The ideaSpace Podcast ideaSpace

In this special Cambridge Tech Week podcast episode we chat to Umaima Ahmad, CEO and co-founder of 52North, a multi-award winning med-tech company focused on reinventing the healthcare journey, starting by transforming cancer care with Neutrocheck®. She shares lessons learned from the early days of Neutrocheck to the company recently being the first ever venture investment of Macmillan Cancer Support. Hear how Umaima moved from a successful career as a finance lawyer into the world of entrepreneurship and healthcare, via her role in business development at AstraZeneca. She tells us about how the idea came about, the importance of good hires and provides some tips on securing early investors.

In this latest start-up stories episode we’re talking with Jim McDougall, the co-founder of Outfield Technologies, an exciting start-up making a real impact to the way orchard growers can forecast their fruit yields. Combining innovative machine learning with drone technology, they help farmers manage the lifecycle of fruit in their orchard – making farms more efficient, profitable and sustainable.
 
Hear how Jim seized on interesting career opportunities, moving from a background in engineering to the world of horticulture start-ups via working on oil rigs! We also cover the early years of the company, how the products evolved and changed, and chat about the interesting dynamic between co-founders. We also delve into the mindset of the entrepreneur, and talk honestly and openly about the difficulties of founding and running a successful start-up.

This episode is the next in our Business Basics series and focuses on communication for Start-ups.
Simon Hall, a journalist of 25 years' experience, mostly as a News Correspondent with the BBC, and who has worked across TV, radio and online is our guest for this episode. He's also an author of eight novels and a series of non-fiction business communication books. He supports startups and entrepreneurs, particularly with communication skills and packages, including pitching for investment and customers.
He spoke to us about all things comms, with a focus on founders and Start-ups. The episode is full of hints and tips on pitching and presenting, offers guidance on how to avoid the common communication traps and tells us why storytelling is an important way to communicate your brand.
It's also full of practical advice to help you in defining a headline and your core value proposition. If you're not sure where to start with communications for your Start-up then this is the episode for you!
 

Joe Parry started Cambridge Intelligence, a company building game-changing visualisation tools with applications ranging from fraud detection to cyber security, at his kitchen table over a decade ago. He now has a team of over 60 with customers all over the world. Joe talks through his entrepreneurial journey, particularly the crucial first years of turning the concept into a reality. 

We recently spoke to Cambridge Angels, Simon Thorpe and Phil O'Donovan about what they do, what makes a good investment and why Cambridge is a great place to start a business.
Simon, chair of Cambridge Angels, has invested in over fifty companies, mainly tech focused and in the UK. Phil founded Cambridge Silicon Radio and joined Cambridge Angels after the company was acquired by Qualcomm. 
Both bring a wealth of experience to this week's podcast - the first in our Business Basics series. So take a listen to get some great insights into what makes a pitch great, what to avoid and the one thing you need to remember when preparing.  

Tristram Norman is co-founder and CTO of Simprints, a non-profit tech start-up building identification tools for the developing world – their mission is to improve the lives of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable citizens. These tools are reducing the number of people globally without formal identification which is in turn improving healthcare provision in the developing world. We spoke to him about the early days at Simprints, the challenges they’ve faced along the way and his experience of going from start-up to a hugely successful social enterprise.