In what can only be described as a wild ride, I’ve spent the past five months with the amazing people at Ignite as part of the PreAccelerator cohort.
As the programme concluded this week at the Showcase event during TechNext, this weekend will provide a chance to take stock and….breathe!
It has been an incredible experience and taken me from having a very unformed basic idea about better connecting up charities with media, to a fledgling business now operating at www.AttentionSeekr.com.
There’s so many learnings I’ve taken from the programme. There’s the practical/technical skills such as exploring nocode tools (what a revelation!), but that’s not even half the story. Having the space/time (and funding) to learn, experiment, fail and rethink in a supportive and truly expert group adds up to far more.
I’m quite certain I’ll return to this topic in the future and will attempt to distill some of the many lessons learned into elements that could be useful for any other journalists setting out on an entrepreneurial journey.
But for now I just wanted to express my sincere thanks to the Ignite team – Jo, Kev and Libby, the entrepreneurs in residence Darren and Joanna plus funders North of Tyne Combined Authority.
And not forgetting the entire cohort, who are now a network for life and amazing humans all! Please do check out their startups from this list:
Dim Sum Digital 