Young Start-up Talent's speed networking event among the fish

 

Last week Young Start-up Talent took a trip to the seaside for this year’s candidates to take part in a speed networking event.  

 

Young Start-up Talent was founded by Matt Turner after winning the Entrepreneur of the Year award in Gatwick Diamond.  Deciding he wanted to give back to the community he set up Young Start-up Talent to help other young entrepreneurs start up their own business.  The competition provides an arena where young entrepreneurs compete for a prize of £50,000 worth of products to help launch the winner’s innovative idea and support them for the next 12 months.

As part of this competition, the Sea Life Centre hosted a speed networking event in which the young aspiring entrepreneurs laid out their business ventures for business professionals to judge. The professionals would move around the young entrepreneurs who were sitting at allocated tables and listen to their business ideas before providing advice and assessing their pitches and ideas.  This is a crucial part of the competition as it allows seasoned business professionals to nurture and provide key advice to help mould the aspiring entrepreneurs’ visons.   This in turn helps them to assess their own ideas and change what they need to allow them to progress further in the competition.

The event showcased some great ideas and innovations and was over all very promising for the next stage of the competition.  There was a vast array of interesting new business ideas ranging from a brain app to pocket dogs to an online community building platform.  There were many Brighton based sponsors and other representatives who took part such as:  Sea Life Centre, Strong Flavours, Pivotal Movement, Acumen Business Law, The Letting Partnership, Brighton Chamber, Social Marley, Fastsigns, Young Enterprise, Hewlett Packard, Mason Consulting, Let’s Do Business, Face Media Group, NatWest, PSD Ice Art, Structured Communications, Hartley Fowler, Pivotal Moment, Best of Brighton, Latest TV, Beta Futures, Media Word Waves and Creative Pod.  The young entrepreneurs came from a range of schools and colleges across Brighton including University of Sussex, Brighton University, Brighton & Aldridge Academy, Varndean College and City College.  

 

The success of the event holds a promising vision for the next stages of the competition. There is grand showcase in February where the winner of the £50k prize will be announced.  However there are more rounds where the competitors must deliver a pitch and develop their business ideas further. A Dragons Den style final will also take place at the sea life centre and will go towards determining who will be Brighton and Hove’s Young Start-up Talents 2016 winner.   

 

To find out more about Young Start-up talent and the competition click here.