We have a winner!!!!

Small Business Software Accelerator - Red Letter Day Competition Winners

During the exhibition at the Business Startup Show we ran a couple of competitions.

There was the 'business card in a bowl' competition - Basically if you put your business card into our bowl then you entered a draw to win a gourmet meal for 2 at a wide range of restaurants across the UK.

There was also another, less successful 'Twitter retweet' competition. To be entered into this competition you needed to retweet one of our tweets on 17 & 18 May. Practically no one did this so the chances of winning were great!


The selection process

A number of people I have spoken to think that this sort of competition is always a fix. We totally disagree with this. At the risk of sounding like a politician, the Small Business Software Accelerator stands for totally free, fair and transparent running of competitions. Here is how the selection worked:

I typed all the names and businesses from the business cards into Excel.
I numbered each name from 1, 2, 3 etc.
I used a number randomizer website to generate a random list.
The highest number won.

Simples!

The Twitter competition worked in exactly the same way.
In the end there were only 9 retweets! A complete waste of time really. Except for the lucky winner!
(I start to suspect that Twitter itself is a useless, time wasting tool. We will persevere a little while longer to be absolutely sure.)

For any doubters who are unconvinced that a competition like this can be run with integrity, please get in touch and I will forward you the spreadsheets with the selection process details.


The winners

Business Card Competition - Barnet Youth Business Incubator
Twitter competition - British SME magazine

Well done to the winners. We hope you have a great meal courtesy of the Small Business Software Accelerator. Thanks to everyone else that entered the competition and all the interesting people we met at the Business Startup Show. It was an excellent event! Maybe we will see some of you at the next one.

Small Business Software Accelerator

Launch event at the Business Startup Show
We had a fantastic launch event at the Business Startup Show on 17 & 18 May. There was a lot of interest in the Small Business Software Accelerator. Our stand was buzzing throughout the two days.

It is great to meet so many engaging entrepreneurs with exciting ideas and brilliant businesses. The range of businesses was a constant surprise including small, medium and large ventures and offers as wide as international government negotiation to Google sponsored app startups to digital furniture manufacture.

Setting up the stand

The team busily preparing on the morning of the event.

Applications

Since the event we have had some fascinating applications from a wide range of businesses. Over the coming weeks we will assess each application received to select ten finalists. Each applicant will be sent a full written feedback on their application by the start of June. 

The next stage of the project will see around 10 finalists selected. We will conduct more detailed conversations to identify 2 or 3 businesses that are a good match for our project that we will partner with over the coming 6 to 12 months.

Interest

A picture of the team talking to business men and women about the software accelerator

Some thanks

Firstly a big thank you to the Software Accelerator team who made the launch day possible. I said this on the day but it is worth repeating that it would not have been possible without you. The results of the day were terrific and we can all be proud of our performance over the two days.

Thanks to the Prysmgroup team. Your constant helpfulness over the two days ensure the event ran smoothly.

Thanks to the New York design team. Our stand, fliers, business cards and on screen advert all looked great and as the perfect backdrop to our project.

What next

Watch this space for details of the finalists and news on who we partner with over the coming months. 

And finally...

Check out this picture. Something to do with perspective, the fish eye and the blue background gives the impression of a withered Edwin and colossal Simon. (surely this is not how it normally looks?!! My head is about 5 times bigger than Ed's!)

Small Business Software Accelerator

A little press interest

Our press release made it into couple of articles about the Software Accelerator:

The Next Women
Yahoo Finance
Fresh Business Thinking

Small Business Software Accelerator

Applications open!
So here it is! Applications are now open for the Small Business Software Accelerator, our unique project helping small businesses to succeed. A brief summary of the project, for those that do not yet know:

We are looking for small businesses with ambitions for rapid growth that need bespoke software to drive their business success.

What we are offering is free software development with no upfront costs. Payment will be linked to the software performance – payment starts only once the software is driving business success.

This is a competition. To be considered for the project visit www.condaal.com/sbsa and fill in our 10 question application form. You can also meet the founders on 17 & 18 May at The Business Startup Show where we are launching the project.

It’s pretty much as simple as that! (More info)


Busy busy!
The last couple of weeks have been exceptionally productive, getting ready for the launch.

We have been busy with the new website design, the online questionnaire, an automated system to create application feedback reports, flier design, social media, copywriting, networking, stand design, banner printing, PR, gym and even a little sleep!

We are delighted by how it is all coming together and now I cannot wait until The Business Startup Show on 17 & 18 May. This is shaping up to be a great event in its own right with over 250 speakers and seminars covering everything a business needs to succeed.

A big word of thanks to the event organizers. The Prysmgroup team have all been so supportive of our project, from the free one page editorial promoting what is a unique offer at their event, to their constant social media support. They even said they would try to get our press release into a few publications! We will see how this goes over the coming week.


Bring on the Business Startup Show
From here on in we are finalizing our preparations for the show as well as reviewing all the applications that come in. This is where the fun really starts!

Look out for tweets about our favourite entries and hopefully I’ll be seeing you on 17 & 18 May.


It’s all too beautiful!!!
Check out our marketing flier.
Our spec was ‘Make it like Ichycoo Park’. The design team delivered!
We will be handing these out at the event.
Big thanks to the NY design team for their help with this.