Meetup: Tues. 16th June 2015 – Stefan van der Fluit: How no pocket money introduced me to entrepreneurship and James Ward founder of Pianola: If I knew then what I know now

Finding the right co-founders is often cited as a critical start-up success factor and this months main speaker Stefan van der Fluit and his product Nuklius are focused on exactly that problem. Of course he’ll be sharing a lot of other experiences as well. Also James Ward, the founder of Pianola the bridge club management platform, is coming to show off his product and talk about some of his successful journey so far.

Stefan van der Fluit: How no pocket money introduced me to entrepreneurship

Stefan will be sharing his personal startup stories, from his first encounter with entrepreneurship to his current venture today.

Bio: Stefan van der Fluit is a dutch entrepreneur who grew up in Silicon Valley. From a young age he has been working in tech startups, founding his first one at the age of fifteen; Nafets Solutions. Stefan co-founded the campus discovery tool, Unibubble. Stefan is currently working on Nuklius; a startup who’s mission it is to help entrepreneurs realise their ideas and to create micro-Silicon Valley(s) everywhere. In late 2014, Stefan was recognised by HRH The Duke of York as ‘Entrepreneur of the Week’. Currently he is part of the Accelerate Cambridge Cohort working on growing Nuklius.

James Ward founder of Pianola: If I knew then what I know now

Pianola is a simple-to-use web app to enable bridge clubs to manage their membership lists, send targeted marketing emails, build a website and publish results. For players, Pianola offers a personal of results, analysis of their performance and tools to improve their game. Although small, the bridge niche is global and has potential for generating decent revenue. You might not realise it, but bridge is one of the most widely-played games in the world. However, the I.T. available to clubs and players is like the Internet was circa 1995. The plan was simple: research the market, understand their needs, develop an amazing product, win loads of customers. But it didn’t quite turn out that way… This talk will be a completely honest examination of the ups – and more particularly the downs! – of bootstrapping a startup.

Bio: James has had an eclectic career with a variety of jobs and business. Before starting Pianola in 2011 he was one of Leeds’ most successful Avon reps at the age of 13 (!), has been a children’s entertainer, set up Roots and Fruits (Leeds’ longest running vegetarian café), spent 8 years organising training and events for Acas, and worked as a freelance digital coach – advising small businesses, schools and charities. Fundamentally a people person, James is happiest when helping digital migrants to take advantage of new technology.