An evening with Lean Start-up Yorkshire

Lean Start-up Yorkshire is a monthly group run by the formidable Royd Brayshay. Around 50 attendees vary from early stage founders / CEO’s and technologists. The evening has two parts a) a demo from a local start-up showing their technology and asking for advice, b) a presentation from a local / regional entrepreneur sharing knowledge / learnings.

First up for the demo was Philip and Louise from Curator Space. They’ve got an amazing little opportunity and wow’d us all with stories of how to engage creatives and help artists / groups organise better events. For a self proclaimed “non-business team” they’ve built a platform supporting over 1,500 groups and organisations.

I was invited to talk about raising finance and some of the lessons learnt over the last five years on the CANDDi journey. Introducing CANDDi as a “fat start-up” caused some light-hearted humor from the lean attendees. Based on the quality (and quantity) of questions following the talk I think parts probably hit a nerve with some of the attendees. Anyone who’s interested in the slides can view them online (below).

The after meeting chat in the pub was just as excellent. In typical understated Yorkshire fashion started chatting to one of the attendees and discover he’s selling hundreds of thousands of pounds of annual software licenses out of his bedroom - but you’d have never guessed this. (Only in Yorkshire ;-)

For more information, the Lean Start-up Yorkshire group. Following the success of this event, CANDDi has agreed to become a headline sponsor of the event (monthly prizes of a free 6 month subscription to our service).

I look forward to returning over the coming year

Tim