9 minute read
Fast track to the future
Olga Kravchenko Memento
Accelerators are programmes specially created for a cohort of early-stage ventures to speed up their growth.
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Our accelerator, King’s20 (introduced on page 6), is a year-long programme for students, staff and alumni from King’s. Each year 20 (early stage) ventures are chosen to receive an estimated £43,000 of support which includes office space at Bush House, coaching from experts, workshops, and the opportunity to pitch for scholarship prizes worth a total of £130,000. By 2021, King’s20 aims to be one of the first university accelerators to achieve and maintain gender parity. We asked three entrepreneurs in the King’s20 Accelerator to share their experiences.
Olga Kravchenko studied an MA in Arts & Cultural Management at King’s.
WHAT’S YOUR VENTURE?
Memento allows anyone to create virtual reality reconstructions of life-changing events, such as a wedding, using just their smartphone. Our technology transforms social media from boring 2D into an exciting new 4D format. It has the potential to become the Instagram of immersive technology.
WHAT HAVE BEEN THE MAIN BENEFITS YOU’VE GAINED FROM BEING IN KING’S20?
The office space and the comprehensive mentorship are really beneficial for small start-ups like ours. Developing your business is challenging but the mentors give us clarity as it is not uncommon for people in our position to get caught up in the flow of ideas we continuously generate. A great benefit has also been working alongside a bunch of other entrepreneurs so we can bounce ideas off each other, share our successes and failures, and support each other on our journeys.
WHAT MAKES THE KING’S20 ACCELERATOR SO SPECIAL?
It offers a great range of opportunities for the entire year, including networking, so that we can get leadership training, find out about funding competitions and meet investors. King’s20 supports us without trying to change who we are.
HOW HAS YOUR VENTURE EVOLVED? WHAT KEY LESSONS HAVE YOU LEARNED?
We have developed a virtual reality demo of our product that is available as a separate mobile app. We launched it in July 2018.
The key lesson we have learned is that every entrepreneur should fall in love with a problem and not with a perfect solution he/she developed in their own head. The solution might change, but as long as you know that the problem is real, you have a very high chance of making it a success.
www.memento.media @mementoVR
Luca Mozzo Deepfinity
Josh Blackburn Regal Gentleman
Luca Mozzo graduated with a BSc in Computer Science with Intelligent Systems. He was also Vice President of KCL Robotics Society.
WHAT’S YOUR VENTURE?
Deepfinity is a start-up that aims to automate day-to-day repetitive business tasks through targeted machine learning. Our first product, Parcel Tracker, is a system for managing parcels in concierge buildings. Our technology reads the name on a parcel and then automatically contacts the tenant to let them know it can be collected from reception.
WHAT HAVE BEEN THE MAIN BENEFITS YOU’VE GAINED FROM BEING IN KING’S20?
The programme has provided me with several self-development and business development opportunities. I have received invaluable advice from the mentors, not to mention the funding opportunities, resources and office space in central London!
WHAT MAKES THE KING’S20 ACCELERATOR SO SPECIAL?
The community of staff, mentors and entrepreneurs that use the office every day makes this experience unique. Collective support and respect make King’s20 the right environment to grow a successful business. I’ve never seen so many people keen to help others overcome obstacles and succeed.
HOW HAS YOUR VENTURE EVOLVED? WHAT KEY LESSONS HAVE YOU LEARNED?
When the programme started we had nothing, just an idea. We now have launched our product, won an award, and are contacting major potential customers. We had no idea how to sell our product. We learned from scratch through workshops and just going out there and trying.
Gaining experience and pushing the limits of your comfort zone are key to success.
www.deepfinity.io @luca_mozzo
Josh Blackburn is a member of staff at King’s College London.
WHAT’S YOUR VENTURE?
Regal Gentleman does three things: it creates men’s grooming products; it provides grooming education conveyed in a simple, relatable and understandable way, and it offers inspiration, that encourages the modern man to celebrate his individuality.
WHAT HAVE BEEN THE MAIN BENEFITS YOU’VE GAINED FROM BEING IN KING’S20?
For me, it has to be the access to the Experts in Residence. There is a saying: ‘You can’t see the picture when you’re in the frame.’ Sometimes when you’re involved with your business every day it’s very easy to miss certain gaps for improvement. The experts have really helped us get to the next level.
WHAT MAKES THE KING’S20 ACCELERATOR SO SPECIAL?
The opportunity of funding is very special. To win funds for your business without needing to give away equity is something very rare to find in accelerators. This year we were fortunate to receive an Allesch-Taylor Scholarship for Entrepreneurship which has put us in the position to be able to launch our first range of products. We will always be extremely grateful for the head start this has given us.
LUCA MOZZO
HOW HAS YOUR VENTURE EVOLVED? WHAT KEY LESSONS HAVE YOU LEARNED?
We have made the transition from selling other brand’s products to providing our own Regal Gentleman products and already have some leading barbers using them. One of the key lessons we’ve learnt is to never sacrifice your standards especially when creating a physical product, such as our hair styling product, which has taken us over a year to create. For a tech product, you can create an MVP (minimal viable product) which allows you to get it out there quickly but a physical product is a much longer process.
www.regalgentleman.com @RegalGentleman Youtube: RegalGentleman
WANT TO KNOW MORE?
More information and a profile of all the ventures in last year’s King’s20 Accelerator can be seen here: kcl.ac.uk/accelerator
TAKE ACTION!
The King’s20 Accelerator opens for applications in April 2019. To register your interest, go to: kcl.ac.uk/accelerator
THE FUTURE
As King’s Professor of the Practice of Entrepreneurship, Stefan Allesch-Taylor CBE is an invaluable advisor to our King’s20 entrepreneurs. Based on his experience as a financier, serial entrepreneur, company chairman, philanthropist and broadcaster, he gives us his insight into the future of work.
OF WORK
THE LABOUR FORCE IS SHRINKING. JOBS ARE CHANGING
We live in a world in which Moore’s law – the notion that the overall processing power for computers will double every two years – doesn’t even begin to cover the rate of change and innovation as it used to. Technology is going on unchecked and doing amazing yet potentially very dangerous things. Globally around 85 per cent of the world’s job losses have derived from productivity growth. This means that machines are replacing humans in many tasks; unintentionally they are decreasing the value of human technical skills in many markets. The unintended consequences of this could be socially catastrophic.
Shifts in geo-political powers across the world, and the proliferation of global ‘black swan’ events – those that come as a surprise, have major effects, and are often inappropriately rationalised after the fact – are dramatically changing the global economy and context in which business cycles occur and the labour force is defined.
All this has led to a growing polarisation of the labour force between high- and low-skill jobs, high levels of unemployment and underemployment especially among young people. In addition, incomes have been increasingly stagnating for a large proportion of households, and income inequality continues to grow both at a global and national scale.
MASTER SOFT SKILLS
As a result, the biggest challenge for today’s generation is to use the inexhaustible amounts of knowledge and information available to better prepare themselves to enter and navigate the uncertainty around the changing labour markets. Based on my experience in multiple industries and as an entrepreneur, I believe the ability to successfully manage these uncertainties lies in the mastering of soft skills.
Soft skills are personal attributes that enable a person to interact effectively with other people. Crucial to being able to master soft skills are three things: • Having the ability to see yourself as others see you; • Developing an entrepreneurial mindset; and • Keeping up with current affairs.
Your overarching vision in this quest to build your human and professional capital should be aimed at recognising competition is getting tougher and any edge is better than no edge at all. can more easily be explained as being objective about your skills and aptitudes, but above all it is being able to understand how your attitude and actions are perceived by your peers. If you don’t understand how others perceive your behaviour, what others expect from you, or how they interpret what you say and do, how can you exert the influence you want? How can you be an effective manager or business person if you can’t influence others? It seems obvious but it usually causes pause for thought when highlighted to just about everyone!
In terms of self-awareness, likeability is also very important. Within a context in which all information we can possibly want or need is so readily available, employers are no longer looking for a person with all the right ‘clinical’ skillsets or knowledge. Employers are actually willing to hire someone they like or they think is likeable and then train and help develop their more technical skills than hire someone with all the right skills and capabilities who is not easily relatable. Making yourself likeable is perhaps more important than you may think when seeking employment or for that matter investment as a new entrepreneur.
DEVELOP AN ENTREPRENEURIAL MINDSET
Entrepreneurs seek out opportunities, they understand that innovation is key and they know the importance of value creation. People with entrepreneurial mindsets are able to find new or better solutions for whatever task they have at hand. This means that ultimately entrepreneurs are gamechangers and have the power to create future jobs and define new structures in the labour market.
KEEP UP TO DATE WITH CURRENT AFFAIRS
As someone who is an entrepreneur, investor and employer, a great piece of advice that I can give is to keep up to date with current affairs. I would personally recommend reading the Financial Times every morning (start with the bits that interest you!) but there are lots of other outlets for news such as Compass News (compassnews.co.uk), which was founded by LSE students.
People don’t expect you to know all the answers, but they do expect you to understand the right questions to ask. In order to understand the questions, you need to have at least a vague notion of what is going on in the world, at different levels, industries and sectors. This knowledge will open conversations and doors that might be beyond your imagined reach by simply showing others you actually have a more than cursory interest in a chosen field.
TAKE ACTION!
Develop an entrepreneurial mindset. Check out people and organisations to follow and useful websites to visit on page 54.
Let us help you prepare for the future: 1. Sign up for the Enterprise Award 2. Come to (at least) one of our workshops 3. Compete in Idea Factory. Details at: www.kcl.ac.uk/ entrepreneurshipinstitute
