Tim Smit and Startups Live visit Bristol

Seeing as I don't seem to have time to post my long, beautifully formatted posts at the moment -and that I don't think people really care whether they're beautifully formatted or not- I'm just throw this one on...

Last night I went to the first in a new round of Startup Live events. I've come across them in the past but never paid much attention to them as I thought it would be another '99 venture capitalist haunt and I wasn't really interested in wasting my time with it. The event however was better than I was expecting. Well, it was and it wasn't.

Sadly we got there a little late (what's new!) and missed the start of Tim Smit's talk however I really have to complement him on his talk, it was absolutely brilliant. It was probably one of the best -if not THE best- and most inspirational talks I've heard in a long time.

For those of you who aren't aware who Tim Smit is, apart from having a great name and having been involved in the Lost Gardens of Heligan he's the founder of the Eden project. Tim Smit is clearly very passionate about the work that he's involved in which is really conveyed to the audience during his talk and I really do recommend you go and see him if you have a chance as you won't regret it.

I think one of the most amusing things about the night was the speaker from Natwest who was clearly there to show how friendly and accommodating Natwest are but ended up demonstrating how far out of touch he is with their actual processes which was a shame as he really could have pulled the audience in and had them all signing up there and then.

Other than Tim Smit however the majority of the event was pretty much as I expected which I was a little disappointed about but I guess that's the way it goes. At the end of the day, if you can come away with one small nugget of information/inspiration the event was worth it. Luckily last night Tim Smit was able to produce the goods ;)