6 startup must do's when meeting with brands and agencies

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Rose recently wrote an article for The Drum highlighting 5 tips every brand and agency employee needs to know to have a successful first meeting with a startup. And we’re turning it on its head. So startups, this one’s for you.

Brand and agency meetings can be dubious encounters. You never know if the person you’re talking to is the right person, or if they’ll even understand what you’re doing. So Rose has compiled a list of five things to remember when you’re preparing for that first meeting.

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1. Do your research beforehand

Make sure to research both the company and individuals you will be meeting going in to the meeting. Of course you will do this, but go beyond basic background and company data. Look for common connections or interests you can use the break the ice and get the conversation flowing. Remember, you’re meeting people – and people love to talk about things they’re passionate about.

2. Anticipate the company’s problems by asking questions

And by anticipating the problems they may be facing, you will ask more meaningful questions that can help you articulate how your product will solve these issues in the most concise way later in the meeting. Provide the brand employees with a list of questions probing the problems you can solve beforehand. This allows you to engage in meaningful dialogue from the beginning of the meeting. Some example questions are;

• How are you reaching your digital customers?
• Is it important to know who your retail customers are?
• How are you responding to your competition?
• What solutions are you currently using, if any?

3. Avoid death by PPT

It can kill your meeting by unnecessarily breaking conversation and the opportunity for you to really understand your potential customer by breaking down what their enduring needs are. But we’re not going to the radical anti-ppt stance – use your deck to help explain your product, and to a maximum of 10 slides. However, if you’re ‘presenting’, there’s no longer a dialogue, as you’re doing all of the talking. Communication becomes one-way and you’ve lost the chance to learn anything about your potential customer.

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4. Show them what they’re missing

Create a sense of urgency by highlighting some of the problems they will face by having the sales process dragged on and the problem persist. Be sure to ask;

• How much does it hurt your business to have to wait?
• How much will it cost you in lost revenue per month by not solving this problem immediately?
• If they took on your solution, how would it fit into their sales projections?

By asking these tough questions you’ll be able to work out if they even care to use your solution. If they don’t care, or think the problem they have warrants a solution right now, send your energies elsewhere.

5. Don’t pitch me bro

Just as the 3 Beards event operates, pitching will not provide you with actionable feedback – just an opinion. In an even worse case, they will have an incomplete understanding of your solution because you haven’t fully uncovered their problems – check back in to number 2.

And with useless feedback and false positives, statements such as “Oh, I really like that, it sounds very interesting!” or “I would definitely use that,” happen too often for our liking. It’s your job as a founder and salesperson to ask the harder questions and uncover the truth in these meetings, not to float away on a cloud of joy only to come back to the office and not hear from the brand or agency ever again. You didn't close the sale.

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6. Takes notes and agree on next steps

Even if you do have the memory of a Sea Lion (yes, they’re memories are some of the best in the animal kingdom), you should be taking notes during the meeting. This way you can revisit the details that would have been lost otherwise, and things will be crystal clear. This will also make it easier to determine the necessary next steps at the end of the meeting. And this goes back to the previous point on asking the hard questions – don’t feel intimidated to ask them! By setting out what your next steps are, your chances of having this brand or agency as a client are increased exponentially.

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Seenit named the 'Hottest startup in London'

Tuesday evening the 3rd of February, as everyone headed home, and as Londoners do, they picked up the Evening Standard. Flipping through they would have passed by the regular advertisements, headlines and something covering our alumnus Seenit being acclaimed as the 'hottest startup in London'! The NextTechNow is an initiative presented by Starcom MediaVest Group aimed to create and prolong partnerships with startups working in the mobile, social and data areas. This initiative connects startups ready to take things to the next level by working closely with Starcom MediaVest Group employees to increase innovation in the Madtech industry. Something we believe wholeheartedly in here at Collider!

We caught up with Emily to see what she had to add to their press coverage:

"We're ecstatic to be featured, as such a young company. It's great validation for not only our team but hopefully our clients. It's opened more doors to brands and already kicked off some fantastic new leads."

Congrats again Seenit team - Ed, Emily and Max! We can't wait to see what's next to come!

Giving Brands the Tools for Innovation

**This article was first published on The Drum**

Last January Collider welcomed nine new Marketing and Ad tech (or Madtech) startups into our family. These nascent businesses had global ambitions to help brands solve big problems around engaging with their customers. They joined the Collider Accelerator because we could give them access to some of the biggest brands in the UK including: BBC, Camelot, Unilever, Unruly and William Hill.

Over the past 12 months, their ideas have been work-shopped, torture-tested and grilled by some of the most senior marketing people in the UK. These people know their market and they know what they need to help solve some big problems. And it worked. 23 contracts were signed after seven months between our 2014 startups with the likes of Unilever and BBC Worldwide.

This access and approach means that the founders build products brands actually want to buy as they are solving real world problems, rather than just the sigh inducing gimmicks or features that I am sure you see every day.

This process is obviously rewarding for the startups, but crucial is the value these interactions bring to our partner brands and agencies.

Big data, mobile and social advocacy are providing new, sometimes unexplored, ways for brands to communicate with consumers Brands must adopt innovative practices to stay up to date. Innovation at the quickest pace is happening in the startups’ worlds – and brands know this. Instead of waiting for new technology and innovation to come to them through the traditional agency routeour brand partners are  creating direct relationships; speeding up their buying process and disrupting the marketing services value chain.

At Collider, marketers have the opportunity to work with around ten startups. And I mean really work with them. Senior executives get heavily involved by helping the founders shape their products; suggesting new or better product sets that would help sell the product, and of course, providing marketing and branding tips to ensure commercial deals get done.

Brands also know they need to be better at choosing the right company to work with; be excellent at integrating these new technologies more quickly into their businesses; and even work out which ones are not worth the time. By working closely with a number with startups, these senior professionals gain the necessary skills to spot the right kind of innovation for their businesses at the right time. The marketing leaders of the future will be the ones able to do this more quickly and efficiently than anyone else. In short: we believe we are arming them and their organisations to lead in the future as they learn to behave like our startups.

And for the first time some of the biggest agencies in the advertising world. , such as Ogilvy Group UK, The Engine group and Havas, are joining the Collider family in 2015. They see the value in working with startups – to help drive innovation in their business services and strategies, as well as for clients.

To stay ahead of the game, our partner brands know that they need to embrace innovation. That means working with startups.- not just once or twice,- but all of the time. So will 2015 be the year we see brands firmly look to startups to help with their innovation and keep up with their consumers? At Collider we certainly hope so.

Using Crowdfunding as a Marketing Tool

Crowdfunding is not only a platform for raising money, it can also be used as a tool to spread awareness for your brandIt was a campaign for Chapel Down on Seedrs, the UK-based crowdfunding platform, which caught Collider's interest. They had orchestrated a community of strangers to participate in their mission and vision – and people had responded by investing in their campaign. We wanted to do that for the Collider Class of 2015.

One of the things we take pride in at Collider is investing in smart people with smart tech - but only with the smartest money. Our investor portfolio has some of the biggest names in MadTech behind it: Richard Fearn, Andy Porteous, and Deb Hennessy to name a few. But we wanted more. We wanted not just specialist angel investors but the whole ad community to get behind Collider. How could we do that? Seedrs was the answer. One of the more interesting things we found was the ability to use our campaign as a marketing tool.

Crowdfunding is a tool, not only a platform

First off, it’s perfect for market validation. As Dr. Phil Windley notes in this Forbes article, “The big payoff [to a crowdfunding campaign] is the information about the potential market we’ll get.” The Seedrs campaign showed us the sheer depth of enthusiasm for new digital marketing tech. MadTech is working for advertisers and marketers; the community not only wants more of it but also wants to support it. In only 13 days we were able to raise 100% of the funds. By the time the campaign closed, in a following 14 days, we were almost £100,000 over capacity and had over 100 investors from across Europe.

Secondly, the Seedrs campaign allows us to better relate to and reach our investors, brands and startups. The campaign embraced a new and innovative way of doing business, just as we encourage our brands to do with the startups. What better way to support innovation than to embrace the same values we teach to the startups?

Finally, it is an interactive addition to traditional press. It allows people to become a part of your greater marketing strategy by letting them participate in a small part of it. Philips used a crowdfunding campaign to actively engage with their customers through competitions, and we want to get the marketing and advertising community just as engaged with our startups by having a small equity stake in them. It was a risk to take on a crowdfunding campaign as a means for investment. There’s no testing to be done to figure out if it will work – no A/B testing, no focus group options.

In retrospect:

Calling the process stressful would be an understatement. After our campaign reached around 58%, we had a completely funded campaign within 25 hours. It was mental not being able to keep up with all of the investment coming in. Within 13 days we had exceeded our £330,000 goal – less than half the average time of a crowdfunding campaign. There were scary moments where things didn't look to be moving at all. But we kept pushing forward and being proactive to make things happen.

An All Male Panel at the BIMA startup seminar in Google Campus

On Tuesday I went to the BIMA (British Interactive Media Association) startup seminar hosted at Google Campus, in collaboration with Rackspace. The panel was a great mix of large companies and startups, who all have experience relevant to those starting up today. The panel of speakers included John Webb from Rackspace, Benjamin Southworth, deputy CEO of Tech City, Joe Stepniewski founder of Skimlinks, Damian Routley the CEO of Glow, Jean-Michel Deligny of Go4Venture, Alex Wood, the editor or Tech City News, Drew Benvie founder of new comms agency Battenhall, and the chair Justin Pearse of Bite. However, it was rather hard to ignore that all eight members of the panel were male, and indeed, so was everyone who spoke on stage, including the welcome speech from BIMA and the closing remarks from Rackspace. This was picked up on Twitter Candace Kuss and Karen Barber, and then mentioned at the very end of the session by Craig Le Grice, the Executive Committee Member of BIMA. 

I got in touch with Craig who said that "Benjamin Southworth and Joe Stepniewski were fantastic additions to our panel - but both were in place of their respective female CEOs (Joanna Shields, CEO at TCIO and Alicia Navarro, CEO at Skimlinks) who were invited first but unfortunately could not attend due to diary commitments." 

Craig went on to say that "Speaking personally, I'm a huge advocate of - and fighter for - equality in our industry. I work with a number of startups and actively encourage diversity and the building of companies based on talent, regardless of gender, race, sexuality etc. I welcome the day when no woman attends a technology or digital focused event and feels she's at a boy's club."

This situation is clearly not ideal, especially as there are more than enough women who could at least match the experience on the panel. However, it is positive that people are realising that an all male panel is no longer neccessary or acceptable, and hopefully, these all male events will become a thing of the past. In the mean time, check out these future BIMA events and get involved in the discussion.

• 6 June - BIMA Thirstday (an event held every month on the first Thursday)
  • A networking event for anyone involved in digital. Every member is invited so the group is always a diverse mix.
• 24 July - Digital Hall of Fame
  • A formal ceremony to honour the five new inductees to the Digital Hall of Fame, and the inaugural BIMA Hot 100 list of digital's biggest talents. The '100' list is voted for and so represents a great cross-section of the industry.
• 12 September - The BIMA Awards
  • BIMA's annual awards, recognising the best of the digital industry, are in September. The call for entries is open now and the judging panel has been announced. Check out http://www.bimaawards.com/judges.php to see the great mix of judges.