the term entrepreneur’ is being sarcastic or not if that is all you’re given to read? Context is key — and storytelling is much better at providing it than a blog.

Learning from the New Generation Young entrepreneurs are consistently under-represented in the media. Occasionally we hear of child prodigies who are breaking into business at the age of thirteen but nobody seems to care about entrepreneurs who are trying out their ideas while at university or shortly after graduation. As such, I’ve really valued the opportunity to talk to this fascinating set of entrepreneurs about their inspiration, ideas and startups and I feel we can learn a lot from them. Here are one or two of the big ideas that have popped up time and time again during The Startup Interviews.

‘Entrepreneur’ isn’t a Perfect Fit: Many of the entrepreneurs with whom I’ve spoken have told me of how the term ‘entrepreneur’ isn’t a perfect fit, how they don’t identify with it or, in some cases, how they ‘hate it’ as a term. It’s a topic that’s come up so much that I’m considering a dissertation in how student small business owners feel it should be defined. Stay tuned for that.

Make the Most of Resources: Many of the interviews I’ve conducted have involved students at the University of Edinburgh, who’s LAUNCH.ed business incubator support service has come up time and time again. But there are loads of resources out there for all types of entrepreneurs, whether it be social enterprises like Entrepreneurial Spark, startup resources like Start Up Donut, the list goes on.

Have Fun: Key to startup success is enjoying yourself — if you don’t have fun, you’re not in it for the right reasons and you are — how can I put this lightly?— destined to fail. So enjoy it. If you could do something differently and have more fun, why not do so?

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Improving Failed Market Validation for Startups

“50% of all small businesses fail in the first couple of years. It’s a damning statistic but it’s true,” reports Theo Paphitis, the serial businessman and former Dragons’ Den star, in The Guardian. He’s right – it is a terribly damning statistic (and he may be dressing it down as some believe 75-90% of startups fail) but one which is seldom heard amidst today’s craze of entrepreneurship. So today, I want to look at why so many startups and small businesses fail and how entrepreneurs can reduce their likelihood of failure. My recommendation: improved market validation.

Market Validation is not something to be rushed. In fact, decent market validation can take weeks or months to get right the first time and should be an ongoing process throughout the life of your startup. While you might be silently confident that people will rush to your company to buy your latest idea, you are biased and you may be a little blind to the truth. This is why market validation exists. A venture capitalist or business angel is highly unlikely to back your venture on just your word alone. They want proof that people like your concept and that, in time, it will be profitable.

So, with this in mind, what should we bear in mind when conducting market validation?

Opinions from Every Walk of Life Perhaps the most common market validation mistake is to use your family and friends as the primary source of opinion. This, I guarantee you, doesn’t work. The reason family and friends are the worst form of market validation is two-fold. Firstly, family and friends are biased. The relationships you hold with them are, more often than not, built on integrity and trust but also on warmth and kindness. As such, your family and friends are most likely to be over-enthusiastic about your idea as a means of supporting you, turning a blind-eye to any holes in your plan. Alternatively, of course, they might just tell you that your idea isn’t worth considering if they have ulterior motives. Secondly, your family and friends are likely not a representative sample of your target market.

The best type of market validation reaches out to your target market, irrespective of location and network proximity. Here are a few ideas for where and how to target your market:

In-Person Survey & Focus Groups: Startups are always short on finance but that doesn’t mean that you can’t conduct good, in-person market validation. Go in to town and ask people’s opinions on the problem you perceive and the solution you have to answer it. In The Teadough Story, I wrote about how three of us went and stalked customers at the opening of a new Apple Store to gauge opinion on a recipe app for making doughnuts, and we were on the streets within minutes of realising there was an opportunity to ask our target market for their opinions. Just prepare some questions (try to make them specific enough that you receive qualitative feedback you can use but open enough to allow your target audience to offer new ideas) and ask them. If you find you have more time on your hands, invite some of your market to focus groups and engage with them in discussion about the problem and solution you’re working on. This is especially useful when you have a product you can put in their hands – in-person feedback is invaluable.

Online Questionnaires: Take your in-person survey questions and convert them into easily measurable questions for use in an online survey. Online surveys are great tools because you can attract a global audience to complete them which allows for a much better understanding of your market and how it varies in different regions. Often, market validation surveys today also offer incentives upon completion (for example, if you’re designing an app, you might offer early access to a beta programme) and can help to build a mailing list for your product when its ready to launch. If you’re looking for a great surveying tool, I’d recommend Typeform and you can find out more about it in my post, Top 10 Tips: Tools Every Startup Should Use.

Snap Surveys: Social media has made market validation easier than ever with the potential to conduct snap surveys (simple, multiple-choice questions) amongst your target market, aided by the vast databanks the networks hold on each of their users. There is normally a cost involved – Facebook, for example, treat the surveys as ads – but for startups with budget to spend on market validation, they can be particularly effective and can accumulate responses from a much larger audience.

Research Your Problem, and Your Solution Lots of business experts agree that market validation comes in two forms, both equally important but often forgotten. A potential investor is looking for two sets of data when being pitched to. The first set of data should demonstrate that the problem you’ve identified is an actual problem. Your startup won’t make any returns if the problem is one which only you have. You’re looking for market validation which proves that the problem you perceive is one which affects many others as well. The second set of data should demonstrate that the solution you’ve come up with is one which your target market are looking for and believe is appropriate. After all, there is no point in investing in a product which fails to meet the needs of consumers.

Be Accepting Have you ever known better? We all suffer from that problem at some point in our lives but trust me on this, your target market knows better than you do about your problem and the solution you’re proposing. If people turn around and tell you that they don’t think you have understood the problem correctly or that your solution isn’t a helpful one, accept it and, even if it hurts, ask them why. Market validation is all about proving that your startup is serving a need and investors won’t be keen on a product where all of your market validation points to it being useless or unnecessary.

Pivot – It’s Like Magic Market validation which concludes that your problem or solution are unnecessary does not, however, mean that you’ve reached the end of the road. In fact, it normally means quite the opposite but many fail to spot this. If you’ve accepted the opinions of your target market and asked them for their reasoning, you should have a lot of data on what they perceive the problems to be and why they think your solution won’t work. You can take this information and transform your startup and idea to one which will work – its called a pivot moment. At teadough, we pivoted from producing a mobile doughnut recipe app (something it turned out consumers weren’t keen on) to producing a make-it-at-home doughnut kit (something which consumers were very keen on). But we would never have made such a move if it hadn’t been for our initial market validation and we would never have been successful had we not conducted more market research after our pivot to get the product right.

It Doesn’t Always Work Out At the beginning of this article, I included a quote by Theo Paphitis who said that “50% of all small businesses fail in the first couple of years.” Improved Market Validation is, in my opinion, one of the easiest ways to reducing this number, however, it is inevitable that some startups will fail in the first couple of years, regardless of the outcome. Either way, entrepreneurs can reduce the pain by reading their market validation properly. If you’ve tried all of the ideas I’ve set out above – collecting broader data, researching the problem and solution, asking for feedback and pivoting – and can’t seem to find the answer, you have two choices. Either, you can continue with your market validation until you find the perfect match or you can choose to move on and dream your next big idea – every entrepreneur has done it at some point and dreaming isn’t all that hard, as I wrote in my post Top 5 Tips: Entrepreneurs without an Idea.

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Lessons in Entrepreneurship from a Dramatic Startup

It would appear that entrepreneurs tend to shy away from startups in the performing arts, or at least, that is the way the media reports it. Nevertheless, entrepreneurship and the performing arts is a very compatible combination as I learnt working with Gin & Tonic Productions Limited, a company I co-founded last year which celebrates its first anniversary today. So, in celebration of their highly successful first year, I’ve decided to note down the biggest lessons in entrepreneurship from my time at this successful dramatic startup.

1. Don’t Be Scared About Money: Live Your Dream Without Doubt The problem with theatre is you spend before you earn. That is, of course, the problem with most businesses but it is quite concerning when you’re a student. Either way, you can’t let it get to you. During the first seven months of our project, we spent £7,000 and made just £2,000. But we shouldn’t have let it get to us. The reason? In the eighth month, we took £7,000, broke even and turned a £2,000 profit. Okay, it wasn’t as simple as clicking our fingers but still, it wasn’t all that hard. Rather than worrying about money, entrepreneurs should embrace their project and enjoy the challenges – you can leave the money making for later.

Oh, and it might be worth mentioning that this rule applies to lots of other things too – its not all about money.

2. Expect Plenty of Drama, and Embrace It That’s definitely an unintentional pun. But seriously, every startup (whether it’s run by students or not) will involve a fair amount of drama and this is something which entrepreneurs have to take in their stride. Whether it is a sudden change in plans, differences in opinions or something altogether different, drama is not there to irritate you. While Gin & Tonic Productions Limited toured ‘Hamlet’ at the Brighton Fringe, our rehearsal plans changed completely (that might have something to do with planning a rehearsal to take place on the beach in the rain) but the solution, although chaotic, brought us closer together.

So here’s an important lesson for entrepreneurs and others alike: Embrace the Drama, don’t let it get to you – it normally turns out for the best.

3. It’s All About Teamwork: Every Bizarre Opinion Counts I am of the belief that the best startups are those that build a team from every walk of life. We did that. Gin & Tonic Productions Limited was run by students – studying everything from Accounting to English Literature, Product Design and Philosophy – and non-students and we always placed an emphasis on teamwork. Nobody was exempt from fundraising, nobody was exempt from publicising, nobody was exempt from making sandwiches for cast and crew meals! But there’s more to teamwork than ensuring everyone participates. Teamwork is all about embracing different ideas and giving everyone the chance to contribute. Diverse teams mean you can expect a broad range of opinions and startups can really benefit from them. Think an idea is a little wacky or bizarre? You might be excused for thinking that but now I urge you to think about it again – perhaps it’s a good idea after all?

4. Establish Objectives and Responsibilities, On Day One This one should be obvious but then again, we often overlook the obvious things in life. Either way, this is one of the most important lessons I will take with me from my time at Gin & Tonic Productions Limited and it is one I’d urge any entrepreneur to bare in mind from day one. If you’re going to accomplish your objectives successfully, you need to have a clear picture of what they are. So before you coin the name of your company (it was our favourite drink, if you’re wondering), make sure that you are in agreement over exactly what you’re trying to do and exactly who is going to be responsible for doing what.

Entrepreneurship without clear objectives is a little like hide-and-seek, but if you’re in agreement from the very beginning, you’ll find it a lot easier to win.

5. Celebrate Your Achievements We all have regrets, right? My biggest regret from my time at Gin & Tonic Productions Limited is this: not attending the final cast and crew party. At the time, I thought I was doing the right thing in not attending it but actually, I’ve come to conclude that it wasn’t the right choice at all. No matter what happens, who you fall out with or what you disagree with, you should always take the time to celebrate your achievements and this was our achievement – one I forgot to celebrate but will never forget.

A Final Thought Anyone who reads this blog regularly will remember that the last time I wrote about theatre, things turned a little ugly. In fact, the last time I wrote about theatre, I announced my exit from the world of student theatre while simultaneously causing wide-spread controversy. Today, however, I would like to close with this: when I wrote Taking a Final Bow on the Student Stage back in September, I overlooked the effect it might have. I don’t regret leaving the world of student theatre and I am still of the opinion that politics could be better managed to allow for greater focus on art. What I do, however, want to emphasize is the comment I made in a post, 2014: Year in Review, last month: “I am incredibly proud of what we accomplished […] Co-founding the company with Elske and Henry was an amazing experience.”

So here’s to another successful year for Gin & Tonic Productions Limited, they have some great projects on the horizon!

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Top 10 Tips: Tools Every Startup Should Use

How can startups avoid getting bogged down in administration and really focus on building and sharing the ideas they are passionate about? If you’re reading this, you’re probably one of the latest entrepreneurs to take the plunge and start a startup in which case, congratulations to you! You’re probably keen to get started on your idea but don’t forget the administrative tasks that come with being a startup.

To help you maintain your focus and have some fun in the process, I want to share my top ten tools that every startup should use to make day-to-day business easy and timeless.

1. MOO: Your Brand, Perfectly Presented There’s no greater sin than to launch a startup and then instantly change your branding because you didn’t think it through. Not only is it a waste of money but it also misleads your customers! So get your logo and branding sorted out and then head to MOO to get beautiful business cards printed for each of your employees to spread your idea with. MOO also offer flyers, letterheads and stickers (basically everything a startup needs in the stationery department) to share your brand on and they even offer some great advice on building a startup on their blog. Get your startup off the ground in style.

Try MOO »

2. Buffer: Powerful Social Media Management Despite being a relatively new tool, Buffer has taken the social media world by storm and is being used by both individuals and businesses alike. Offering a free and paid plan, Buffer allows startups to schedule posts for various social media forms in advance and provides simplistic analytics so you can keep track of your progress as your startup grows. Buffer also encourages startups to share both their own and others’ content, broadening your social impact and ensuring that you keep your users engaged in your brand and what you’re interested in. Oh, and don’t forget to post your content multiple times across your social media channels, especially if your target market are based in different time-zones.

Try Buffer »

3. MailChimp: Beautiful Email Campaigns Made Simple If you’ve ever subscribed to an email newsletter before, it’s fairly likely it was sent by MailChimp. MailChimp is the industry standard for email marketing and getting setup to send your first email is simple and you can use it for all sorts, whether it be to launch your product, announce new features or products, offer tips or, well, the list is endless. It’s also flexible (so can fit your branding perfectly) and affordable (in fact, it’s free for your first 2,000 subscribers). MailChimp have a suite of mobile applications for sending snap emails to your subscribers but it is definitely best used on your desktop or laptop.

Try MailChimp »

4. Mailbox: Encouraging an Empty Inbox The average employee spends 28% of their work week reading and responding to emails according to a survey by McKinsey & Company. For a startup, that’s an enormous amount of time wasted when you could have been working on your big idea. Fortunately, Mailbox (a Dropbox product) solves this problem. Available on the Mac, iPhone, iPad and Android, Mailbox encourages you to clean out your inbox on a daily basis by allowing you to complete and archive emails, postpone them until a later date or move them to specific project lists. Its as easy as that.

Try Mailbox »

5. Typeform: The Research Tool Your first product idea may not be the best product idea, that’s the lesson I learned at teadough. But how will you know if you’ve got your customers’ needs sussed? The answer doesn’t have to be difficult with Typeform, a modern form app which generates simplistic but powerful surveys with which you can validate your business ideas. If you’ve used SurveyMonkey before, Typeform is similar but, in my opinion, more appealing to the viewer and its analytics offer much greater functionality.

Try Typeform »

6. Square: The Elegant Cash Register Square has taken hold in the United States as the point-of-sales and payment processing solution for small businesses – it can be seen wherever you go from cafes to local markets, independent shops and more, but it is now arriving in 130 other countries. Not only does the register app act as a cash register but it also offers small business owners detailed analytics about their sales and products and offers customers electronic receipts from which you can collect feedback. Square also offer card processing in select countries.

Try Square »

7. WordPress: The Simple yet Customisable Website Sometimes we forget that, in the age of technology, many startups focus on anything but technology. For those who do, and for those technology startups looking for a blog in which to share news of your progress, WordPress is the obvious answer to your website needs. Today, the world’s most popular blogging system powers more than seventy million websites worldwide but it is much more than a blog. WordPress is available either as a self-hosted platform or via WordPress.com.

Try WordPress »

8. Dapulse: The Big Picture of Project Management Project Management is important, no matter what your startup focuses on. Dapulse takes a step away from the traditional project management tools in the sense that it organises a startup’s to-do list by team, allowing all teams to keep up-to-date on each other’s progress via their simple Execution Board. Effectively, it brings everyone closer together, even when teams are spread around the globe as they often are today. Dapulse haven’t lost some of the more traditional project management app features though; it still offers messaging boards, task status updates, file upload and all of those other features we’re so used to having.

Try Dapulse »

9. Kickstarter: The Finance and Supporters Driving Your Idea If I chose to identify a few entrepreneurship trends of the twenty-first century so far, crowdfunding would be one of them and Kickstarter has become the most popular platform from which startups are founded. Whether you’re developing the latest wearable technology, starting a magazine, opening a shop or publishing a collection of recipe books, Kickstarter is one of the best sources for securing finance and orders for your product without giving away any of your company to investors or venture capitalists. Just share your idea with the world, include an enticing video, set your financial target and watch your first customers rollup. If you meet your funding target, it’s time for you to get your product on the road. If you don’t, there’s no harm in trying again but perhaps do a little additional market research first.

Try Kickstarter »

10. Spotify: The Key to Happy Employees Surprised? It isn’t exactly a conventional choice after all. Nevertheless, it’s included for a good reason. A startup is all about generating ideas and transforming them into leading products and services which you’ll admired for. This all requires plenty of productivity on your part. And the key to a productive employee? A happy, positive environment in which to work in. Personally, I prefer to have music on while I work and I know that lots of others do likewise so download Spotify and have it on in the office to get people in the right mood. Whether it be pop, rock, classical, jazz or one of the many other genres of music, there’s bound to be something to keep everyone happy.

Try Spotify »

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Top 5 Tips: Entrepreneurs without an Idea

At the beginning of the year, I set myself a goal: to start a business of my own by the end of the year. I realise we’re only half way through January but for a while, I was slightly concerned I wouldn’t come up with anything. Fortunately, I’ve come up with two projects for this year (although you’ll have to wait and see what they are). But how did I come up with these ideas? Here are my top five tips (or should I call them questions for consideration?) for entrepreneurs who can’t find an idea.

1. What are your personal interests? I’m not talking about money here, I’m talking about your hobbies. Think about what you did as a child, think about what you did last weekend, think about what you enjoyed doing at university. For me, I’ve always enjoyed publishing, business, music and the arts and travel (amongst others). What could you do to make these hobbies more exciting or engaging for others? As I wrote a few weeks back, “the best idea an entrepreneur can have is one which focuses on an area they are passionate about.”

2. What do you wish was different in the world? What do you miss in your own country? This could be anything from the trains running on time to solving world hunger or simply craving an affordable but beautiful notebook for planning your next holiday in. Whatever it is, there’s a business idea there and there are bound to be others who share your opinion. Why not go and ask people? Similarly, there are plenty of great business ideas which have yet to take hold in other markets. Could that be your opportunity?

3. What have you always wanted to do? We all have a dream in life but, for many of us, they can be difficult to achieve. Ask yourself this: why is it difficult? Many startups seek to solve their founders’ problems – Airbnb was founded to help travellers find and offer cheap accommodation, IKEA went on to become the first major flat-pack, affordable furniture producer – and I expect your dream could be achieved in a similar way too.

4. What do others look to you for? We all have differing areas of expertise and we are most successful when we share our talents with others. What do your friends, colleagues or family look to you for? Do they ask your advice or for help on specific topics? Could you start a business that answers their needs? I’m often asked for advice on business and accounting so opening a business which offers advice to those individuals (and then grow it from there) might be worth considering.

5. Not Experienced in an area of Interest? Don’t worry, every entrepreneur has that problem but it should never stop you from trying it as a business idea. As I mentioned earlier, we’re most successful when we share our talents with others so go and find someone who has experience and pitch your idea to them – they may just be able to help.

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2015: The Year of Productivity & Entrepreneurship

Last year, I started the year by writing that I didn’t think the blogging community’s posts regarding New Years Resolutions amounted to much, only to write my own and actually stick to them. So this year – having successfully accomplished what I set out to do in 2014: Broadening the Network – I’ve decided to make it a tradition.

So what resolutions have I picked for this year? I’m setting myself two goals which will make 2015 the year of productivity and entrepreneurship.

Increasing Productivity with Technology A recent article in Forbes asked the question, “does technology really make us more productive?” It’s a fair question and I am inclined to side with the article which claims it actually bogs us down. Today, we feel the need to be constantly connected, in case we should miss something important in the half hour we’re away from our desks. Smartphones and tablets have not, in my opinion, solved this problem – in fact, they’ve made it worse by ensuring that we’re connected more often.

So this year, I’ve decided that technology be used to make life more efficient (yep, that’s what comes of living in Germany) and to boost productivity. This year, I’m installing applications including Timeful and Mailbox on my phone and other devices.

Timeful, a time-management application, will have control over my calendar and to-dos, using its algorithms to work out exactly what I should accomplish and when, based on the other activity I have scheduled in my calendar. For example, it will work out the optimum time during the day for me to respond to my emails, carefully considering the timing of my lectures, tutorials and the other deadlines I’ve left the app to manage to ensure I get everything done. To ensure that the application performs at its best, however, I’m also setting some rules for it to follow which will reduce the time spent looking at technology. For example, I will:

Check and respond to my emails once per day,

Take time to write a blog at least twice per month,

Call my grandparents at least once per month,

And so on and so forth…

Mailbox and Unroll.me will try to keep me on top of all of my emails while also reducing the number I receive. Mailbox, which I will check once a day, encourages me to have a clean inbox so everyday, I’ll either delete, respond to and archive or snooze emails until it is clear and set for a new day. Unroll.me will eliminate the junk email – all of those useless newsletters I signed up for long ago, etc – and provide a daily summary, thereby un-cluttering my inbox while keeping me in the loop if I want to be.

There are just two examples of how technology can boost my productivity but I’m sure I’ll find some more as the year progresses. I also need to determine how I’m going to measure my increase (if it happens) in productivity during the year. If you have some apps you want to share with me, let me know in the comments section below.

Starting Something Big Over the past year, I’ve been fortunate enough to get involved in a number of entrepreneurial activities. I started 2014 by co-founding Gin & Tonic Productions Limited, a touring theatre company with whom I produced a very successful Hamlet at the Brighton and Edinburgh Fringe Festivals. After my exit from the world of student theatre (you can read more on that here), I got involved with the guys at teadough, helping them to launch their Original Doughnut Kit just in time for Christmas.

This year, I want to continue this passion, and make the best use of the lessons I’ve learned and the connections I’ve made, the great folks at LAUNCH.ed in particular, and develop a product or service of my own. I’ve got plenty of ideas sitting on the back burner – there are a few examples on this blog, and now is the time to turn them into a reality. Richard Branson thought 2014 would be the Year of the Entrepreneur – for me, that’s 2015.

Carrying On So what will happen to last year’s resolutions? Well, I’ve decided to settle for a compromise. The larger of my two resolutions, Broadening the Network, will continue in the coming years, especially as my time at University nears its end and graduate employment offers exposure to new businesses and contacts. But the smaller of the resolutions, Influence without the Hashtag, is going to be abandoned. There is a reason for this, of course. I’ve learnt my lesson in that hashtags should not be overused as was the case in 2013 but one cannot ignore the role they play in communication today.

[sladdincj]

2014: Year in Review

A quick read of my family’s Christmas letter would suggest that there were very few highlights for me in 2014, however, I’d argue that they were just trying to save space given the holes my father’s photocopier decided to punch in the side of each page. For me, 2014 has been an amazing year, full of adventures, exciting projects and lots of hard work. I’d like to share one or two of my highlights with you.

Third Year in Edinburgh Time flies when you’re having fun and there is so much going on in Edinburgh that the years just flash before your eyes. My year as a Resident Assistant came to an end (I wouldn’t recommend trying it) as did my membership of Bedlam Theatre where I was secretary and producer of The Improverts. I can’t say I miss the politics of it all, nor the chaos of producing and I keep in touch with it all thanks to Lauren, my flatmate who is still a flatmate.

Third year also presented me with the chance to work for the University (it’s strange but revealing to see things from the other angle) as an intern in their accounting team which kept me in town during the summer, eating copious amounts of delicious fudge from The Fudge Shop where Eve worked and experiencing the chaos which is the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Unfortunately, we didn’t get around to seeing very much but the Loud Poets and Private Peaceful, both of which perform every year, are certainly recommended.

Since all the tourists left town, and on the rare occasion that I’ve actually been in town (more on that later), I’ve been sitting down with various project teams, tackling the challenge which is third year while also enjoying the rare catch-up with friends or a walk up Arthur’s Seat.

Gin & Tonic Productions Limited Without a doubt, the biggest project of 2014 was producing Hamlet at the Brighton and Edinburgh Fringe Festivals during the summer to great acclaim. Although I have now left the world of student theatre (more on that here), I am incredibly proud of what we accomplished and, as I have told many of the graduate recruiters I’ve met this term, it is an experience which I will continue to showcase on my CV for many years to come.

As any entrepreneur or artist will tell you, it isn’t easy to found a limited company, crowd-fund £3,000, recruit an amazing cast and crew and take a full-fledged production of Shakespeare’s greatest tragedy the length of the country to showcase it in Brighton in less than five months but we did it. Perhaps even more incredible is how well we performed in comparison to the six other productions of Hamlet taking place at the Edinburgh Fringe in our first year! Oh, and we turned a £2k profit – just saying!

Co-founding the company with Elske and Henry was an amazing experience and I’m really looking forward to seeing what the team produce at next year’s festival – although this time, I think I’ll settle for the role of an audience member! In the meantime, you can keep up with them on their website or on social media.

On the Road: Frankfurt, York, London, Munich, Cornwall, Antwerp, Normandy, Tirol, Tuscany For a (semi-)international student, travel is not unusual but this year, its been a constant. As my father put it the other week, I’ve been “living an extravagant lifestyle”. Well, if you count 17 flights, 36 long-distance train journeys and more than 5,000 miles of driving as extravagant, I guess I’d agree. This year, I’ve been particularly fortunate to travel widely across Europe. Whether it has been to visit Eve in Munich, visiting Bozhidara in Antwerp, skiing in Tirol, holidaying with family in Tuscany and Normandy, singing at the St. Endellion Easter Festival in Cornwall or just visiting home in Frankfurt or my grandparents in York, I’ve spent many days sat in those uncomfortable train carriages.

I’ve also travelled to London on a number of occasions this year, having spent a weekend in the city at the end of August to attend the BBC Proms and having attended a number of assessment centres in October and November, from which I’m delighted to have been offered (and have accepted – more on that here) an internship with PwC next summer.

Where will next year take me, I wonder?

Teadough I won’t say much on this topic given that I published The Teadough Story a few weeks back in plenty of detail but I still feel it is worth mentioning. It’s been an absolute pleasure working with Hannah and Arthur, as well as the teams at LAUNCH.ed and 3 Day Startup, in creating the Original Doughnut Kit – the first (as far as we know) kit which allows you to bake great doughnuts at home, without the need for a deep-fat fryer. We’re now looking forward to hearing from the lucky ones who opened one on Christmas Day and from all of the Instagram folks who are tempted by the mouthwatering photos they post!

You can continue to follow their progress on social media, as well as on their website where kits will be available for sale again shortly.

Blogging Away This Christmas marks a year since this website first launched as a Tumblr blog. To date, its fifteen posts have seen around 2,500 times which, for me, is quite an achievement given the broad range of topics I’ve covered and the complete lack of overarching theme which would normally draw readers back. Although there have been a number of more controversial posts, the feedback I’ve received has been really positive and I’m thrilled to have relaunched the website this month to showcase more of my work as an entrepreneur and an undergraduate and look forward to another year of writing on the topics of the day, whether they be big or small.

If you’ve got any suggestions for future blog posts, let me know in the comments below!

2015: The Year Ahead With the New Year just a few days away, it’s time to look forward to many exciting activities in 2015. There’ll be a brand new set of New Year’s Resolutions, following on from this year’s successful post, which I’ll publish on January 1st, I’ve got a few ideas for trips around Europe, a couple of project ideas sitting on the back burner and a dissertation to get started with (I’m actually excited about that – unlike most).

So here’s to the New Year 2015! I hope it’s a good one!

[sladdincj]

The Teadough Story

Over the past few months, many have noted my posts about teadough – the Edinburgh-based doughnut company I joined at 3 Day Startup – on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. So this week, as we celebrate the launch of our new product, the Original Doughnut Kit, I thought I’d share our story, of how I joined the brother and sister team and, together, took an idea for an iPad Recipe app and turned it into the first make-your-own doughnut kit, just in time for Christmas.

3 Day Startup: It All Started with an App The last thing you would expect of a weekend which started out with sketches for an iPad app is a make-your-own doughnut kit. However, as we learnt at 3 Day Startup, pivoting to meet the needs of consumers is key if you are to win over potential consumers and make your mark.

After pitching our ideas for businesses and products (you can find my idea for a Student Finance Platform here) to seventy students and staff from around the University, I joined the teadough team who’s idea was to share their passion for doughnuts, inspired by their great(x9)-grandmother who invented the doughnut in 1803, with the world through a simple iPad application. The application was to offer recipes, inspired by the original British doughnut, for enthusiasts to make at home.

As the weekend progressed, however, we discovered that our target market, including many iPhone and iPad users, had no interest in another recipe app, many noting that BBC Good Food was their preferred source for recipes (market research is key, and the opening of Edinburgh’s Apple Store during that weekend helped in gaining easy access to our target market). So, we posed the question: how could we share our doughnuts with the world?

The answer: the Original Doughnut Kit. All-in-one baking kits are increasingly popular in the UK and abroad, with simple biscuit and muffin ingredient jars selling for upwards of £15 and more complicated kits, such as make-your-own cheese and fudge, selling for £30 and above. We noted, however, that doughnuts had not been developed into such a product, in part due to the common use of a deep-fat fryer. So, within twenty-four hours, our team of just three (we started the weekend with six) developed the first prototype of what is now a finished product, just in time for a first pitch in front of investors and business experts at which we secured our first three orders (all online through our new website, also assembled in a weekend) but, more importantly, received some great feedback for developing the product further.

Taking it Further It was very clear, after our first pitch at 3 Day Startup, that we had developed a popular idea but not a finished product which many would buy. Feedback received from our first pitch pointed out a number of flaws in the prototype; £15 was not seen as affordable despite many similar products retailing for more, the use of Kilner Jars for storing ingredients was increasing costs, both in terms of units produced and delivery, the original box – printed and hand-folded from a library printout – was by no means suitable and we needed to decide on the exact flavour of the doughnuts as well as the inclusion of fresh ingredients like butter and eggs.

As any entrepreneur will tell you, however, this is all part of the research and development involved in launching a new product. Richard Branson sums up some of our thinking, saying “Don’t think what’s the cheapest way to do it or what’s the fastest way to do it…think ‘what’s the most amazing way to do it.”

After 3 Day Startup, our focus turned to putting a professional finish on our product, addressing the feedback of our first pitching panel, the demands of our potential customers (many of whom were students with a sweet tooth but a low budget) while ensuring that we didn’t compromise on our wish-lists for the kit.

As October and November passed by, the Original Doughnut Kit changed quite substantially: we replaced our hefty, white box with a streamlined, sustainable brown Vegware box with built-in handle, Kilner jars were replaced with cheaper equivalents and finally heat-sealed plastic bags, the metal cupcake tray was replaced with a set of larger and taller silicon cases. The recipe changed a number of times too, in part due to a trip to Costco which threw a number of new ingredient options our way (like Caramel sauce – not adopted due to its sweetness) and denied us the chance to include others.

The first two prototypes, produced in November, were tested internally with Hannah testing one set at a Power of Youth event and me the other, over a weekend with my grandparents. Again, the prototype testing revealed some flaws in our product’s design although many of these now focused on the recipe itself. Oven times varied dramatically, doughnuts were dry, the recipe wasn’t clear. These were all resolved, one by one, as the Christmas rush – something we were keen to capitalise on – approached.

The company also took advantage of a number of other opportunities presented to us during the period. Hannah and Arthur attended a doughnut course with the Edinburgh School of Food & Wine, an opportunity to explore the recipe further and discuss the implications of providing dry ingredients to customers. Arthur was offered the chance to discuss our product with food nutritional experts, something of a legal requirement (I, for one, am still trying to identify which ones apply to us).

Pitching to Investors Today, there seems to be a great deal of debate as to whether startup capital is useful or not. Tim Berry writes on Entrepreneur.com that “Service businesses tend to need a lot less capital than product businesses” but I would argue that, for teadough’s Original Doughnut Kit, we needed no startup capital at all.

The reason for this was our initial distribution network – eCommerce. As consumers purchased the kit online, we had access to the funds to produce each kit, before we started to produce them, promising consumers a turnaround of just a few days. The only benefit for us of using startup capital is that of economies of scale; startup capital would allow teadough to buy ingredients in bulk, reducing the cost of each unit produced, and increasing profits per unit.

Regardless of this fact, we believe that pitching is a great way to collect feedback on a product or service (as we discovered at 3 Day Startup), a chance to network with similar-minded business owners and investors and, at least at the University of Edinburgh, the opportunity to win some additional funding (free startup capital).

We first pitched the Original Doughnut Kit at the Santander Pitching Competition finals in late November, offering a number of tempting, free sample doughnuts, to show off the product to both the judges and the assembled audience. While we didn’t win the competition (interestingly, it was won by two other 3 Day Startup attendees), it offered more feedback on our product. Again, the price of the product was called into question (this time we’d pitched it at £12.99) and there seemed to be general confusion as to why we were called teadough given a lack of tea.

Since then, Arthur has continued on the pitching front, presenting the company and product to panels at FOUNDER.org and Angels Den at the Scottish Business Exhibition.

The Final Product: The Original Doughnut Kit December arrived and so does the final part of my teadough story so far. As the semester wound to an end, we redesigned our packaging designs to reflect the new Vegware boxes, recipe cards were redeveloped to suit and the first batches of ingredients were produced. Teabags were acquired too, adding a nice, sophisticated touch to the product while also saving us from any brand inconsistency in the future.

Preorders launched on our website and, much to my delight, we sold at a rate of knots online. Hannah and Arthur also took the product to the University’s Christmas market where it went down a treat. And we’ve been lucky enough to enlist the services of Campfire, an Edinburgh-based video production company run by a friend of Hannah and Arthur’s, who produced a great ad for us (you can view it here), playing on the company’s history and our new product.

So here we are, two and a half months after teadough first arrived at 3 Day Startup with an idea to create an iPad recipe app and I know I speak for all of us when I say that this isn’t the outcome we expected on that first Friday evening. Its been quite a journey to develop the Original Doughnut Kit and we’re nowhere near finished yet.

[sladdincj]

Graduate Choices: Picking Between Jobs

This week, I’m thrilled to have chosen to rejoin the PwC Network as an Intern in the Edinburgh Assurance practice. For many, this won’t come as a surprise - PwC are the company I’ve grown up with and with whom I landed my first job after finishing secondary school. But the decision to spend a summer and, I hope, a career with PwC wasn’t an easy one. Between two job offers, one from PwC and one from Barclays, there was a great deal of decision making to be done.

What many forget when applying for penultimate-year internships is the role they play in graduate careers and, ultimately, one’s entire career. In this, my first careers-related blog post, I look at the factors I’ve learnt students should consider when making their choices, with some personal examples from having made mine.

1. Remind Yourself of Your Dream Never, ever forget your dream. At first, I did. It was only after a few reminders from my parents and my girlfriend that I noticed how I’d forgotten my dream. Throughout university, ever since I first worked for PwC in fact, I always wanted to work for the company. So why didn’t I just say yes to their offer straight away? Well, IT problems aside, it was because Barclays presented me with a new opportunity. But, when I considered it further, it wasn’t the opportunity I dreamt about. If you want to be a banker and work for Barclays, go and do it. If you want to be an accountant with PwC, go and do it. If you want to be a musician and play for a professional orchestra, go and do it. Your dream and passion is much more valuable and worthwhile than any other factor, like the length of an internship, how much it pays, where it is, etc.

2. Consider the Company Now, if you don’t have a set company that you dream about, this is the second factor to consider. You can consider a company in a number of different ways; by its reputation, financial performance, strategy, graduate programme, global reach, the list is endless. For me, however, companies are best considered on the basis of their people. The reason I enjoy working at PwC is everyone’s friendliness, despite being a firm of hundreds of thousands globally. Comparing the assessment processes at Barclays and PwC, for example, I found PwC to be much more inviting. Not only was the assessment process more welcoming, relaxed and better organised, but attending a final, manager interview felt like going for coffee with a colleague - nothing was staged, there weren’t any blunt questions, it was all about personality. For me, that was an absolute seller.

3. Take a Long-Term View Finally, graduates need to take a long-term view. As I mentioned in the first section of this post, one shouldn’t focus on the length of an internship or graduate programme, or how much it pays. If you are considering those factors, you’re looking at the wrong job. You’ll never achieve anything unless you aren’t passionate about things. As I recently told my girlfriend, it is better to work for free in a job you enjoy than to spend countless hours doing something menial which you don’t enjoy. Experience will, eventually, get you a paid position. So always take a long-term view. Perhaps unusually, I have at least the first decade of my career progression planned out - I know where I want to be within PwC by the time I’m thirty. I couldn’t see where I wanted to be within Barclays in ten years, let alone five.

4. The Thing You Shouldn’t Consider There is one factor I believe one should never consider: one’s abilities. Businesses focus a lot of their attention on student recruitment, with dedicated recruitment managers and specialised programmes, often spanning several years, set out to train you up from student to professional. Nobody expects you to know everything there is about finance when you apply for a job in banking. A little knowledge can help but you can obtain this by doing some research before your interview. Remember, if you’ve been offered a job, the employer knows you’re the right candidate for them and they’ll invest in your training to ensure you have the right abilities when you join.

What tips do you have for future graduates when making career choices? What experiences have you had as a recent graduate? Let me know in the comments section below.

[sladdincj]

Consumers and Businesses: It's not a One-Sided Relationship

It is all too evident that, when something goes wrong, businesses get the blame and are left to tidy up the mess. The old business saying, “the consumer is always right,” might be nice in principle but, if you ask me, it isn’t and shouldn’t always be taken for granted. Businesses are run by individuals like you or me - so, in the same way you or I are more likely to do someone a favour if we care for them and note their care for us, businesses function in a similar way.

Recently, followers of my Twitter account may have noticed an increase in the number of tweets I direct at companies like Lufthansa, East Coast, Marriott Hotels, ClassicFM and others. Social media is a medium through which to engage in conversation with others - both individuals and businesses. It is my belief that, as social media plays an increasingly important role in businesses’ marketing strategies, consumers must learn to interact with businesses via social media if they are to be valued and appreciated.

In the past, consumers letters of complaint were the number one medium through which to garner a response from businesses but they have become ordinary with very little difference between one customer’s complaint and another’s. I recently complained to Virgin Trains for the severe delay to a service which resulted in my getting home four hours late at 3:30am. While the response I received may have been acceptable, one line particularly caught my attention: “while we regret that we are unable to respond to your letter in detail…” This says one thing to me, we’ve noted your complaint and are giving you a free ticket and then ignoring the rest of your letter where you offered some suggestions on how to improve things next time.

So how can consumers and businesses get personal again?

Social media is the key, but until technology develops to a point where we book our travel with our Twitter handle, the onus rests on the consumer to start a relationship with a company. The required effort shouldn’t be seen as useless though - a simple compliment or “hello” is all it takes to let a company know you care and garner a response. Such responses are also enlightening; they often demonstrate hidden personalities within major organisations which you wouldn't pick up on by reading a product catalogue or inflight magazine, social media makes companies personal. Here are a few examples:

@SladdinCJ We hope you had a nice flight on board KLM, Christopher :)

— Royal Dutch Airlines (@KLM)

July 7, 2013

@SladdinCJ Welcome back! Hope you had a good time abroad. Enjoy the #bbcproms in London. Would love to attend the #MahlerSymphonies /Ella

— Lufthansa (@lufthansa)

August 27, 2014

@SladdinCJ Thanks for coming, we hope to see you again soon! :)

— Marriott Hotels UK (@MarriottUK)

November 24, 2014

All it takes is 140 characters to start a lifelong relationship with a company and, as you can see from the tweets above, companies will go to great lengths to engage with their most dedicated customers. Now, I admit that this will not always be the case - some companies don’t have the human resources required to answer everyone’s social media conversations - but this doesn’t mean they don’t care.

And where do the benefits lie? Well, in the age of big data and complex analytics used by companies to track their marketing and communications, company’s do notice consumers’ efforts, even if it isn’t immediately apparent. But you never know, starting a positive relationship with companies now may well save you when you’re in trouble down the line.

Do you engage with companies via social media? Does your business go the extra mile to interact with consumers via social media? Let me know your experiences in the comments section below.