On October 31st, around 1,000 entrepreneurial individuals attended the seventh annual Startup Summit in the heart of Edinburgh. With executives from SurveyMonkey, Atterley and FreeAgent amongst many others in attendance, the day was designed to be an immersive learning experience for aspiring business leaders. Johnston Carmichael, Scotland’s largest independent accountancy firm, and Business Gateway, who support entrepreneurs at every stage of business, were key sponsors behind the event.
Set across three stages in the historic Assembly Rooms, Startup Summit presented entrepreneurs with over thirty speakers, nine workshops and a full exhibition hall hosting business support agencies and fellow startups from across Scotland. The full day event marked the start of VentureFest, an initiative created as a counterpart to the Can Do Fest, hosted in spring, to drive forward innovation and entrepreneurship.
Startup Summit 2018 highlights
Main Stage:
Mike Welch OBE, Founder of Blackcircles.com and Atterley, spoke to Danielle Kelly, Client Services Director at STV, about how his journey from small startup to multi-million pound exit. Welch has found himself as a leading figure in e-commerce after his online tyre retailer sold to Michelin for $75 million in 2015. Welch is now also a founding Director of Full Circle Partners, an investment company that works with fast-growth businesses.
In his interview, Welch discussed his journey as an entrepreneur - mentioning particularly the importance of the people (including investors) he surrounded himself with and worked alongside as his businesses scaled.
Impact Stage
Scotland has a multitude of socially conscious businesses looking to challenge a system or support underserved minorities. One of the most common business models is the ‘get-one-give-one’ concept, which allows consumers to buy products with the knowledge that the business will donate the same or an equivalent to a good cause. Celia Hodson, Founder of Hey Girls, spoke to her audience about how creative thinking can successfully solve problems in society.
Despite being founded less than a year ago, Hey Girls has been recognised nationally and is now stocked by both Asda and Waitrose, which is a testament to Hodson’s resolute passion for ending period poverty. Hodson hopes that these movements will continue to grow in Scotland’s business landscape.
Business Builder Stage
Investment experts shared their optimism and support for Scottish businesses, discussing how venture capitalists and angel investors alike are looking beyond places like Silicon Valley and into lesser known business hubs. Chris Neumann and Monique Woodard, Early-stage investors in Silicon Valley and Steve Ewing, Director of Operations at Informatics Ventures, commented on the opportunities available to Scottish entrepreneurs and how they can navigate investment options.
Scott Weir of Pillow Property Partners was announced as the winner.
Startup Summit Competition
The Startup Summit Competition gives tech-based entrepreneurs the opportunity to win a fully funded place on the FutureX Silicon Valley Accelerate programme in Spring 2019 as well as £200k worth of business support from IBM, STV, Johnston Carmichael and Adopt An Intern. This year, the three finalists were Chris Hughes, Dr Deborah Wake, and Scott Weir representing Present Pal, MyWay Digital Health, and Pillow Property Partners respectively. Each finalist gave a three minute pitch slot, followed by a grilling from the four judges (Chris Neumann, Early-stage investor, Melinda Matthews, CEO at CodeClan, Peter Reilly, Commercial Director at STV, and Hugh Lightbody, Chief Officer at Business Gateway) before the deliberations. At the end of the summit, Scott Weir of Pillow Property Partners was announced as the winner. The property management company impressed the judges with its unlimited scaling potential and existing market success.
The Power of Company Culture
This year’s Startup Summit focused on company culture, encouraging startups in the earliest stages of their journeys to consider the kinds of businesses they want to create. The importance of sticking to values, growing the right team and consciously decision making was echoed across every stage. On the main stage, Leela Srinivasan, Chief Marketing Officer at SurveyMonkey spoke to Mark Logan, former Chief Operations Officer at Skyscanner and current startup advisor, giving the inside perspective from Silicon Valley and giving insight into why company culture must come first. Srinivasan shared personal stories from the companies she’s worked for in Silicon Valley over the years, including Lever and LinkedIn. John Peebles, CEO of Administrate, Steffen Staeuber, Founder of Create Meaning, and Joy Lewis, Founder and CEO of Adopt an Intern, discussed the topic in a panel, coming to the conclusion that good internal communication is an unignorable priority for startups and scaling companies.
Zoi Kantounatou, Co-founder of FutureX, who closed the summit with fellow co-founder, Bruce Walker, commented:
“Startup Summit shows definitively how much entrepreneurial activity there is in Scotland. Every year, we’re thrilled to bring in experts who have an authentic view of how business is changing and what the real-time needs are for startups. We met some incredible individuals this time around and we’re excited to be able to support them further in their journeys over the next year.”
FutureX will be hosting the second annual Impact Summit in Glasgow in May next year, which invites delegates to gain more of an understanding of how business can change society for the better. Startup Summit will be back in Edinburgh in Autumn 2019 with a new lineup of world-leading experts.
www.startup-summit.com
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