Week 5 of Being a Founder

The Zinc Venture Builder is a full time, 12 month programme where a cohort of 70 from across the globe unite in founding teams to build startups that tackle the biggest social challenges. This week I did lots of sprints on a range of topics and started to hone in on one problem area.

Highlights from Week 5 ??

This was my favourite week yet!

I did five sprints; first, with Alfredo exploring community, one with Bee exploring the challenges for the self-employed, one with Janet on small business resiliency, one with Max on community finance (at the pub ??), and one with Kyrill on the intersection between brand and community.

It’s very hard to choose highlights from this week because I learned a lot from everyone I worked with and will definitely value all these sprints when reflecting on this journey. There are a few experiences I want to tell you all more about though:

Zinc Venture Builder 6 Launch Party ??

On Wednesday Zinc alumni, fellows, investors, friends, and family were all invited to the Zinc office to officially launch the programme. A night of great vegan food, speeches, and networking. One specific highlight was Sarah’s speech. She is this year’s recipient of the Rose Acton Award and she did an amazing speech about Rose and her journey to Zinc.

Learn more about the Rose Acton Award here ??

The Creatives of Camden ????

On Thursday, Janet had the great idea to head to Camden (where she grew up) and speak to local businesses about their main problems. We spoke to jewelry makers, natural hair braiders, artists (who paint on shoes!), lamp designers and independent organic skincare creators.

Some key findings:

New and adaptive business models - We met a lot of creators that were selling their art while creating their art in the shop

• At Sugar + Style they support creators by employing them to manage the shop, while giving them the space to create their art while they work and then they’re able to sell their work in the shop.

Business owners and creators were incredibly diverse in nationality

• Everyone we spoke to had moved to the UK (and Camden) from many parts of the world. Countries represented in Camden include Italy, Turkey, Ukraine, Uganda, and Ghana (and that’s just who were able to speak to in 2 hours!) What a privilege London has to host so much global talent!

Everyone we spoke to had many strings to their bow

• Artist, shop assistant, Etsy seller, Instagram influencer - everyone we spoke to had many interests, many talents, and multiple ways they made income. The age of the side hustle was very much in full swing in Camden.

Talking to these amazing people directly, and giving time to understand their challenges was really rewarding and a really fun morning. The only downside was our wallets took a bit of a battering - meeting incredible artists, makes it really hard not to buy their amazing art.

Moment of the Week ??

So many great moments this week but one worth mentioning is a big giggle session with Gaia, Nico, and Max. Sometimes you just need to sit in a huddle and drink coffee and share your favourite memes.

Thoughts from Week 5 ??

Lots of THINKING this week as I’m beginning to focus more. Three main things on my mind:

Break it quickly

At the social, this week I spoke to lots of previous Zinc cohort members and the overwhelming advice is - if everything’s going well then take the risk, dive in, and try to break it quickly (both the cofounder relationship and the potential solution) - focus on proving your assumptions wrong vs. riding the momentum of good feedback.

Accepting lost potential

Following on the above, by taking that risk, you accept missed opportunities. A big part of this process is accepting that there are multiple good ideas and many amazing people that you could build a unicorn with but you can’t explore them all so you have to accept that you’re missing out (and it may be a mistake).

Ideas are worthless. Execution is everything.

So far I’ve been exploring lots of ideas and doing surface-level research to validate them enough to warrant further work. But I’m having to acknowledge that

1. Most ideas are already being executed
2. The difference comes from execution, not the idea itself.

So the execution begins….

Finally, it’s clear that if nothing comes from this process, the friendships I’ve already made and the experiences I’ve had, already make this process entirely worth it.

On that note, if you want to join Zinc, the next application process is now open. Apply here ??

How You Can Help ??

I am now focusing for the next week on startup and community resilience. I’m looking at problems such as:

• How do you create true belonging in community?
• How do you manage and motivate engagement in communities?
• How do you know whether your community/customers are happy?

If you know a community manager or experts in community that is happy to speak to me, please send them my way ??

Thank Yous for Week 5 ??

• Thanks to Janet for initiating and organizing our time in Camden - will be one of the highlights of this programme I’m sure
• Thanks to Bee for your time this week and thanks to Clem for helping Bee and me on our self-employment sprint!
• Thanks to Kyrill for a great sprint - excited to check in on this!
• Thanks to Max for a great sprint/drink ??

What’s Coming Up ??

Next week I’m working with Alfredo on all things community and our focus for this week is user validation. So lots of interviews and lots of listening! Preview of my listening face for next week: