Spot me in this video with my usual wide grin!
Microsoft Accelerator – Demo Day
So the big day finally arrived and it was back once again to Canary Wharf for the Microsoft Accelerator Demo Day.
Even though the event didn’t kick off until mid-afternoon we were there early in order to go through the pitches once again with all the teams going through their pitches twice. This was not without its glitches as demos didn’t work as expected and words were stumbled over.
Early afternoon, before the guests arrived, boxes of branded cup cakes were delivered which was a neat touch and great to see our logo baked! Tim and I put a couple … Read the rest
Microsoft Accelerator – Week Twelve
So this is the last (proper) week of the accelerator and we have had to move out of our temporary home in Central Working, Shoreditch.
I have mixed feelings about going because on the one hand I have enjoyed being up in London and around others for a change, rather than the solitude of home working. However, on the other hand I won’t miss the early starts and getting to the station only to find that my train has been delayed.
The big thing this week was getting to practice the pitch at the venue we will be at for … Read the rest
Microsoft Accelerator – Week Eleven
So we are rapidly reaching the end of the accelerator programme and most of what we are doing now is geared towards the demo day in a coupe of weeks time. We have had more sessions with the Pitch Doctor and it is really taking shape now and beginning to flow. You can pack quite a lot into five minutes it seems.
What has been really great is not only seeing how much our pitch has improved over the weeks but also those of our cohort. There has clearly been a great leap forward from everybody.
As I said at … Read the rest
Microsoft Accelerator – Week Ten
One thing that all accelerator programmes seem to have in common is a demo day at the. The Microsoft Ventures Accelerator is no different and we are working towards ours which takes place on 6th December.
I haven’t yet worked out quite why it is called a demo day as there isn’t going to be any time for a demo given that we have a three minute slot.
We started this week with a session with the “Pitch Doctor” who took us through our existing presentation in excruciating detail and it really felt like being back at school with a … Read the rest
Microsoft Accelerator – Week Nine
Working from your spare room at home can be a lonely existence and having conversations with colleagues on Skype really is no substitute. It also can be a pretty sedentary life as the distance from my bed to the office is probably less than 20 paces. The distance to the kitchen where the biscuits live is slightly more but not so far as to be a distraction. So all in all home working is not good for your health and fitness.
On the other hand being in an office means you get to see great street art such as that … Read the rest
Microsoft Accelerator – Week Eight
There was only one organised session this week and that was on “old school PR”. Unfortunately I had to attend a sales meeting and so wasn’t able to attend. However, what this did mean was that my diary was much clearer for getting on with the day job.
The stage your business is at when you join an accelerator will determine both how much you get out of it and how much of an impact it will have on your working day. When we joined we had already been in business a year and were making early sales. For us … Read the rest
Microsoft Accelerator – Week Seven
A busy 7th week was started with an early morning meeting with one of our mentors from Yammer. We met in their offices where the meeting room tables converted to allow you to play table tennis and there was a pop-up sign in reception encouraging people to bring their dogs into work for dog week, which seems like a recipe for disaster to me. We stuck to the meeting and got some sound advice once again.
From Yammer it was straight to TwiloCon Europe, a full days conference organised by Twilo and pretty impressive it was too. I have been … Read the rest
Microsoft Accelerator – Week Six
The observant amongst you will have noticed that weeks four and five are missing. This is because that I have been away on holiday and so haven’t been around to do an update but I am back now and straight back into it.
Of course the accelerator doesn’t stop while I have been away sunning myself so there was some catching up to do along with all the emails and business as usual stuff I would have normally had to do.
Just before I went away we were assigned our mentors. You may remember that early on we had a … Read the rest