#startupbritain

[buildingtickbox]

Startup Britain: Pitching on the 22nd floor

The life of an entrepreneur is often described as a roller coaster ride with highs and lows almost daily. When pursuing a vision of what you want the world to become and how your technology will enable that change, its often frantic, lonely and hopeless at points.

One of the UK’s ‘most promising start-ups’…

Last week on Wednesday 26th November 2014 TickBox was invited to pitch to investors and other interested parties at the Shard, London as part of the SETSquared Accelerating Growth Event. Standing in front of over 200 potential investors talking about what you think modern day democracy should look and function like is a very surreal experience.

All of sudden its not an idea that you and a few mates are chatting about in your dorm room, its very much a real and live experience.

We’re on the right track…

We did a lot in order to get to this point and the sense of achievement is so much greater after hundreds of hours working through documents and dealing with lots of setbacks.  After mingling with all sorts of people from different walks of life I was left with a very strong sense of accomplishment as well as a huge amount of pride in the team.

The journey of building a start up is full of obstacles, challenges and let downs but moments like the Shard event just show how a dedicated group of people who share a vision can really begin to create waves in the start up scene.

Coming soon…

Over the next 2 months you will be seeing a lot more of TickBox with investment raises, meetings and social events taking place so keep your eyes on our Twitter profile and get involved!

Thanks to all those who have supported us as well as those of you who have helped this company grow and change, we are grateful for all the support we have been given.

Until next time,

Matt

[eleanorstuart-blog]

PopUp Piccadilly launch night. 

[eleanorstuart-blog]

Pop Up Piccadilly!

So last week was rather exciting, I was part of the launch group for Pop Up Piccadilly, an initiative with PopUp Britain and Start-up Britain. I was selected as one of 10 businesses to showcase and sell our work in the pop up shop metres from Piccadilly Circus tube station. 

I loved every minute of PopUp Piccadilly; even the early hours of the morning spent prior to my week there prepping stock and writing out tiny little price labels. Naturally I was trepidatious about spending a week selling two collections I had only launched six months previously in one of the most famous shopping locations in the land; but upon arrival at the shop and meeting a lovely bunch of fellow tenants and mounds of shortbread I quickly realised it was going to be a rather fun week.

I didn’t really know what to expect from my week at PopUp Piccadilly other than figuring I would just ‘roll with it’; and I ended up having an incredible week. Day 1 saw everyone being papped and interviewed by photographers and I had mastered my posing by the end of the day. Then following a great day trading came the launch party which turned into a surreal evening of investment bankers figuring out my illustrated alphabet, to the British Library approaching me about the possibility of stocking my Alice Collection series of illustrated plates alongside the original Alice in Wonderland manuscript; all topped off with meeting PopUp Britain founder Emma Jones.

The opportunities being in a location like Piccadilly afforded continued to roll in with a representative from BAFTA approaching me about the possibility of using the Alice Collection plates in BAFTA HQ, Waterstones may be stocking the Alice Collection series of greetings cards, and finally a Fortnum and Mason’s Director popping by and discussing an opportunity to exhibit my work with them; so a rather exciting week.

What I have to be incredibly thankful to PopUp Britain for is that none of these opportunities would have presented themselves so soon after launching my collections without them. The opportunity for a small business to be in a location as fantastic as Piccadilly has been so exciting, and I have met such incredible people during my week’s stay including my lovely neighbours and co-tenants who I would now very much consider friends.

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PopUp Britain have just announced they have been given 2 extra weeks in Piccadilly, so even more start-up businesses could have a chance to sell in PopUp Piccadilly! Apply here

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Here are my snaps from the week  x

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Silicon Valley

Sorry we've been a little quiet for the last couple of days, it's because we have flown out to San Francisco for a couple of weeks. San Francisco or Silicon Valley is home to many (most!) of the world's coolest and most successful start-ups and we wanted to come out and talk to as many as possible of them to help us learn from the best how to build a truly great consumer web product.

It's been an incredible trip so far and we have been lucky enough to be introduced to some amazing people. There is an incredible amount of knowledge out here but probably the most impressive thing is how open everyone is and how willing they are to try and help you. For any aspiring UK entrepreneur I can't recommend coming out here enough. I also hope that this culture is one that the burgeoning UK startup scene manages to replicate in the coming years.

For our users we hope that everything we're hearing and learning out here will help us to create a truly great product that solves the problems inherent in the current process of collecting money from large numbers of people. To that end if there's anything we're not doing that you think we should be please don't hesitate to let me know at [email protected].