Stephanie and Lucas discuss Recurly, the world of subscriptions and enterprise marketing, focusing on customer retention, streamlining user experience and taking a multi-channel approach towards marketing.

Joe and Lucas discuss how to scale recruitment companies while prioritising customer experience, collaboration and maintaining the right values. Joe discusses the importance of recruitment companies proving their worth during difficult economic cycles, the challenges the hospitality industry has faced post-Brexit and the importance of businesses focusing on profit (or revenue if they've just raised).

Joe Curtis is a co-founder of 11 Investments and Recruiter Labs. 11 Investments is a seed-stage investment and accelerator program based in London, exclusively for recruitment businesses.

Eva and Lucas discuss the challenges faced by early-stage founders, the importance of building out a personal brand and the Block Dojo incubator program.

About Eva Dobrzanska

Eva Dobrzanska helps early-stage founders grow their businesses and raise capital better with strategic advice on equity fundraising strategies, investor outreach & targeting, scaling a business and expanding internationally, and accessing the right funding. Eva is also a top LinkedIn voice and frequently publishes useful resources for early-stage founders and operators.

Ammar and Lucas discuss Finalrentals, which enables small and medium car hire companies to transform their operations and distribute via online channels across the world. The car rental market is fragmented, with local SMEs representing more than 50% of the market. Finalrentals and its franchisees now serve more than 32 countries, bringing low-cost car rental solutions to consumers from Wales, to the UAE and USA and many more.

Franchisees receive access to a CRM system that is specifically designed for the car rental network, allowing them to see bookings, customer information, legal documents, and revenue reports in real-time. They can control their inventory and understand how they are priced relative to their competitors. Franchisees also receive exclusivity for their area, to ensure that there is no market cannibalisation between franchisees.

The incremental revenue uplift per franchisee per month is £15,000 to £95,000 - a huge impact that is derived from access to new distribution channels, improved conversion flows and increased retention (previously 18% of customers would never return).

About Ammar

Ammar Akhtar is the Founder and CEO of Finalrentals which is based in Cardiff. UnitedKindgom a car rental brand and a digital eco system, currently operating in 32 countries andexpanding. In 2022 alone the brand has expanded to 14 countries under the leadership ofAmmar.

He is the winner of the prestigious Gulf Capital MEED Award for his contribution to thedigital car rental eco system the UAE. Nominated as top 5 disruptors to watch out for bySME Advisor in 2019. 2020. Entrepreneur magazine also nominated him as entrepreneur of the year 2019-2020 and he is the winner of prestigious the Poland Prize by Techseed by ministry of economicdevelopment in Gdansk Poland.

Ammar is the brain behind the online booking systems for Budget, Thrifty, Dollar and manyother companies in the UAE including Udrive in the Middle East. Ammar’s dream is to make car rental reservations as easy as renting a movie from Netflix or ordering food from Deliveroo. Last but not the least he would like to eradicate poverty as much as possible across the world and would love aspiring entrepreneurs find the right guidance and purpose of their organization. He is currently expanding his dream and his organization through his Cardiff HQ and the company is now backed and funded by Welsh Government and Fuel Ventures.

Stuart and Lucas discuss how RiskTalk collects conversational data to help build safer and more efficient workspaces. Conversational data has many advantages relative to paper checklists such as the ability to measure vocal data points such as tone, confidence and glottal movements. The casual manner in which data is collected allows management to identify risks that are discussed amongst team members before paperwork is submitted, and also to provide proactive support for team members that might be experiencing emotional distress. The intersection of conversational data points and machine learning will be of particular interest to insurance companies that look to minimise payouts by helping their clients be data driven and identify leading indicators of accidents and incidents.

About Stuart Farquharson

Stuart brings 15 years of experience in improving safe systems of work to RiskTalk. He started his career with large mining organisations before working across a range of heavy industries specialising with a focus on action based safety. Stuart’s passion for improving safety through innovation and tapping into the expertise of workers on the ground led him to develop RiskTalk. As MD, his deep understanding of the industry enables him to produce the best safety outcomes for companies by making use of their inherent strengths.

About RiskTalk

Transforming outdated paper-based systems and electronic forms, RiskTalk uses intuitive voice technology to foster an engaging safety culture through conversation in organisations around the world, bridging the gap between management and workers on the ground.

Ray and Lucas discuss how Ufurnish.com aims to solve the problem of finding furniture online by aggregating retailers into one platform and providing valuable consumer insights. Inspired by the likes of Rightmove and Auto Trader, ufurnish.com operates as a marketplace, working with leading brands to serve consumers across the UK.

ufurnish.com is the UK's leading search and comparison website for home furniture and furnishings. Used by over 8m UK consumers, ufurnish.com brings 100+ furniture retailers and all their products onto one website to make search simple. Discover products from high street retailers such as John Lewis, Dunelm and M&S alongside small, independent retailers like French Bedroom, Arthauss and Rockett St George.

Ray Wright is an Australian Tech Entrepreneur based in London and co-founder of ufurnish.com. Ray and his wife, Deirdre Mc Gettrick, founded ufurnish.com after purchasing their first home together. They identified a clear need for a solution that would revolutionise the furniture market. Using his 20 years of technical and commercial experience, Ray leads ufurnish.com's go to market proposition in developing the company's brand and commercial offering.

Firat and Lucas discuss Large Language Models (LLM), which powers ChatGPT and Bard. They discuss trends in the space, notably the emergence of industry specific LLMs that can dive into deep levels of detail within their particular vertical e.g. a radiology specific LLM that assists with diagnosis, and the fact that LLMs will lead to higher expectations from the workforce e.g. one analyst may be able to complete the work of three analysts by instructing LLMs to build and maintain financial models. They also discuss ChatGPT's emerging position as a key distribution channel for companies, rivalling Google search (both native and paid), and the speed at which AI is developing, which brings both good and bad!

James and Lucas discuss strategic communications and the importance of understanding people's motivations and addressing their challenges, both in the business and political spaces. They discuss the importance of the consistent repetition of simple messages in order to build trust, a multi-channel approach to address different audiences and how to ensure firms don't get pigeonholed, that is just being recognised for one business line or aspect of their service.

About James Horrax

James is a strategic communications and campaigns specialist. With a political campaigning background, James has also worked as a management consultant in the financial and professional services space. He has a wealth of experience in advising governments, start-ups and scale ups, SMEs, large corporate, HNWIs and private clients. James’ expertise encompasses profile development, crisis and reputation management and stakeholder engagement.

About Yellow Jersey PR

Yellow Jersey PR is a boutique, multi-award-winning communications consultancy, with offices in London, Leeds and Zurich, built to help clients navigate the increasingly complex and fast-changing arenas of business, finance and society. We are shaped by our values, owned by our team, and chosen by clients with purpose. With a global client base, we take a fully integrated approach to our engagements through four practice groups: Corporate PR; Financial PR; Investor Relations; and Digital+Design.

Enis and Lucas discuss 500 Emerging Europe and their work investing in local entrepreneurs to build global businesses. 500 invest in entrepreneurs who think globally and are willing to move to the US to build businesses for the higher tech markets in the west. Enis explains how 500 actively source and build up their funnel to have an advantage when it comes to deal flow, how ChatGPT is increasing the quality of work and the attractiveness of B2B startups when tackling the US market.

Enis Hulli is a General Partner at 500. Educated as an engineer he has a firm grasp of the technological aspect of the startup world and the ambition and knowledge to see the global potential in the regional startup scene. That is why, rather than venturing on the civil engineer path, he founded firstseed, a network of investors focusing on early stages investments. He aims to cultivate and grow the startup ecosystems in Emerging Europe, help talented entrepreneurs of the broader region and the diaspora in building explosive businesses that will integrate with Silicon Valley. His goal is to position 500 as the leading actor in the region in order to re-shape the future of innovation at Emerging Europe.
500 EE is an early-stage fund within the 500 Global network, a leading global venture capital seed fund and startup accelerator with over 2,600 investments in more than 75 countries and venture partners in more than 25 countries. 500 EE's mission is to back seed-stage technology companies targeting sizeable markets and help them scale globally. Launched in August of 2016, 500 EE has 60 portfolio companies that have collectively raised more than $1B from international investors.

Pablo and Lucas discuss the importance of accepting local payment methods when expanding into new markets in Latin America, particularly Brazil, whilst managing currency risk and maximising sales. Pablo shares valuable insights for businesses entering the Brazilian market, emphasizing the importance of strategic partnerships and leveraging influencers for marketing success.

Pablo Klein founded Primefy, a cross-border payment solution supported by the Department for Business & Trade of the UK Government. He previously managed teams at Shopify, Booking.com and Tide Bank, scaling payments-related products.