startup

If you were under the impression hacking was dodgy business - think again. Growth hacking is the rapidly expanding practice of discovering creative options to traditional marketing.

This coming week, on Nov 21, us at Chinwag and UKTI are excited to partner with Real Business, the UK’s first magazine for entrepreneurs and SMEs, to host SME Growth Hack - Build. Promote. Sell. Inspire. With Real Business aiming to aid business leaders in their day-to-day activities and decision- making, they are a great addition to any SME related events and we are happy to have them onboard.

TableCrowd is a social dining network where like-minded people can meet and eat. Kate Jackson is Founder.

Monday. Set up meetings, demos and pitches in San Francisco. Flying tomorrow with four days to make connections and learn the tech and fund raising scene in the Bay.

Wednesday. We made it to the semi-final of Vator Splash and watched 10 startups battle it out and face questioning from the panel. Words of wisdom from speakers including Phil Libin, CEO of Evernote, and a host of VCs.

As you may know, Social Media Week London will be returning to your streets in September 2013, however if you can’t quite wait that long then why not be a part of Social Media Week NYC in February where Chinwag will be joined by some great companies for a Digital Mission trip to New York.

SMW NYC looks set to be a great week with its global theme of Open & Connected: Principles for a Collaborative World being explored by speakers including Ben Kaufman, founder & CEO of Quirky, Cindy Gallop and the MakeLoveNotPorn.tv team, and Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of Reddit.

Back in December we announced the first set of companies that will be joining us for the Digital Mission to New York in February this year. 

We are very excited to not only let you know the next lucky group of companies coming along on the trip, but also to let you take a sneaky peak at the mission agenda. 

With an investor roundtable, masterclass in doing business in the USA, a traditional British pub quiz as well as all the keynotes, showcases and presentations that are being held as part of Social Media Week NYC the mission companies are not going to be short on events to go to and people to meet. You can take a look at the full agenda for the week here.

Last week Chinwag were lucky enough to be joined by Korea's top tech talent, the winners of the Google's Global K-Startup competition. The five lucky startups were treated to a week's tour of London's digital industry, including market briefings, pitch training, agency meetings, incubator tours and roundtables with industry experts. 

On Monday the group took a tour of the ever-expanding Tech City, organised by TCIO and Friday saw the group spend the day with some of the startups based at Campus London at TechHub, Seedcamp and Springboard. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday were left in the capable hands of Chinwag's team.

So take a look at what they got up to...

Thinking Digital are holding their first ever Thinking Digital Startup Competition, chaired by Paul Smith (of the Ignite100 startup accelorator programme) and supported by Northstar Ventures, at this year's event.

To enter, the startup needs to have been created or started operating after 1st Jan 2011 and applications need to be in by Friday 11th May.

There'll be a total of 5 startups pitching for 3 minutes on Tuesday 29th May during Thinking Digital University (TDU). Chosen startups will get a free pass to Thinking Digital 2012 (or 2013 if you already have a 2012 pass).