Tom Evans is the founder of BleepBleeps, a connected hardware brand that makes life easier for parents. It makes “cute connected gadgets that enhance family life”.
Evans was an agency creative until 2013 when he was ECD at Being/TBWA, but creativity outside advertising is his thing. He also runs a consultancy that offers creativity for brands, business and technology. And he has been D&AD’s session leader for professional development since 2008, leading one of D&AD’s most successful course, Presenting Creative Work.
Later this year, he will run the D&AD start-up school, a three-month programme, six sessions of workshop and talks, which will help its delegates with their start-up ideas and lead to the chance to pitch their new business.
Evans came to the D&AD Festival to deliver The 1 hour Creative MBA – a very short version, a trailer if you like, of the course. A primer on entrepreneurship and start-up culture.
This is the trailer’s trailer and a concise insight into what you need and how to find it:
“To create a successful start-up, I believe that you’ve got to have people, or yourself, who can think it, make it and fund it.
“Think it is all about the concept behind it, the market, the business model, design and purpose of the brand, the brand personality and behaviour, the design strategy.
“Make it solves the questions, how can you make a prototype and ship something – get it in customers’ hands and learn and iterate and get some sort of transactions happening or behaviour change happening so that you can start to create a business that sustains itself. And the only way really to do that is to network and grow a team because you can’t do it all – there’s a lot you can do but much that you can’t. So when you’re starting out, it’s essential that you tell everyone about your idea, enrol people in its concept and get them to help you.
“Fund it. Customers are your best investors. People can actually “sell” something, which is great, but also you’ll probably need some kind of investment through angels, family and friends, equity-based or reward crowd funding, grants or loans.
“Lastly, there’s mindfulness and staying zen – what I call on the course, “the journey of the you”. When you run your own business, there’s no finish line. You never reach a point where you can say, “Oh, I’ve finished. I’m done.” There are always ever-increasing mountains to climb. Just when you feel you’ve reached the top of one mountain, the clouds part and you see another one ahead of you. Because it’s an infinite game, you have to have the right mindset and act in a way that includes mindfulness, to stay sane. How you work personally is as important as what you do.”
Explore BleepBleeps here.
Watch the film:
