We had the great pleasure of welcoming Obica to our fantastic network of restaurants that put on our TableCrowd dinners. London Beauty Queen and British Beauty Blogger hosted their latest dinner at Obica’s Charlotte St restaurant, and Leila, founding partner of Spring Partners, spoke at the equally delicious Lima Floral, Covent Garden.Dinner with London Beauty Queen & British Beauty Blogger
Hayley Carr (London Beauty Queen) and Jane Cunningham (British Beauty Blogger) hosted a dinner on the changing landscape of the blogging industry and how it is now ‘unrecognisable’ compared to the days when Hayley and Jane started.

Following their usual format of getting their fellow diners to write their questions down, Hayley and Jane used most of the evening to run a Q&A session from the submitted questions. These questions were mainly focused on commercialisation:

• How do brands determine your worth?
• How do you commercialise blogging?
• When is the best time to ask for sponsorship?

They encouraged their diners to collaborate with brands early on instead of charging money, but to always understand their value. The second batch of the Q&A saw Hayley and Jane covering the topic of finding your niche. They recommended writing about your passion, as that would then become your USP.
Dine with Leila Rastegar Zegna, founding partner at Spring Partners
Leila joined an intimate dinner at Lima Floral to discuss using your network to grow your business. With her investment experience, Leila introduced her fellow diners to an investor community fund in San Francisco called, ‘First Round Capital’ that’s turning investing and the VC world on its head. They connect entrepreneurs with the tech, resources and the community they need straight away, with their goal to make a lasting impact.

There’s a tremendous benefit that comes from being a part of a community, and another firm she spoke about, Upside Partnership, takes this notion one step further by incentivising its community.

The average venture investor sits on 10 boards – that’s too many.

Rather than being the single conduit, it makes sense to create a community around an investment, for Spring Partners at least, they much prefer to take a smaller piece of a bigger pie.

Our speakers were joined by : Zoom Labs, Limeclip, Littledata, 93digital, Pivigo, TRULY, LexStep, Khunu, Face Place, I Heart Beauty, Baby2Body, Glowology, Accenture, Taylor Made Beauty, Beauty Seen PR, Natural Beauty Yearbook, Shiny Red, Alchemy PR, GPMD, Wonderlusting, Boots, Amie Natural Skincare, rewardStyle, Elemis and others.

Thanks to our speakers Leila, Hayley and Jane for doing a fab job this week.