StartupCafe

Let’s give a nice warm welcome to the lovely Diana Proca!  Some of you may recognise her from Launch48, an entrepreneurial events company that organises weekends which bring together designers, developers and business folk with the aim of launching a business in 48hours!  Most of the StartupCafe folk have participated and loved these events, so much so that Jess and Hilary helped organise the first Launch48 event in Edinburgh a few months ago.  Anyway, Diana has kindly given up a few moments of her time to share some of her experiences, offer some advice to startups and reveal a guilty pleasure…

Name: Diana Proca

Your role: Events Manager at Launch48

Give us your company culture in 3 words: enthusiastic, energetic, positive

How old is Launch48? Two years

Based on your experience of startups that are formed during Launch48, what are the most common / most repeated mistakes? (List 3 max)

1. being too enthusiastic but only for a short period of time
2. bad level of communication within the team
3. sticking to the initial vision and lack of flexibility

What’s the next big challenge that Launch48 has to overcome? We’ve just announced our exciting upcoming event, The Inspire Conference. It’s a conference taking place over two days in June, 7th and 8th in Shoreditch. Since this is a new project and also our largest event, we hope our community will be as excited as we are and will support us.

What’s the personal dream? It’s actually very cliché-istic but I dream of creating something meaningful that will make a difference..

What is your experience of the Edinburgh startup scene? We’ve organised one Launch48 event in Edinburgh last year.

How does it compare with the London startup scene? Maybe the London startup scene is bigger but the Edinburgh one has very much potential. The people coming to our event were very enthusiastic about being entrepreneurs and their ideas were very innovative. I think great startups will be created there in the near future..

What would be the top 3 pieces of advice that you’d offer to startups?

1. keep a decent level of pragmatism
2. move fast and launch fast
3. always improve your product

Your favourite ‘skint’ meal? Icecream

What’s your guilty pleasure? Sleeping in

And the coolest event (business / tech related) you’ve been to? Launch48 events, of course 🙂

How do you celebrate milestones or awards? Sharing the moments with my loved ones..

What do you do for stress relief? Scream and run but not in the same time.

Give the choice, would you prefer …

i) Truth or Dare?  Dare

ii) Carrot or Stick? Carrot

iii) Tea or Coffee? Coffee