So much has happened this week that I barely had time for my Geek’n Rolla wrap-up post! Bah! Better late than never 
What a nice couple of days spent in London, preparing and then pitching for TechCrunch Europe’s annual main event : Geek’n Rolla!
At first we were not so sure about submitting our application… we were barely done gathering feedback from the TechCrunch Talk in Paris, and kind of swamped by admin/tech/business dev work to either start/finish/carry on… So yet another startup competition to apply to? « Screw it! Not enough energy 
»
… but a couple of e-mails later, I was hitting the « submit » button. And we got selected!
So what happened during those 2 days? Here’s a quick recap!
1- Monday: Arrival
King's Cross whereabouts
Arrival around 1:00 pm at King’s Cross station – quite early actually (unusual: I’m always late – then again I was not the one driving the Eurostar, which probably helped).
Nice walk all the way to White Bear Yard, for a pitch rehearsal. The goal for all the startups attending it, was to go through the slides and make sure we would perform decently the next day. So GameCreds, along with half a dozen other startups, got some very nice feedback from Mike Butcher, Eileen Burbidge and Robert Dighero!
Following this, we were invited to have a look at the future TechHub place. I really liked the idea – looks like they’re focusing on making it a cool co-working place, either permanently for small local teams, or if you’re simply dropping by and just need a desk for a day… I promised I wouldn’t disclose the pictures, so you’ll just have to imagine it!
Then of course, gathering in the pub next door for a good chat and a few beers
The day ended with my being late for dinner with Shakil Khan and Khaled Helioui – great time in a cool restaurant with delicious food – because of another couple of beers with Stefano Liotta, a friend (and former boss) from my Apple days!
2- Tuesday: G33k’n Rolla!
Geek’n Rolla day! Late again, which helped me rescue a pretty distressed Roxanne Varza, who was obviously struggling to find where the @#$! the venue was
A few minutes after that, we were in! And what a day! Pitches, keynote speeches, panels… everything was GREAT!
You’ll find the detailed agenda here (as well as a bunch of videos from the event) – as for me, I particularily enjoyed:
- Pete Smith’s (Songkick) speech on « Hiring and Recruiting in Startups »
- The Investment Panel
- The start-up pitches (yeah, including mine! 
)
- The « How not to Pitch a VC » presentation, by Katy Turner & Andy Chung
- Cedric Giorgi, on « Launching your service in the French Market »
- And of course, the AMAZING pitch by Morten Lund: « Rebel with a Cause » (a must see)
But of course, the big thing for me was that I got to pitch GameCreds.com in front of this assembly of 500 tech-savvy people! And that’s exactly what I did, right after the Investment Panel!
It went pretty much OK overall, despite the fact that some of my slides were not where they were supposed to be – I remained pretty stoic ( »WTF? MY TIMING! NOOOOOOOO! @#$! F*** F*** F*** « ) – and that I probably could have performed better during the Q&A session.
…so at the end of the day, GameCreds.com was awarded the 2nd place – audience choice!
Mike during the party
Those two days were AMAZING. Not only were the presentations interesting and energizing, but the networking opportunities were litteraly everywhere! VCs, young or seasoned entrepreneurs, tech bloggers, journalists…
I’m definitely glad we applied, proud we were cited on a podium and @#$! energized by all I saw there!
For those who asked for it, I’ll be posting my GameCreds pitch slides online soon, so stay tuned 
