Last night’s “Tales from the Trenches”: Startup Journeys with Sokratis Papafloratos, tech entrepreneur & co-founder of Trusted Places
Last night we returned to Central Working in Google Campus for dinner and networking. Sokratis gave an insightful after-dinner talk, which was followed by a lively Q&A. Sokratis talked about the importance of having passion for a project, how he works better with a co-founder and his plans for his current project, Togethera, a private social network for families to share photos and memories. He is an inspiring and honest speaker and it was tremendous to have him join a TableCrowd.
We were joined by a great mix of startups and entrepreneurs. A snap shot of who was there –
First timer, Julie MacDonald recently founded The Daily Juggle, the working mum’s guide to staying sane and having a life. The site carries a wealth of content around careers, parenting and relationships. This is Julie’s first trip into the world of tech and startups, previously being a journalist and broadcaster. In addition to the content on the site, she provides workshops and coaching for her community.
James O’Day joined us and it was great to hear the update on his soon-to-launch project Pearlshare. The app will allow storing and sharing of “precious” recommendations with people you know and trust. You can leave your email to be notified when it goes live here.
So pleased to have Charlotte Leuw back around the dinner table. Since the last time we saw her, she has launched a funding campaign for her startup My Car Gossip on Seedrs, you can check it out here. We first met Charlotte when she gave a tremendous pitch at The Next Women pitch competition, being by far the youngest entrant. She’s raising £30,000 on Seedrs.
Very excited to have the legendary founder of #vegtech, Chloe Nicholls at dinner! She’s currently the community manager at IDEALondon. Based in the heart of TechCity, the accelerator is supported by DC Thomas, Cisco and UCL and provides expert help and support to startups. She kindly offered a tour to any of the startups at the dinner.
Lara Solomon is a beauty entrepreneur founding an advice business for beauty professionals and as well as Beauty Hum, a platform which aggregates hairdressers, barbers and beauticians and provides user recommendations.
Kimberley Trevett was back at the table! Founder of the Holistic Lifestyle Club, she also recently launched Buddywell, which provides services for the health and wellbeing community.
Neha Manaktala, co founder of Vizibee joined us. Her business is a mobile platform for journalists and publishers to capture, break and share short-form quality video with the audience.
We also had aspiring entrepreneurs working on undercover projects or looking for their next project, as well as a team in the medical tech space, 2 ladies taking care of anti-ageing, one guest working on a beta for the legal industry and one developing an existing business in the travel industry.
They had to literally kick us out of Google Campus, the lady prising the wine from our grips was very stern, but I think this is the sign of a good night. We met some tremendous people and hope to welcome everyone back to another TableCrowd very soon.
A few snaps from last night (not as many as there should have been, but we were distracted by the conversation and the delicious food provided by the team at Central Working).
We’re back at dinner this evening for the Education Startups #MeetandEat – we’re bringing together over 30 startups in the education and edtech spaces, with an after dinner talk from Bernhard Niesner, founder of busuu. Can’t wait!