Last night saw our mixed event with First Tuesday at the Hospital Club in Soho, where 125 technology entrepreneurs and investors were joined by our very first female internet hero Esther Dyson.  Internet visionary and investor, she has been involved in varying capacities with the likes of Flickr and Delicious, and successfully sold EDventure Holdings – a global interactive content company – to CNET in 2004.

In an informal evening of mixed networking, 125 industry professionals rose to The NextWomen challenge of Speed Matching.  Presented with a job swap ticket at the door; founders, leaders and investors noted what they could offer and what they were looking for.  In a quick fire one minute matching session at the end of the evening, ten requests were picked at random and read out.  Any person that could help on the matter stood up and a potential business connection was made.  With time very much of the essence throughout the evening the remaining job swaps will be placed on Simone’s List.

First of the speakers to take centre stage was Cary Marsh, CEO and founder of video hosting site, mydeo.  Born from the desire to share videos of her first son with family in Holland, and set up from home during maternity leave, Cary described how her first dti grant funding made it infinitely easier to get others on board – the first hurdle is always the biggest.  With the site growing, they noted that Microsoft had no video hosting partnership in Europe.  Knowing mydeo was the site for the job, she made endless calls until finding the right person to speak to and was promptly signed up.  Microsoft onboard, and the site has become unstoppable, enjoying second round funding from Best Buy and a third from Best Buy Capital, before branching out into video streaming for businesses.
It is interesting that Cary puts a lot of her start-up success down to her invaluable relationship she had with business incubator, Kingston Innovation Centre, and was keen to highlight fantastic media partnerships have meant she has spent less than £10,000 on marketing.  When asked by a member of the audience what she really loves to do she replied:

‘I love going to work every day and finding I have a new customer.’

Katarina Skoberne, came with the mantra: ‘what is the worst that can happen to you and can you handle it?’ and had a very different tale to tell.  Born in Slovenia, she studied electrical engineering before moving into advertising and hosting a television programme on the subject for eight years.  When she decided to end her run on television, she had hoped for a rest but instead found herself in an exciting new venture, OpenAd.net that hoped to democratise marketing.  Over the years they have amassed a network of 12,000 professional creatives and have enjoyed contracts with the likes of Procter and Gamble in both the States and the UK.

Whilst the site has unarguably been a great success, OpenAd is a poignant tale from the global recession in which unless alternative investors can be found will be marked by the insolvency of their existing investors.  Skoberne, however, remains remarkably upbeat saying:

‘I did it because I couldn’t not do it’

After a break and The NextWomen speed matching, Angel Gambino delivered the final act.  To start a business she said:

‘…. You need to have a functional relationship with failure, which is interesting when most people don’t have one with their own family.’

Whilst most people quote their biggest fears as public speaking, the dentist and death, Angel has long standing fears with boredom, child birth and failure.  Having conquered the second by becoming a mother, she has without doubt forged great links with failure – it’s not that she seeks it out, its that she does everything within her powers not to experience it.  A coping strategy should we say.

A self confessed ‘Accidental Entrepreneur’ Angel believes two other types to be ‘Lifestyle Entrepreneurs’ and ‘Serial Entrepreneurs’.  This is particularly interesting considering she believes all people that start their own company will invariably become serial entrepreneurs at some stage.  An impassioned environmentalist, she started her first business at college, that would collect recycling from her campus to be delivered to a neighbouring town where they could process it.

Though not a big money spinner this paved her way beyond her first career as an environmental lawyer.  At university, she championed an online conference where people could sign-up online and delegates could partake remotely by essentially transmitting radio over the internet.  She feels this has been her biggest success to date and is maybe because so many people told her it couldn’t be done.  Life then took her on an epic journey which saw her: learn the technical side of business whilst growing Capital One into the top US credit card; start the European expansion in (her rich American accent) Notting-HAM; start Game Player ;and even though people said she was ‘bastardising the BBC by syndicating content’ helped them go digital before doing the same for MTV.  Perhaps her greatest public success, however, came when she helped build Bebo up into an industry leader before it was sold to AOL for $815m.

I think it is safe to say that Angel has formed a comfort level with failure.

With the speakers finished a brief networking session ensued, which saw guests unable to end conversation even once the bar lights had been turned off to signal the end of the event.