Bright Networking Time

Networking is an extremely important part in business as it allows us to build relationships with people we know or have met for the first time. It allows us to understand the market opportunities, improve our communication skills, make great friends and build business opportunities and investment in the long term. During my first months at Bright Inventions, I have spent a lot of time attending educational and inspiring conferences and trade shows in London. Which are worth visiting? Let us take a look.

Google Agency Day Europe

In October we attended Google Agency Day Europe. We had an opportunity to be in Google’s amazing office, meet up with other agencies from the UK, Germany, Poland and Switzerland, learning what challenges they have and how they overcome them, and getting some insights on new technologies.

The event started off with networking in groups based on roles (CXO, Developer, Account Manager and UX) having the opportunity to learn from each other. It then continued with presentations that had been prepared by the experienced professionals;

• Sam Dutton, Developer Advocate at Google presented to us The Opportunity of the Web
• Swav Kulinski, Lead Android Developer at The App Business gave insights into Flutter a Year on
• Karim Beguir, CEO at Instadeep, Lee Baker, Commercial Lead at Seldon, Kasia Borowska, Managing Director at Brainpool and Chaired by Carl-Gustaff Haroch, CTO at Novoda took part in AI Agencies Panel
• Mustafa Kurtulda, Design Relations at Google, gave a presentation on Using sprints with your clients to help them ‘get’ UX
• Wojtek Kalicinski, Developer Advocate at Google, presented the best Modern Android Development Practices

TechDay

This time we had the chance to attend TechDay in London. It was a trade show where over 7000 entrepreneurs, founders and investors met in one place. We spoke with startups who had amazing products out in the market. Seeing all the products, my main question was ‘’why did you come up with this solution/product?’’ Thanks to their ideas, our lives are now and will continue to be much easier in the future.

One product which I found outstanding, as well as the story behind it, was DFree, a toilet timing predicting device from Japan. I was told that the idea had come from an ‘’incident’’ that happened to their CEO who didn’t make it to the bathroom and definitely never wanted that to happen again :), so he came up with a solution, DFree.

Noah Conference

Two extremely intense networking days at Noah Conference which is an event where leaders connect. There were over 1,800 Digital Executives, 700 Startups, 400 Investment Funds and 200 Speakers from companies such as DocMorris, Dr.Martens, Porsche, Babylon Health and many more.

Rushing from one meeting point to the next, we still managed to have some time to listen to Europe's exciting startups that presented their business at the Noah startup stage. To name a few startups which we had the pleasure to listen to were, Beelivery which provides nationwide grocery deliveries within 60 minutes, Farmy - an online marketplace with organic food directly from farmers or Skoove which is a music technology startup.

On the main stage there were presentations from the keynote speakers from Travel & Mobility industry, B2B & SAAS, HR Tech, Vertical Ecommerce, Digital health & Wellness and Fintech as well as Noah Berlin 2018 Startups winners. Giving us the insights on how they have grown their company and products, what challengers they had and how they overcame them.

CEE to UK Soft Landing Tour London

CEE to UK Soft Landing Tour London was an event which was held at TechHub. A day filled with workshops, learning how European companies can and what they need to do in order to open an office in the UK. The event was organised by Startup Campus London and the Department for International Trade. We received the insights into business banking, detailed information on taxes, incentives and investment schemes for companies in the UK. We also learned about the legal aspects of doing business in the UK with a focus on FCA license application.

It was a very educational and fun day and had the pleasure to meet great startups such as Placeme, Neuro Device, Nestmedic, GoodID and many more.

FinTech Connect

To wrap up 2018, the final event which we attended was FinTech Connect, UK’s largest Fintech conference and trade show, more than 5000 attendees and 175 exhibitors. The two days event was a place where you could connect with early stage startups, stakeholders from financial institutions and the investor community, learning more about the key trends that are affecting the market.

The event was filled with meetings with founders from great companies within FinTech space, discussing current and future Blockchain and AI projects that have taken over the digital world. FinTech Connect gets bigger year by year and that means that we will definitely be there again in 2019.

Networking gives you the chance to connect with new highly influential people easily, people who wouldn’t connect with you just through a cold email or a LinkedIn invitation. It’s a chance where you can build long term business relationships and to strengthen the relationship with old connections which could formulate into business growth. Not only can you build new connections but also the ability to gain new knowledge and receive advice that you were not able to get a hold off.

Some people feel stressed, nervous about networking and speaking to new people, don’t be, just be yourself and have fun.