As the entries for this year's Smarta 100, together with O2, continue to
come in, we are catching up with previous winners. Here Adam Baker
from Blottr
explains why he decided to enter last year and how winning spurred
on his business.
What stage was your business at when you won Smarta 100
last year?
The company opened up its platform in May 2011, five months
before the awards. At that point we had four full time staff,
around one million users and we had only just started
monetising.
Why did you enter the awards?
We felt we had innovated our industry sufficiently in a short
space of time, and grown aggressively, to be considered for an
award. We were delighted we entered as it helped to raise our
profile, attract further investment and it widened our network of
contacts.
What was the experience like?
As soon as we realised we had been shortlisted within our
category, we promptly began garnering votes from our users and
customers. This was quite an exciting challenge, watching the
real-time leader board and trying to get enough votes to stay in
the top five - we eventually finished seventh.
On the evening of the awards, we used the opportunity to network
and meet lots of likeminded people. The networking in itself made
the whole experience worthwhile.
How has your business benefited from being a part of
Smarta 100?
It has enhanced our profile building, recognition as a fast
growth start-up doing interesting stuff and the introduction of new
contacts - these three elements have helped validate our
proposition.
What has your business achieved since being named a
Smarta 100 winner?
In the last 12 months, Blottr has grown its monthly audience by
200%, with more than 2.6 million people using the site as their
preferred global breaking news resource. We've partnered with some
great companies such as The Guardian, New York Times and Yahoo!, we
have increased revenues by 500% and we raised our second round of
investment. We're pretty pleased with how things have developed so
far, but there is much still to do.
What is your top tip for any company thinking of
entering Smarta 100 this year?
Be prepared for stiff competition but be proud of what you are
doing and use Smarta to showcase it and recognise your
achievements.