Women Entrepreneurs under 30
A new generation of 20-somethings are taking over London’s startup space. Never before there were so many inspirational, active and ambitious (and young) female founders changing our tomorrow. Victoria Albrecht is the founder and director of London Food StartUp School, and an entrepreneur at residence at Match Capital. Last but not least, she has just been invited to join Female Founders Y Combinator and spend two weeks in sunny California.
Victoria, do you mind us asking how old you are?
I’m 22!
When you were a little girl…
I grew up in a tiny town outside of Frankfurt and have always been a bit crazy about food. I was definitely the dinner party host amongst my friends. After high school I moved to St Andrews in Scotland for uni to study Psychology and Management. Quite quickly I realised that I wasn’t destined to become an academic and instead got involved in student life — I co-founded a film production society and ran operations for a fashion show, and then taught cookery classes and co-founded a food festival for Scottish food startups. The latter took on a bit of a life of its own and in my final two years I ended up running it as a full-time business with a 10 person team and 1700 attendees. During my last semester at uni I joined a London-based tech startup in London, went to conferences and before I knew it I was chin deep in the startup scene!
Hold on there! You arrived in July and started your business pretty much the same week?
Running the food festival in Scotland I knew that I wanted to move from food festivals into conferences for food startups and entrepreneurs — from B2C to B2B so to speak. I approached a company that does startup events in London, just asking for introductions to food startups in the big smoke. They mentioned they were looking to run a similar kind of event and we ended up deciding to pool our resources and officially partnering for it. I learnt a huge amount from that experience.
Down & Dirty — what did you actually learn?
Probably my first biggest learning was to learn to DIY. For Food StartUp School, I taught myself almost every skill from scratch from front-end development and setting up a website, to designing a logo, growing a Twitter following from scratch to 1000 followers in just over 4 months, blogging or corporate and food sponsorship. Learning all these skills not only saved me thousands of pounds but it also meant I have a great foundation for my future projects.
And then there are the learnings from my mistakes. For example that a contract, as pedantic as it may appear, should define absolutely every possible scenario in detail to avoid disputes afterwards, especially relating to IP — even when you think it’s obvious. Also, don’t let incoming money flow through a partner’s account because you may never see it again. And that your skin can’t be thick enough when you’re in business.
But lastly, I learned that it’s a small world and there are also some incredibly supportive and helpful people out there. It’s worth looking for them!
Why food startups? What problem are you solving?
When I arrived in London I initially did some research to seek out the food startup scene and connect with food and food tech entrepreneurs but I quickly found that the community and events I was hoping for didn’t really exist. I spoke to about 100 food startups in London over the course of several weeks and realised that there was a real need and opportunity to create an event and brand that brought entrepreneurs together and would empower them with the network, the inspiration and the skills to take their startup to the next level. What I mean by ‘next level’ is the ability to build PR effectively, to scale manufacturing, to create the right packaging and branding, create a strong digital marketing campaign etc.
What does it take to be a founder? Walk us through your day!
Wake up — 6am. I recently discovered the bliss of an early bird routine. The clue for me is having a set time to be somewhere — my office on South Bank. I shower and cycle to work, that gets the blood rushing and fresh air does its magic.
Breakfast — I have porridge with apples and honey and listen to music — at the moment London Grammar or Kygo — quite chilled.
Work starts — 7am. The first thing I do is get out a little book and write down one thing that I’m grateful for, just to start off the day with something positive. And then I do some work, ignoring emails until 9am. Sometimes I have a morning meeting, but never before 9:30am. I use ToDoist to track tasks and work down the list every day. Of course unexpected things can pop up, that’s the nature of running a startup. But that keeps it exciting.
Lunch — I always cook at home and bring my lunch with me, that saves me time and a lot of money. I try to take at least 30–40 minutes for lunch, and eat it in the lounge, not at my desk. It means I don’t have cravings later and I can make new contacts in the office at the same time. I also catch up with friends on whatsapp for a few minutes.
After lunch I try to finish emails. My most unproductive time at the desk is from 3pm–5pm so I try to schedule my meetings for then. At 5pm I continue working, until about 8pm, unless there’s an event I’m going to.
Sometimes I have networking events in the evening, or dinner with friends (I love Vietnamese on Kingsland Road), I occasionally venture to ballet as well. But I can be spontaneous, which I love. I usually stay latest in the office on Fridays because everyone at the office leaves early and my productivity picks up!
Could you share an advice with female startup founders?
As weird as this may sound — use the fact that you’re a “minority” in this man’s world to your advantage. Sometimes that can mean free tickets to great events like Web Summit or free coding classes, more interest from accelerators and journalists — make the most of it!
What’s your story? Are you a female founder under 30 or do you have a friend who we should talk to? Tell us all about her or simply say hi here.
