My tech startup experience building a "visual LinkedIn" for Young People.

As of 2012 there were 1 million unemployed young people in the UK. The issues young people faced were lack of work experience, struggling to write CVs and finding a way to stand out. They struggled to recognise the value of their experiences and interests to employers and therefore often disregarded these when presenting themselves.

With support from White October, a digital agency, I co-founded and led a startup venture called Represent, a digital platform connecting school and college leavers to work and training opportunities based on their skills and talents. Online professional profiles helped young people discover their strengths and showcase life experiences as evidence of their talents to employers. 

Represent would offer employers a self-service recruitment platform for entry-level and trainee positions, helping them target opportunities to the best matching candidates and improve their shortlisting process. Recruiters could compare candidates at a glance and drill down on relevant information and evidence more easily.  

As a founding director my role was incredibly varied and involved user research, developing user flows, wire framing, UX prototyping and requirements gathering. I led a small team of dedicated designers and developers using an agile delivery method. 

I secured seed funding from Telefonica, Big Issue Invest, Nominet Trust and Nesta. We ran trials with four Academy schools as well as Hackney Community College, The Prince’s Trust, O2, Standard Life and a handful of small local businesses. We built technology around the needs of young people but hit the end of our runway before finding a viable business model. Following our trials we licensed the software to a third party.

What I learned:
1. Start small and focus on user traction not media publicity.
2. Secure proof of revenue over investment.
3. Build just enough technology for your customers (in order to achieve point 2) not just beneficiaries.
4. Your team is your most valuable asset (and they were great!).