Content Fairy – Guy Redwood's Blog

Made it to VentureFest for all of 30 minutes – that’s nearly as long as I spent in the Dentist chair this afternoon. The race course carparks were rather full, hinting at a killer event, but that was the peak of my excitement. Why are these things full of accountant, banker and solicitor stands. I think you’re supposed to attend the seminars – but it wasn’t obvious, so I wandered around twice, spoke to a few people about offices and business angels but nothing to write home about.

There was a floor with what looked like lots of young entrepreneurs exhibiting on behalf of their schools. This looked interesting – but again it wasn’t clear what you were supposed to do. It reminded me of how much of my drive and ambition was forged from the 2 year ‘product enterprise’ entrepreneur project I did at University, many years ago. This stuff is important – planting the innovation seed to create the next generation of business leaders. Heck, if asked today, I’d have volunteered some time to mentor these kids.

Anyway, it wasn’t just me that came away a little numb. I’ve heard similar mutterings from other venturefest first timers. Maybe you needed to be part of the first wave to understand what it’s all about.