Delegates who attended Web Summit in Lisbon last month have spoken about how their experiences at the event could transform their businesses.
Founders and key figures at some of Manchester’s most promising tech businesses swapped relentless rain in the North West city for sun and temperatures of 20+ degrees in Portugal as they attended Europe’s biggest tech conference.
The trip was organised by GM Business Growth Hub as part of the inaugural six-month ASCEND programme.
A ‘fireside chat’ back in Manchester hosted by BusinessCloud executive editor Chris Maguire saw them come together to reflect upon the four-day event and discuss how it may impact their respective companies.
Bolton firm Carrs Pasties was founded in 1938 and today turns over millions of pounds in annual revenue. Yet co-owner Joseph Carr left Lisbon with new ideas and targets for his company.
“I was quite overwhelmed on day one. By day three, I felt like I believed in myself,” he said.
“I’m not a commercially minded person – I focus more on the operational side – but I took a lot of stuff away which could help our sales: there are lots of AI (artificial intelligence) tools that you can find on the internet which can be very useful [and I wasn’t aware of before].”
Left to right: Heather Waters, Dr Howard Simms, Jonathan Symcox speak at Web Summit fireside chat
Dave Parker is the co-founder of Parker Neal, a firm which provides cybersecurity, data privacy and governance solutions to clients nationwide.
He described meeting a famous YouTube star in Portugal – “We saw Supercar Blondie out there, but unfortunately we couldn’t quite strike a deal!” – and said the trip proved extremely productive.
“We managed to get three deals out there and will be working on another in the next week or so. What the event did was validate what we started doing this year in terms of our channel development.”
Dave Mansbridge is the founder and managing director of Mercury Support Limited, a company that specialises in health and safety, compliance, licensing, insurance, training and food safety needs.
He said: “It was a learning curve. I went in unprepared but after a couple of days you get an understanding of what everything is about.
“I got to meet some amazing people and heard some amazing speakers, which I have learned from and been able to apply some of the things I learned into my business.”
Hassan Mushaid founded The Creative Composite in 2016, a company which helps dentists grow their businesses through marketing.
He agreed with the other speakers around the importance of AI, saying: “I think it’s something that we have to look at implementing within our business.
“We are now bringing in a consultant within the business to look at our processes to see whether, where, and how we can improve and enhance them. So that’s something that we’re taking away from there, as well as the fact that there were so many places to relax and chat to other business owners.”
Blal Choudhry is the CEO and founder of Stretford-based Flight Patrol, a platform for claiming compensation for delayed and cancelled flights.
He said: “The network and relationships that I have built are hopefully going to be everlasting.
“The size of the event made me reassess what I was doing. Meeting so many founders from all over the world really opens your mind to opportunities.”
Felix Robinson (pictured, below, with Patrick Smith of zally in Lisbon) is the co-founder of Pet Trust UK, a platform dedicated to making buying pets online safer.
She emphasised the importance of her preparation for the event, saying: “I made contacts with certain key speakers that I wanted to talk to. I didn’t think that they’d meet me but they ended up spending 40 minutes with me.
“What I took from those conversations was that we are better off approaching companies who we get on with and have good relationships with, rather than just going to the biggest ones.”
James Hamilton is the CEO of Pixel Tree, which helps organisations plan, design, test & build new ideas.
He said: “Without the risk of repeating other people, the key takeaway was having this shared experience with this group of people.
“From a business perspective, I learned that I need to throw myself into more things – take more opportunities and be a little less cautious.”
Tracy Johnson is the co-founder of Circle of Trust, which aims to connect communities to help them to thrive.
She said: “Unfortunately I didn’t manage to see much as I was ill, but I did manage to see two speakers and my business partner Susanna [Lawson] went viral after meeting Manchester United captain Bruno Fernandes on the plane out!
“From what I did see, people were talking a lot about how important collaboration is. We have since talked to a number of people in the ASCEND Programme about collaborating.”
Daniella Russo is head of client services at MP&Co, a team of marketing experts who are focused on sustainable growth.
She said: “It was really interesting because we specialise in sustainability and work with people making a positive impact.
“The amount of people and businesses coming in that are driving change and are more than just about making profit was really inspiring to see.”
Dominic Appleby is the founder and managing director of H2Origin Refills, which tries to reduce the environmental impact of bottled water by bringing chilled, triple-filtered H2O directly to refillable water bottles.
He said: “I gained a lot from the contacts that I made. Having confidence and picking up a mic to talk has actually helped me to organise meetings with potential clients.
“My focus now is to get in with as many meaningful places as possible because that’s what’s going to grow the value of the business.”
Paul Cook is a finance director at Pimberly, a centralised hub that enables customers to create records for all product information.
He said: “I spoke to the team after the event about going to more events like this, as it helps to get our business seen and noticed.
“I wore my Pimberly colours and people stopped me a few times just to ask about what we do and whether there could be opportunities for us.”
Lewis Keeling is a senior penetration tester and director at Wolf Network Security, a cyber security business which he co-founded with his identical twin brother, Ryan.
He said: “The advantage for us was that we could talk to multiple people at once with there being two of us.
“We were trying to work the floor and managed to make a lot of connections with startups to see what sort of appetite they have for cybersecurity.”
Following the discussion, host Maguire interviewed an on-stage panel which featured Dr Howard Simms, co-founder of Apadmi and a mentor on ASCEND; Heather Waters, GM Business Growth Hub network manager; and Jonathan Symcox, editor of BusinessCloud, who covered Web Summit on the ground.
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