Today’s short episode of the AUDACIOUS BABE PODCAST I’ve recorded LIVE FROM ARMENIA and I talk about my learnings from mentoring Startups at the Seaside Startup Summit 2019 that I’ve been invited to attend as a mentor. It was a lot of fun to be involved in this summit and I’ve met a lot of young people from all over the world creating startups across all industries, mainly tech related. Truly inspiring and impressive. So wonderful to see all these ambitious and talented young adults trying to create businesses on a global level.
First I explain the structure of the entire summit and how the different startup tracks work but then dive into my learnings that got me thinking as I’ve found a lot of parallels to the creative worlds, especially to the photography business world.
Mentoring the startups over the those few days in Armenia was a great learning curve also for me as well as for all those startups. The startups attending were already slightly more advanced than the startup students I mentor at the University of Essex. The startups here inside the Booster Track already have a MVP (Minimum Viable Product) or Prototype. Those inside the Starter Track are a little less advanced and are more at the initial idea stage.
But what I’ve found is that ALL startups and ALL photography business owners have in common… we LOVE what we do. We love our products and services, may it be our creative talent or the app or platform these startups have coded. We just love what we do. We hone it, we craft it, we spend all our time on developing it… BUT what we forget more often than not is the business side of things.
Because it is boring, right? Unfortunately though, without understanding your audience, your clients, your market and all that jazz beforehand how are we expecting to know what works in attracting clients in the first place? How do we know whether we are doing the right things in our marketing strategy?
Listen to the full episode to hear more about my experience in Armenia at the Seaside Startup Summit and more details about my learnings from mentoring startups.
The episode is live on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Stitcher or any other major podcast platform. Or steam right here from the website.
Have a wonderful week, my lovelies.
Magdalena x
