It is the start of the final week for the startups inside The Irish Times. Later this month the startups will compete for the €50,000 investment prize from DFJ Esprit, but for the moment there are still things to iron out and nail down. This week Daire Hickey, the PR man at the Dublin Web Summit, lays down some golden rules on how to get traction with the major tech blogs and press. The Web Summit has been a remarkable success - (see my previous post on it at Wired UK).
Each of the startups will be speaking at The Web Summit in October as part of The Irish Times Digital Challenge.
Week 7: Last week of the The Irish Times Digital Challenge
Gary Leyden, Director of NDRC LaunchPad, has been with the startups through the eight weeks, and has played a pivotal part in keeping our eight week experiment on track. This week he works with the startups to get ready for the grand finale pitch day later in the month when they will compete for the 50k prize from DFJ Esprit.
Each of the startups has learned invaluable lessons about the inner workings of large organisations, which would confound any startup peeking in from the outside. By being on the inside they have learned at the closest quarters what the stumbling blocks to partnership are, and they have had to build relationships, and adjust their models. There have been more than a few pivots among the startups over the eight weeks, and one startup has even changed its name. The lessons learned from this experience will be in a separate post, to follow, but for the moment... you can see previous weeks updates below.
Week 6
Week 5
Week 4
Week 3
Week 2
Week 1
Note: these videos are posted several weeks after real events.