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James Ravenscroft 2024-11-29 09:03:00 +00:00
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brainsteam/content/posts/2024/11/end-of-an-era.md
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@ -27,7 +27,7 @@ The first few months were fun but also scary. We spent a lot of time doing busin
It was also the height of the IoT craze. With some outside help from a very talented maker friend, we built a pro-bono interactive Christmas tree for [Alder Hey Children's Hospital](https://www.alderhey.nhs.uk/). The tree had "smart" lights and a little screen in its base. When you mentioned the tree on twitter or put money into a physical coin receiver (a donation to the hospital trust) the lights would flash and a little message would pop up on the screen. We had a bit of a nightmare with couriers damaging parts of the tree and spent the night before we presented it to the hospital fixing it up in our AirBnB. With that project we learned an early lesson. Maybe hardware wasn't for us...
{{<figure src="https://media.jamesravey.me/i/318d0085-e1d9-4089-aa45-cc931befbca3.jpg" alt="A team of people stood next to a christmas tree in a hospital ward" title="The Filament team presenting the IoT christmas tree to one of the consultants (far right) at Alder Hey" />}}
{{<figure src="https://media.jamesravey.me/i/318d0085-e1d9-4089-aa45-cc931befbca3.jpg" alt="A team of people stood next to a christmas tree in a hospital ward" title="The Filament team presenting the IoT christmas tree to one of the consultants (far right) at Alder Hey" >}}
Even after a few short weeks, we made inroads with some really massive companies thanks to the packed out rolodexes that the other co-founders brought along. However, even with a strong network, getting a completely unheard-of 5 person company through procurement at a multinational is nearly impossible. I remember sitting around in our somewhat grotty Soho Studio just before Xmas 2016 with about 12 weeks of runway left (we were completely bootstrapped and running on fumes). We were due to hear about a big deal with a German multi-national that would save our bacon for another 6 months if it came in. The phone rang and the deal landed the day of our christmas party. We collectively breathed sighs of relief and bought cheap champagne from a Piccadilly off-license. We drank it out of plastic dixie cups.