This week was Chinese New Year

To get amongst the festivities we had a traditional shared lunch with Dumplings and spring rolls following a presentation on what the day and the food involved symbolized. Dumplings symbolize wealth, so it’s fitting, prior to this was a talk on Financial basics for startups by Andrew Steel.

It was clear they were drilling into us that even though we don’t need to be accountants ourselves, it’s expected we can at least speak their language. A rundown of financial statements went over Income and Cash flow as well as Balance sheets and assets. It was eye-opening to see all of the essential reports we needed to be aware of. 

Later in the week, Nick Allen from Indicator came in to talk about Sales. He got us to think about applying the Pareto principle to our idea and understanding that sometimes 80% of our sales may be coming from 20% of our market. Definitely an insightful session.

On another note…

Major news update… WE’RE FINALISTS IN THE MSCHOOLS SDG COMPETITION.. meaning… WE’RE GOING TO BARCELONA ..TO PITCH OUR IDEA AT 4YFN.

We feel like we couldn’t be in a better place than Summer Lab being in the position we’re in. Having only found out recently we’ve got 2 weeks to go before we’re flown out to Spain, where we’ll get the chance to share our project with a global audience.
Met with so much support in terms of resources and advice, the CIE team were quick to assigning us additional mentors to meet and sending us methods to strengthening our pitches. With so much happening so quickly and unexpectedly it was reassuring to know we had expert entrepreneurs behind us to help with anything if we needed it. 

Back to the programme, next week Summer Lab will be held at The Generator instead of the usual Unleash space so everyone’s pretty excited about what awaits us there.