Slido Starting in London in 2013
I wrote this story in December 2013, and it was mainly written to capture the moment and the feelings I had. This is an edited version —the original version, with my original English skills, was just … well, this version is better.
I’m sitting in my seat in the air just above London. I would like to tell the story about the business trip, ‘Starting Slido in London’.
With big plans in mind, I came to London on 28th August 2013. And here is the story about what happened in those, almost 5, months.
Preparation and expectations
I joined Slido at the end of June 2013, but I’d already known the founders for a while. There are four co-founders; we started an NGO called Univalue with two of them, with the aim of helping teachers to get better at teaching. The other two met with the team during the first and second StartupWeekend Bratislava, which I co-organised.
I didn’t plan to join Slido.
I worked in a bank and after I got fired, I had plans to go to a third-world country for half a year. However, there were small issues with the trip; the confirmation was postponed, and as we were good friends with Peter, the CEO, we had a couple of meetings/brainstormings about Slido just for fun. But suddenly, I was all over. The product sounded just amazing! I regretted not joining sooner. Two days later, I got confirmation to fly to Haiti, but we had already shaken hands with Peter, so I declined. My Slido journey had just begun (and my parents thought I'm crazy).
During July and August 2013 we tried 3 things to promote the product:
1) Setting partnerships with Slovak event agencies and hotel chains — good choice (2017 edit — it wasn’t a good choice at all)
2) Trying to find potential partners in Vienna, Austria, over the phone — big fail
3) Cold calling to the US with my poor English — huge fail
We could have done business development and focus just on the Slovak market, but from the very beginning, Peter wanted to go global. Nothing more, nothing less: Global. After a couple of discussions, we decided on our target: London — a) people speak English, b) it’s a multicultural city and c) it has probably the biggest number of events in Europe. Makes sense, right?
We felt that a good start would be at an event where they’d be interested in using Slido, and got one by some accident. Our first event in London was the final stop of the Startup Rally in Google Campus on Friday 30th August. At that point, I still thought, ‘I’m going to stay in London for 3 weeks, we open the market, and I can go home.’ Such naïve thoughts…
By nature, I’m a guy who likes adventure and who likes to solve problems on the spot. With such a nature, I hadn’t even organised a place to sleep the day before my flight home. I was lucky enough to have my amazing girlfriend (now wife) Lenka, who found me accommodation at her friend’s sister’s place. I spent 5 nights there, and they were wonderful hosts. They welcomed me in a really warm way; we cooked pancakes, went shopping during the weekend, and walked their dog. It was a really amazing time, and they are surely one of the reasons why I fell in love with London from the very beginning.
The next Monday, Peter arranged a meeting for me with one of the founders of 3Beards — Joe Scarboro. (3Beards are, in fact, 4 bearded guys). They connect the startup community in London in the best possible way: Silicon Drinkabout party every Friday; ChewTheFat events with important people from the London startup world; and pitching competitions Don’t Pitch me, Bro. So we met with Joe, and he totally got why Slido. We agreed that we would use it in 2 weeks time at their very first ChewTheFat event with Rohan Silva. I was very happy, but for me, it was actually a bit too late. Remember, in 2 weeks time, I’d wanted to be at home with the market already opened.
After meeting Joe, I attended a Campus Party, where I spent one week. Campus Party was meant to be the biggest technology event in London, sponsored by Telefonica O2 in O2 Arena. To me, it seemed neither the biggest nor the best. But for sure, it was the most expensive I’ve ever seen so far.
Since I’d decided to totally bootstrap my entire London trip, I was very happy for Campus Party, because the organisers prepared free tents for us in a huge sports hall. So I slept for the whole week in a tent. It was great! As I said, I enjoy an adventure.
But from the business point of view, I hadn’t made any deal there for a whole week. I started slowly realising that it wouldn’t be so easy…
I met two great people there. One of these was James Adeleke, the CEO of a non-profit organisation focusing on connecting young people of diversity to the professional world. Since I used to be involved very much in an education non-profit organisation back home, called Nexteria, we were quite close from the first meeting. The second person was the founder of Pavegen, Lawrence C Kemball-Cook. Check out more about him at his TEDx talk. I didn’t know why I wanted to meet Laurence, but his idea and the way of doing business was very appealing. I managed to have a meeting with him 6 weeks later.
Life isn’t that easy
After the Campus Party, my tough life in London started. I didn’t want to admit it at the time, but my life was quite harsh. I spent nights in hostels; almost every night in a different place.
I tried to make cold calls to conference organisers, but didn’t feel very confident. My English struggled, and I knew that. I also didn’t have any past successes with selling Slido to any organiser. I didn’t really know how to do it — I just fought hard. But from one day to another, it became harder and harder. I made around 40 calls in total and managed to have one meeting. Didn’t sell. On the other hand, the rest of the team in Slovakia was starting to be famous. They had from 10–20 events a week, and I had 0. I burned 3 times more money per person than they’d done back home. I felt bad for that. I remembered one call with Peter, when I told him that I would have one meeting a day soon. I felt ashamed. On top of that, Joe told me that they couldn’t use Slido at ChewTheFat. Ben Southworth, the moderator of the event and their business advisor, didn’t like it. I felt like shit but didn’t take it personally.
In 10 days, Slido needed me at home, because they had so many events and they couldn’t manage it on their own…
Luckily, in those remaining 10 days in London, I started to attend as many free, or very cheap, events and meetups as possible. And I changed the strategy. I stopped approaching an organiser before the event, but rather just when it had finished. And I told them about Slido then. I needed to find out the best way to sell it. I had to learn how to convince them that it would be great for their events, even if they hadn’t seen anything like this before. With this approach, I was able to listen to customers and talk to them face to face, and ask them questions. When they liked the idea, I was beginning to gain my self-esteem again. Before I left for Bratislava to help the guys, I went to the ChewTheFat event. I was very curious what Ben meant by saying that Slido wasn’t suitable for their events. Also, I wanted to show up just to be seen, just to show that I hadn’t taken it personally. The event was very good, funny and educational. I had to admit that Slido would have added very little to the event. Ben and Rohan are very good friends and former colleagues. They were talking and joking on the stage. How could this be a bad show? There, I met Greg from Kingston Smith and Luella from Search London. We exchanged business cards and had a brief chat. Luella told me she would introduce me to some of her friends, and Greg could see a business opportunity with another tech company. They liked the idea of Slido as a product, but for some reason, I didn’t really believe we could do something together. Surprisingly, we did later on.
During my stay in Bratislava from 17th September, I had a lot of work to do, finishing off my flat. It had taken me one year to do reconstruction work after I’d bought it. My best friend was going to move there with his girlfriend in two weeks, so it was a pretty strict deadline. Fortunately, Lenka helped me a lot again. They moved in, even though it wasn’t fully ready yet, and quite messy. When I visited them on my next trip back home, I couldn’t believe it was the same place. It really felt like it was someone’s home. Before, I felt the flat was just bricks and mortar. No energy from the place. When they moved in, the place just somehow warmed up. I felt very happy about that.
With Slido, I went to our very first event with KPMG in Bratislava. I finally realised why guys were so successful in Slovakia. The organisers just loved the product!
In Slovakia, we had another talk with Peter, where he told me to try cold calling again. He had successfully cold-called one lady in Prague and sold her Slido, but I felt it was only one shot, and meant almost nothing to me. I knew I had to try it, but I didn’t know where to find the energy.
On Saturday 21st Lenka and I flew to London. She had never been to London, so we booked an Airbnb and stayed for 4 nights, wandering around London, sightseeing, and having a good time. I had a couple of meetings that she kindly went to with me, but I mostly tried to enjoy the time with her in London. It was precious to me, and also to her.
First touch with the event industry
After a great time with Lenka, she had to go back to Bratislava and I moved in with a friend of ours, Ras, who is also co-founder of Slido, and who studies at Imperial College. Ras doesn’t work for Slido anymore, but I have to say, he helped me a lot there. Finally, I had a home. I was sleeping on the floor in his room in a sleeping bag, but it was home. It felt great!
After making some appointments with people I’d met at events I’d attended before, my days started getting busier with meetings.
I was very happy because this was finally my cup of tea!
I attended the second ChewTheFat on 4th October, which was attended also by Marian. Marian was, back then, just starting Startup Grind in London. His very first event was to be in two weeks, and we agreed to use Slido there. The panel discussion seemed like a great fit. In the meantime, things somehow changed suddenly for me. I became more self-confident and people could feel it. I felt I wasn’t just some nobody from Slovakia anymore. The very best thing that happened to me that week, was that I helped someone from the community just by connecting two guys. But I felt awesome. I felt that I was not only taking advantage of my contacts, but I was able to help, too. That was a very small thing, but remember it was a very big thing for me at that time.
However, one week later there was an event where I met some professional conference organisers. I felt that it was an opportunity, but didn’t really know what to expect. On September 26th I attended an event called Conference Question Time, organised by Conference News publisher Mash Media. At the event, I met two guys from IML; Ian, from their Innovation department, and their Head of Sales, Rob. I thought it was a perfect event for Slido, but found conference organisers there a bit stubborn. I’d realised that this big UK conference industry was actually a pretty small village, and it would be a huge challenge getting inside. Nevertheless, one of the organisers gave me a printed version of Conference News magazine at the end of the event. I think just to get rid of me.
But about a week later, I opened it again and found an article written by Rob Davidson, who teaches Event management with a focus on conferences at the University of Greenwich. The article was about the different personalities between Finnish and English audiences at conferences and their approach to Q&A sessions. I wrote to him on LinkedIn straight away, and the next week, on Tuesday 8th October, we had a meeting in Greenwich. He was so impressed by our solution that he asked me to introduce Slido to his students during his class later that day. So I did. He also asked me if HE could write an article about our meeting to Conference News. I couldn't believe what's going on, but I played it cool, and he did write the article. And as you can expect this particular meeting was to have an enormous impact on the future of Slido.
The next day, I attended an event from ABPCO Technophobia, where I wanted to meet Jennifer Jenkins from the MCI Group — but she didn’t show up. I quickly exchanged business cards with the organisers of the event, Martin Jack and Ben Bradley, and rushed to the airport to get home for a couple days, with promising results to come.
Because of the one important meeting with a Slovak hotel chain, I had to postpone my flight back to London until the next Sunday, 20th October. And it was great to stay in Bratislava a bit longer. Even though there was almost nobody at the office, as everyone was supporting important events, I could feel how different Slido was in Slovakia. It was a very busy company with different problems than mine. I was trying to get Slido to ANY event, even for free, and they didn’t have time even to talk to each other. People experienced Slido, they wanted it at their events — it spread like wildfire. I could see the future, and it gave me a lot of motivation.
Finally closing first deals
So again, I left Bratislava for London on 20th October. The next day, I had a meeting with Laurence from Pavegen finally. He was very impressed by Slido, and also by our story. He promised me to make an intro to a couple of event agencies in London, but he never did. He was either very busy, or he didn’t like it as much as I’d thought. Anyways, he gave me the needed confidence for my first success. Greg, who I’d met at ChewTheFat, arranged a meeting with an event manager, Kathie, from KingstonSmith, and I sold her Slido for their event. It was my first revenue since the end of August — £119. The event was happening the next week, but somehow, I assured her that it would be easy to set it up and manage, and that I would be there to help them with everything. Slido is easy to set up and manage but there are so many things to think of at an event, that event managers are often scared of Slido. That it’s just a complication. It isn’t. It’s actually great! Luckily, she was so open that she gave it a try. That week, somehow, we had three events in London: Search London on Tuesday (organised by now my dear friends Jo and Tim), KingstonSmith’s SME Success on Thursday morning, and Startup Grind with Hailo’s co-founder and the CEO, Russell Hall, that evening. I felt amazing. Like I had finally achieved something. This was a small reward after the months of hardship. Back then, it meant a lot. Since then, we have 2–4 events every week in London. It was already the end of October, and that was the time when I could feel my first successes. I felt like I was becoming stronger. Finally.
The next week, John Webb, former International Marketing Director of RockStar Games, used it in his talk about marketing on Monday; Techhub Demo Night on Tuesday; and on Friday, Joe from 3Beards told me at Silicon Drinkabout that they want to use Slido at their upcoming ChewTheFat. And I was very happy about that!
I’d sent Marian a report from Start Grind London, and he shared it in their local wiki. Out of nowhere, Startup Grind Stockholm, Cape Town and Zurich wanted to use Slido at their events.
The week of 11th November, I finally met with partners of TaylorWessing London; Mark Baron, and their event manager; I had meeting with Joe, and another with product manager from Hailo, Andy Jones, MCI Group event manager, who sent us an email asking to know more about Slido; RenewableUK asked me to introduce Slido to their event department; and KingstonSmith invited me for lunch. I can't believe what's going on.
On Friday, we attended the Event Technology Award Conference where we were nominated as one of the 10 best event tech startups. And we won!
Long story short, there I met with James, the former Marketing Director of UBM Live, and another James, one of the organisers of the event. Peter talked a lot to Julius from the Event Management Blog. Christian from Drive Production and last, but definitely not least, we met Gareth Dimelow, who would later on write a blog about us and make us a great new and long-lived motto: "Give a voice to your audience."
The next day, Saturday 16th November, my father had become 50 years old, so I didn’t sleep and went home early in the morning straight to the airport right from the ETA conference. At home, I felt lost a little bit, in terms of work. I wasn’t sure what to do; my focus was just all about London.
When I came back home for the third time, I felt like “it’s coming up, we can make it.” I was again scheduling meetings with so many people. Marian himself introduced me to 5 people, at least. One great guy I met through him, is Gordon Kelly. On the very first meeting, he offered to write about Slido in Forbes. Who would say no? Also, he is starting his own startup very soon. Stay tuned.
Feeling the take-off
This trip to London was only two weeks long, but it was amazing. We finally used Slido at a 3Beards event with the three Hailo cabbies and co-founders, and both 3Beards and Hailo liked it quite a lot. What I was very happy about, was that Ben was very surprised at how well Slido worked. He was a bit disappointed by anonymous questions but gave us very good feedback, which we’re implementing soon.
So far, the most important event we had in London was the Conference Summit, where we (after hard consideration) paid for an opportunity to have a stand. (Just to give you context, we had about €20K in a bank and the sponsorship was £2K). Two days before the event, Peter came to London. On Thursday, we had a meeting with Alastair Stewart, who’s Managing Director of etc.venues, and it was mentioned Rob Davidson from University of Greenwich who made us the intro. Alaistair has 14 venues all over London, focusing only on conferences. The Conference Summit was held in one of their venues. Alastair is a pretty progressive man, and there was a small chance that we would cooperate together. On Friday, we were at the Conference Summit the whole day. Alaistair mentioned us during his opening remarks. Throughout the day we got around 35 leads out of 180 attendees. People just loved it!
On Monday I went home for Christmas.
My job in London was over for 2013, but right now I’m on my way back. I’ve planned 7 great meetings for next week with conference organisers, and I have the feeling that it’s just coming up!
If I should name people who helped me in 2013, the most important would be our first regular London user, Techhub — Rosa and Adam, then Rob Davidson from University of Greenwich, Marian Gazdik from Startup Grind London, and finally, Joe from 3-beards, who probably had the best Slido event in London. There are many others who had a huge influence on me and Slido, but those mentioned gave me confidence and challenges, which I needed. For 2014 we are starting a new era!
2021 appendix
Soon, in May 2021, Slido is becoming part of Cisco as an independent product, but also one of a kind integration to Webex.
I want to mention some people outside of Slido who were part of the key company milestones, but mainly to my Slido journey in London.
I’ll start with Rob Davidson, as you could see potential in the tool so much before anyone else. You were writing about the problem before you knew we existed.
Clare Dewhirst and Chris Chapman — I know it sounds crazy, but at your Food Innovation Summit, it was the first time I truly converted and started believing in the product. Your enthusiasm sold me Slido right after I sold it to you.
We always had a love-hate relationship with Marian Gazdik. Thank you for making Slido global with Startup Grind quicker than we could dream of and thank you for still using it after so many years.
Jo and Tim from Search London — lives of three of us are a total roller-coaster but Search London is the stability. Thank you for believing in me as a person not only as the face of Slido.
Joe Scarborough — we haven’t seen each other for ages. Thank you so much for the advice you don’t even remember. Sometimes a business needs just one outsider enthusiast and it was you for me at that critical moment.
Gareth Dimelow — Thank you for creating “Give a voice to your audience”, helping us with a strategic direction, and just being a fan.
Claire and Rory from Conference Summit — I said it many times and I’ll say again, there’s no such industry event in London like yours. Thank you for having us in 2013 and making such a huge bet in 2014.
This is also a tribute to one and only amazing London. As a city where I came with lots of insecurities, low self-esteem, but almost everybody I’ve met lifted me up. Step by step. No judgment, all support. Not only during my first years here but also after we moved here, to Greenwich, with my wife and two toddler girls. Thank you all for everything.
This is not the end of the story at all. In the next couple of years, Slido is going to grow at least 1000x thanks to Cisco’s investment into the company and Cisco’s distribution channels.
And it’s going to be our next chapter.
