With the first official week of British Summertime underway, the TableCrowd team have been looking forward to the bank holiday weekend (even though the weather and the loss of an hour has hampered it a bit) and we also have a great roundup to share with you covering this week’s dinners with Mike Mompi from ClearlySo, Rich Pleeth, ex GetTaxi, Google and L’Oreal, as well as Ingrid Lunden from TechCrunch.

Twitter Takeover with ClearlySo
Monday night’s dinner at The Green in Clerkenwell with Mike Mompi, Director of Early Stage investment at ClearlySo, covered a variety of topics related to social impact investment with Mike’s talk turning into a relaxed discussion between everyone, with diners asking questions and giving advice to the room. We have to give a big thank you to Clare Jones, Head of Marketing at ClearlySo who tweeted throughout Mike’s speech, effectively giving a live stream of tips and quotes via Twitter.

When you hit a roadblock, how you manoeuvre around the issue shows investors how you’ll build your business.

Did you know that 1 in 4 UK angels have made an impact investment? And that sometimes if there’s a gap in the market it means there’s no market? Mike believes that the environment is so supportive right now for entrepreneurs; it’s better than it’s ever been. So if you find an individual investor who’s values align with yours, and backs your vision, you may find that they will be willing to put in early stage capital.

Mike’s Top Tip:

If you want funding, ask for advice; if you want advice, ask for funding.

A night of positive and supporting energy
We love hearing from our diners about how they found a dinner and one diner who joined our dinner with Rich Pleeth on Tuesday night at Rocket City gave such an insightful account, we thought we’d leave it up to him to provide this dinner’s roundup:

“The dinner you organised at Rocket City on Tuesday 31st March surpassed my expectations in every way. In truth organising a group dinner isn’t rocket science and as a ‘newbie’ I was genuinely sceptical about the whole concept. I arrived just after 6:45pm to a warm welcome. This sounds like a cliché but it was genuinely refreshing to approach bar staff, who weren’t even on the same floor that the dinner was taking place, and to say I’m here for the TableCrowd dinner and not be faced with a blank expression.

The dinner was in a private room with an ‘L’ shape seating arrangement. As I walked in people were standing around and introducing themselves – the host was brilliant in easing people into existing circles of conversation. The table had name cards so everyone knew where to sit and everyone stood up briefly to introduce themselves. Over dinner I had the pleasure to meet budding entrepreneurs at every stage of the business life cycle. It was great to hear about other people’s ideas, challenges, funding stories (or lack of!), fears and more.

To the credit of TableCrowd and its community there was a real positive and supporting energy in the room.

A nice touch was moving some people around just before dessert so you got to engage with everyone. After dessert the [ex] Chief Marketing Officer for GetTaxi Rich took the floor. His speech can only be described as pure class – sincere, honest, relatable and, moreover, he provided real-world practical insight/tips on successfully marketing your business (not an easy endeavour working for a global business worth $2-3 billion!). Afterwards, Rich welcomed questions and even gave everyone a GetTaxi code for a free ride home, which was the perfect ending to what was a perfect night.”

A plethora of exciting young businesses
Our final dinner for this week was with TechCrunch’s International Editor, Ingrid Lunden at Mint Leaf Lounge, Bank. As usual, the food and service was top-notch, and the dinner consisted of a really interesting mix of exciting young businesses. With Ingrid opting for a more prominent Q&A style talk, she covered topics including the most interesting trend she has covered in the last year, who the readers of TechCrunch are, and how to grab an editor’s attention.

All the budding entrepreneurs in attendance took careful note as Ingrid explained the importance in timing; warning not to approach a journalist unless they were ready for their story to be told. Ultimately, you should let the business reach the point where the press will be interested in what you’re doing. The evening ended with guests continuing to drink and chat, sharing stories, swapping invaluable contacts and advice.

Diners this week included: RentMyItems, World in London, Filisia, S-Company, Stickyworld, Digital Impacts, Mosaic Ventures, The Work Crowd, PM EVO, Articheck, YouTeam, Mind Agilis, Tibba, USPAAH, Kerbi, MixMatchMe.com, MyBeautyMatches, HelloHub, Cycle Syndicate, SilkFred, Bloom & Wild, Fare Exchange, Brilliant Basics, Hyghlyne, Piton Capital, Tech City News, Doctor Care Anywhere, and Rook amongst others.

A massive thanks goes out to our speakers Mike Mompi, Rich Pleeth and Ingrid Lunden and our partner Mangostorm.

To see all of our upcoming dinners and to secure your seat, click here.