#idat304

[digitalartstudent-blog]

Feedback about iSignia term 1

Mark: 76.5%

A good set of marks across the board, your business idea is interesting and your SWOT does start to identify some of the key issues. The branding (name, design and slogan) works well with your product and there has been some considered development work behind it . I think the next stage for you is to find a creative hook that makes it into a credible business. If you pursue the latest trend must have for example, this would involve a distinctly different business strategy to perhaps taking the more obvious route of connecting the product to an official organisation or user group (like a diabeties charity for example). If you can somehow marry up several hooks, you will be on a much stronger footing from a business perspective, and it will require a strong, cohesive business strategy to be put in place quite early on into your business planning. Interview was good and threw up some useful answers from a research perspective. You identfied many of your two minute pitch weaknesses and were able to refine them for your 5 minute pitch. Your self assessment adequately identfied the strengths and weaknesses of both, which will enable you to adjust and practise to ensure your are able to deliver a polished final pitch.

Helpful because we're taking iSignia forward into term 2 of Venture Culture. My group members for this term are Karla Anker, Rachel Dalton and Gemma Bastin.

[digitalartstudent-blog]

5 Minute Pitch - A self assessment essay

This was always going to be a challenge for me as I am not very confident in my public speaking ability! I tend to accidentally blend two (or more!) words together, create brand new words altogether, and/or regularly trip over my own tongue, all because of nerves. It’s a vicious circle though, because I know if I was more confident in my ability to speak in public, I wouldn’t get so nervous, and these kinds of errors would happen less regularly.

To begin with I was standing at the front of the room and I felt like I was visibly shaking with nerves. Because there was a long pause before I began my pitch, I started to over think everything, and in the process of doing so forgot about my introduction! So we come to my first major error. My first word is “Cool!” which is not a good start, then after introducing myself I completely forget to introduce my company’s name. Even though on the screen behind me, the iSignia logo is huge, I still feel I definitely should have started much stronger and clearer. For example; “Good afternoon, my name is Jessi Dimmock, and I am a digital artist and designer. I’m here to talk about iSignia, which is my idea for a jewellery design business with a technological edge.”

Despite my slightly stumbling start, I think my pitch went better than I was expecting. After my initial 2 minute pitch, one of the things I realised was that if I was going to be selling a brand that I wanted to be classy, expensive, unique and iconic, (even despite me being a new-age technological artist), I could not turn up to a pitch wearing skinny jeans, trainers and a baggy hoody. This time I wore a maxi dress with a cropped denim jacket, and tried to hold myself with more confidence. I definitely am not shuffling and looking at the floor/my notes as much as I did in my 2 minute pitch, and I appear to stand taller and straighter.

Once I got going, my confidence was helped by having the presentation as visuals behind me. My audience were focusing their eyes on the screen rather than directly at me. I’m quite proud of my visuals, I think they gave a really good sense of the iSignia brand as a whole; clean and simple, yet still with all the necessary information. I chose to have the logo on every slide just to really keep that image at the forefront of my audience’s minds. I feel I put enough information on each slide to describe my product; images that were relevant and engaging, and of course the key points to reiterate what I was talking about, but also not so much that the audience had to spend the time reading and not listening to what I was saying.

As I pointed out in my evaluation of my 2 minute, I did still “um” and “ah” quite a lot during this pitch. This is partially down to nerves and stumbling over my introduction, but I also realise now that I should have practised a lot more. I only practised the whole presentation twice, and both times were not in front of an audience. If I had practised more, I would have been more confident in knowing what I had to say and when, and therefore there would have been less verbal fillers. Another word I used too much was “basically”, a repeated reflex I am definitely using as a filler while I organise my next thought.

Another improvement from my initial pitch was my timing. My speech was slower which made me easier to understand, and the pitch easier to follow. I was also only 7 seconds off my 5 minute target. This I was definitely quite proud of, as I managed to say everything I needed to, and didn’t need to rush the ending.

Having the flash cards was a definite improvement. I spent the previous pitch looking at the notepad in my hand, essentially ‘reading’ my pitch straight off the paper. I think I used it as an excuse to not make eye contact with my audience as I was feeling nervous. This makes me seem very unconfident and unprofessional. This time, now that I had the flash cards, I only glanced down to make sure I was on the right track, but I was speaking freely from keywords and phrases, making me appear more confident in my idea and my company as a whole.

Overall I feel my pitch went well and was well received. When looking around the room, I could see that most people were paying attention and looking interested, which, considering it was at least an hour into our presentation afternoon and my audience had listened to about 8 other presentations before mine, was quite reassuring. I’m glad I spent a lot of time on my visual presentation as it really helped convey the strong brand image that surrounds iSignia, whilst being informative, and effective at visually complementing what I was saying. I was overall much more confident and presentable than I was at my 2 minute pitch, my appearance and my speech had improved considerably, though verbal fillers were still evident throughout. After a quite stumbling start, I managed to regain my composure, the rest of the presentation went relatively smoothly and I finished within the set timeframe of 5 minutes.

[digitalartstudent-blog]

Resources Database - Venture Culture

As a start up business, my 3 best friends should be:

A Lawyer - He or she will be helpful with the foundational elements of your business - namely, which kind of business entity you choose. Your industry and your future plans will impact the kind of business entity you should form.

An Accountant - This isn’t a recommendation to offload all of your company’s financial activities to a service provider. You still need to be involved in your company’s books - especially in the early days, when it could just be you.

Some Software - Select the right type of accounting software! Critical business decision.

Support Database

https://www.gov.uk/ (formerly Business Link)

Lots of information about starting up and running a business, from setting up, to understanding tax, and making your business more environmentally friendly. There's even specific information for certain types of businesses, such as farming and food/catering.

Plymouth University Enterprise Solutions

Through the University we can get start up support for businesses, from Dragons Den style competitions, to One Stop Ideas Shop (free monthly events providing specialist information and guidance on protecting a business idea or product) and the Formation Zone. I emailed Enterprise to ask about attending one of the One Stop Ideas Shop sessions, and got this response:

I am going to book into a session in January as I couldn't attend the 20th December session.

HM Revenues and Customs

Everything a new business owner needs to know about tax and National Insurance, VAT, tax returns, or starting up a new limited company.

Startups

Great website with loads of articles about starting and maintaining a new business, including specific articles for loads of different types of business, for example, here's an article on starting a new Ebay business

Banks - Barclays

I've been on a few price comparison websites/articles & done quite a bit of research into different bank accounts, and it seems at the moment the best deal for start up businesses is the Start-Up Business Current Account with Barclays. They're offering up to 2 years free business banking, free auto-transactions even after that has finished, and free business phone support 24/7. Startups recommends Barclays here. They also have a range of services to help start ups that are available free when you get this account, these perks are:

Free CREDITFOCUS – our service to help you recover and reduce late payments and bad debts 5

Free consultations with an accountant, marketing professional and solicitor for expert advice in your crucial first months

Free business seminars on topics such as how to make more profit and attract more customers

Free i-sure business online data backup – automatically backs up 2GB of your data in a secure location

Free business skills training

Access to unique packages of business management software to help you save time and money

Bstartup Expo

A free exhibition at Excel London "with over 250 seminars, over 350 exhibitors, advice, opportunities, and much more". Definitely looks worth going to, especially as it's free!

Plymouth Media Partnership<

mediainnovationnetwork.com is an online resource for people working in the creative industries looking to share knowledge and collaborate, access market intelligence, and develop skills by connecting with research centres and knowledge hubs.

Young Entrepreneur

A website dedicated to reporting about young entrepreneurs and startups. Find inspiring stories about the next generation of entrepreneurs.

Our social network and blog properties showcase Entrepreneurship, Marketing, Online Business Strategies, Entrepreneur Interviews, and several features, solutions and support to assist small business owners with starting, managing and growing successful business ventures.

BBC's Dragon's Den

Despite the TV program mainly being for entertainment, the BBC has set up quite a comprehensive accompanying website that has lots of great hints and tips for inventors and prospective entrepreneurs. They also have a YouTube channel with great dos and don'ts with regards to pitching.

Outset Plymouth

Outset hold free workshops and can provide a budding entrepreneur with a mentor to help you set up. They also have a free monthly email newsletter with the latest news and opportunities in Plymouth.

Inventors Resource

A great website to find out any information about patents, trademarks and copyright in respect to inventions and original products.

Plymouth City Council New Business Advice

More specific-to-Plymouth advice from the Council. You can find information on:

Commercial waste and recycling

Food safety and standards

Parking

Planning guidance

Plymouth City Centre

Workspace to let

The Herald Business Awards

The Herald (Plymouth's newspaper) holds annual awards to celebrate business success in the city. Awards range from Green Business of the Year, Innovator of the Year, Social Enterprise of the Year, and Young Entrepreneur of the Year.

Mentors Me

Mentoring program specifically aimed at start up businesses.

Mentorsme connects companies with mentoring organisations that can support and guide their growth. If you are a business that needs support or a business professional who can offer support, we can help you connect with each other.

[digitalartstudent-blog]

An Interview with Victoria Sewart

On Friday 14th December I went to the Victoria Sewart Contemporary Jewellery Gallery on Plymouth Barbican and was lucky enough to interview Ms Sewart herself.

Plymouth's first contemporary jewellery gallery is unlike conventional jewellers. We are continually on the hunt for extraordinary, inspiring work. The resulting collections are created from diamonds, gold, acrylic, wood, feathers and even recycled materials. Local designers are well represented and we always insist on high quality handmade designs.

It was really insightful and inspiring talking to Victoria, she explained about her previous experience creating her own pieces, and how she took the leap to becoming an entrepreneur.

BLOG POST VIDEO - Venture Culture Interview - Victoria Sewart from Jessi Dimmock on Vimeo.

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I also contacted Nicola Hurst to see if I could get an interview with her but because it is the busy season for retail at the moment she was unable to see me. I got the following response from her, so might take her up on the offer to go and interview her in January:

Hello Jessi   I am sorry I have been too busy to answer your questions. It may be easier for you to meet me in January. I am back at work on January 5th  if you want to call to make an appointment.   Regards Nicola     From: Jessi Dimmock [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: 05 December 2012 10:02 To: Nicola Hurst Subject: Re: Your research   Hi Nicola,   Thank you for replying! I realise this is a very busy time of year for everyone, especially retailers and designers!   I just have a few questions, I'll put them in this email and if you find the time to answer any of them that would be great. I obviously understand if you can't find the time, if so we can just arrange to meet later in January?   So here are the questions...   What was the hardest part of setting up a new business in the retail sector?   Who is your target market?   What do you look for in a new product?   How does you decide what you stock?   What is the average price someone would pay for necklace/piece of jewellery?   How does you market/advertise your business?   Thanks once again! Hope you're having a good holiday season so far.   Jessi Dimmock   http://jessidimmock.co.uk   Digital Art and Technology Student, Multimedia Designer and Photographer       On 4 Dec 2012, at 18:54, Nicola Hurst wrote: Hello Jessi If you would like to talk to me after christmas that will be fine. If you need your questions answered before, then email them and I will try to answer as best I can. It's a busy time now. Regards Nicola Nicola Hurst Designer Jewellery Www.nicolahurst.co.uk 01752 228000

[digitalartstudent-blog]

Intelligent identity for the digital generation

My strap line for iSignia

[digitalartstudent-blog]

iSignia - 5 Minute Business Pitch with Visuals

This is the recording of my 5 minute "Dragon's Den" style pitch to my coursemates for my business idea; iSignia.

There will soon be posted here a 1000 critique of my performance in this pitch, evaluating my strengths and weaknesses.

[digitalartstudent-blog]

iSignia - Elevator Pitch

"the elevator pitch"—the quick, succinct summation of what your company makes or does.

The Perfect (elevator) Pitch - Business Week

"Hi I'm Jessi Dimmock, and I'm from iSignia. iSignia is the intelligent ID tag, where function and fashion collide. Each piece of jewellery is engraved with an individual QR code, which can digitally display information about your identity. It's a statement piece for the digital generation. It could hold vital medical information about the wearer; for example, if they're diabetic or allergic to penicillin. It could link to your business website, Twitter page or Facebook, and could potentially lead to it's own social network which relies on real life social interaction. iSignia straddles multiple business sectors, and uniquely combines an iconic design with the capacity to handle the many facets of your identity."

BLOG POST VIDEO - Venture Culture Elevator Pitch from Jessi Dimmock on Vimeo.

I think next time I should maybe wear some make-up...

[digitalartstudent-blog]

iSignia Pitch Visuals

(click arrows to either side of post to scroll through images)

Here are screen caps of each slide of the Prezi I made to accompany my 5 minute pitch. A visual way to explain iSignia.