This week we had the pleasure of Gina Akers speaking at MyBeautyMatches’ latest digital beauty and Andrin Bachmann from Piton Capital, catch up on what happened below:

MyBeautyMatches’ digital beauty dinner
TV Presenter, Gina Akers, joined MyBeautyMatches‘ dinner at Aubaine, Dover St, to offer her advice on how to get your brand on TV and in the press. With any press, Gina explained, it’s best to start with a light introduction to your products. Definitely refrain from making your first contact over the telephone.

Emails should have:

• a catchy subject heading
• a nice image or photo
• focus on the key points of the brand (think Daily Mail headlines for daytime TV!)
• it has to be something sensational – to shock, excite or amuse the viewers/readers and be something they can relate to

Can you jump on a story from local/national press and create an angle for your brand?

When you approach TV, there is no guarantee that you’ll get coverage unless you pay to sponsor a TV programme. Don’t let this deter you! Keep ‘bugging’ them, but in the nicest possible way. Certainly don’t bombard them – wait a few weeks then try again. It is also better to approach researchers rather than producers as they are usually too busy to answer. With radio, it’s a smaller team so it might be easier to gain access to the producer.

Dine with Piton Capital
Andrin Bachmann, a partner at Piton Capital provided the after-dinner talk at Pescatori on Tuesday evening covering the topic of investing in online businesses with network effects. As a hugely popular dinner, Andrin had a captive audience who heard him discuss his background as an entrepreneur before moving into investment.

During the Q&A, Andrin was asked some great questions including:

Q: Is there too much money chasing marketplace businesses?
A: “It’s like growing a plant.” Andrin answered, “There has to be a fundamental ecosystem in place.” He continued by using eBay as an example to explain this analogy.

Q: Which areas are ripe for disruption? Which areas might you be looking towards investing in?
A: The jobs market, estate agents, financial services.

Innovation is highly unlikely unless you challenge the regulatory environment.

Our speakers were joined by: Zoom Labs, Localoids, Treniq, BananaBerry, Fantastic Services, Hyghlyne, BorrowMyDoggy, MyGravity, S-Company, Littledata, MixMatchMe.com, Mind Agilis, Stickyworld, Raremark, Klusstr, eRentz, switchspaces.com, The Partners, Haveyouseen, HedgePo, Evry, Clocked, Rackspace, Yours Truly Organics, The Friction, Little Ondine, Curly By Nature, Cyrine Aromatherapie, Scrubbingtons, Mary Elizabeth Bodycare, Joliette Hair & Skin, Prettly, Argan Liquid Gold, Pink&Green Skincare and Virgo Health amongst others.

Special thanks goes to our speakers Gina Akers and Andrin Bachmann, as well as our partner Taylor Wessing.

Check out the upcoming TableCrowd dinners and see when you’ll be joining us for dinner.