Techstars London Winter 2014 - Week 2

I stayed down in London on Friday and Saturday night and Emma joined me. We had a friend's 60th birthday party at the Museum of Water and Steam which was fantastic if a little surreal.  Surrounded by some of the largest and most amazing machinery of the 19th century.

ABOVE: The aforementioned friend Leslie, who does parties in style.

ABOVE: The party boasted a room where we had to do life drawing (this is my old CEO Terry, fortunately fully clothed with a few props),.  There was also a room full of people doing speed-dating and a room full of actors where everyone treated you like a long lost friend.

ABOVE: A hasty train home on Sunday morning to see the girls, and it seemed no time before I was back on the train Monday night (I had a funeral on Monday and so missed Day 1 of Mentor Madness).

ABOVE: Week 2 was full of mentor meetings, a process a little like rapid speed dating with the same odds on finding chemistry. You have just 20 mins per meeting with a rapid change-over marshalled by Techstars own Mark who has an impressive range of hand gestures (all polite) to keep things going.

We expected this process to be somewhat exhausting but found it quite manageable - at least for the first four days. Not every mentor sees every company so you get small breaks to recover.

At the end of each morning, Jon meets up with the mentors in closed session over lunch where they play a gladiator-inspired version of Rock, Paper Scissors. On the count of three, each mentor gives a thumbs up or down to indicate the likelihood that each business will survive. Our aim is to improve day by day.  It think it's fair to say that we have improved as the week has gone on. We found ourselves trying different techniques, almost A/B testing our proposition.  We are getting clearer.

ABOVE: On Tuesday we got a surprise invitation and Ben and I walked to Oxford Street to buy hats, this being the dress-code for a drinks party with a VC relevant to our sector. It was the one thing I had left at home! Ben and I were very unsure that is was the look they were after, but it was a great networking event anyway.

ABOVE: This is us going to grab our usual array of Lunches from the Leather lane pop-up food stalls so a good time to introduce the rest of the team.  The picture looks a little like Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels - not intentional.

Roll call left to right:  Barry is the tall guy who focuses on marketing and business development. A smooth dresser, always asks for permission to ask a question before asking a question. The man in black at the back is Dom, our CTO. Dom describes himself as "a machine that turns sugar into code". He was clearly born to blog, and is writing a daily post on our Techstars experience. Check it out. The joker at the front is Chris who looks after our users. He works hard on keeping our beta group engaged and stops us from getting too serious.  Next is Ben, CEO and the brains of the bunch. It's his original idea we are all backing.  Ben is one of the nicest vegetarians I know. ;). Finally we have Nathan, coder-extraordinaire who seems to be genuinely unflappable and acts as a calming influence on the rest of the group.

These are a great bunch of guys to be working with.

ABOVE: On Thursday we had our first show and tell and Ben did really well. I think it sketched in some missing pieces for the rest of the Techstars cohort. It was great to see the remaining teams do their demos too.

By Friday we were once again wrung out. An email from Jon late on Thursday night informed us that most of Friday's mentors were VCs.  That helped to drain the last bit of energy from us. The combination of deeper questioning and tiredness did make Friday's sessions a little harder. However, the extra level of challenge was very useful and left me with a resounding question that stayed with me for the weekend.

"What company do we want to be?"

More on that one in a future post.

On Friday afternoon I hoofed it back to Norwich, calling in on a local 54 hour hackathon www.syncthecity.com that Rainbird was sponsoring before getting home to see Emma and the girls - which was lovely. The highlight of my week is just to flop on the sofa and watch whatever rubbish TV they want to watch. Being away makes these simple pleasures so much more important. 

ABOVE: Family time was cut short this weekend because on Saturday evening I co-judged the Sync the City hackathon (coverage here), but it was another opportunity to spend time with Jon Bradford who kindly came to Norwich to join the judging panel. There were 11 startup teams and some great pitches. Congratulations to all involved.  It was good to spend some more time with Jon.

ABOVE: On a personal note, I have managed to trap a nerve in my neck which was slowly getting worse all week. I got to my Doctor this weekend and have taken the opportunity to stock up on medication (which hopefully I won't need).  I hereby pledge to improve my exercise position, working position and pillow position.

So, as I write this I am on the delayed Monday morning service from Norwich to Liverpool Street - standing room only.

I wonder what week 3 has in store?

Techstars London Winter 2014 - Week 1

I think a picture speaks a thousand words, so I will try and keep my blog heavy on photos.  In order to get a flavour of what Techstars was like, I did a little Googling and found the excellent blog of Techstars Alumni Mick Hagan of Spatch who went through the last London programme. (I have now had the pleasure of meeting Mick in person and I can confirm he is a smart and helpful guy).  Mick's blog helped me get my head around what Techstars might mean to our business as well as to me and my family personally.

Techstars is all about "give first" and one week in, we can feel that sense of community.  Everyone is helpful.  Perhaps this blog might help future cohorts?

In the days leading up to the programme I was full of anticipation and keen to get my head around the place, the people and the plan.

ABOVE: As we moved our stuff to London, I felt pretty melancholy at leaving Norwich.  Whitespace, we will be back!

My apartment was not ready until Tuesday so I spent the first couple of nights in the Malmaison hotel. My wife Emma came down to London with me on Sunday so we got to enjoy a last supper and a couple of drinks with some of the team which was great. A real treat!

The next morning it was a quick breakfast and we were on our way.

ABOVE: My teammates on the first day:  Ben, Barry, Chris, Nathan and Dom.

ABOVE: Getting set up.

ABOVE: Our first briefing with Jon Bradford.

Monday morning, Jon laid out the road ahead and defined what we could expect.  It's nice to be told that we are awesome to have been accepted - but that's the ego-stroking out of the way.  We have an insane amount of work to get done.

ABOVE: The infamous Techstars countdown clock to Demo Day.  This really gets to you and I am already getting an adrenaline boost every time I walk past it!  I am glad we can't see it from our desks.

The afternoon was dedicated to an icebreaker challenge and this was our first chance to meet each other properly.  These are all smart and dynamic people.  We have some great support in the Hackstars and Associates too.

ABOVE: Techstars Associate Helena provides the first clue for our London treasure-hunt.

ABOVE: This seems like a good name for a pub, but no time to stop.

Our teams were mixed up.  Ben's team won and our team came second so a good result.  We all go and have an Indian curry together and finish the first day totally exhausted but happy to be with some great people.

On Tuesday Techstar's own Tak and Mark set some homework which really focuses us on our mission.  It get's us into a lot of debate and we spend time scrutinising our product, market and business in detail.

ABOVE: Ben and I finally get into our apartment and we meet there and work until midnight.

It's Wednesday and we have our first deep dive with Jon and some of the Associates.  We face probing and thoughtful questions and leave the session with a bunch of actions for the week.

ABOVE: Thursday morning Ben and I have just enough time to grab a croissant before we attend a meeting Jon has secured for us.  It was great to see Jon in action.  The meeting went very well and could lead to an amazing project.

ABOVE: On Thursday afternoon we end up in an epic whiteboard session as we work through the gain creators and pain relievers of our product, and really get under the skin of our target market. Rainbird can do so much so we are looking for focus and a clear definition of what we are trying to achieve.  We are tired but are on a roll so we fuel the last hour with a dose of sugar treats and push on through.

By Friday we are all pretty exhausted.  We spend the morning preparing for next week's mentor meetings.  We are really excited to meet these people, share what we are doing and listen to what they have to say.

ABOVE: We grab our usual lunch at the Leather Lane pop-up food stalls round the corner, and rush back to the office to scoff and then crack on with our work.

So how was Week 1?  Frankly, it feels like we have been here for a month but we have just scratched the surface.  We are all looking forward to seeing our families and taking a little bit of time to unwind before we start Week 2.

Bring it on!

James