Organising the conference was an equal dose of exhilaration and hard work. An idea that started over a cup of coffee with friends snowballed into a full-on conference. In the end the team consisted of myself and my sister Jess we had a lot of promises from people who were going to lend a hand but nothing came of it.

So with just the two of us we ploughed ahead. Here are some of my top lesson & highlights.

1. Don’t be afraid to ask.

At first we didn’t know who we could get to speak. Then I came up with the crazy idea of writing out a wish list of my dream speakers. Jess was going to be doing the research on speakers, so I gave her my wish list and she went on an internet hunt.

I have to say if you ever meet Jess, she is the quiet, retiring type. Being her older sister i’m the extrovert in the family. But give her a laptop and you have to marvel at the balls on this lady!

She called up Richard Branson’s assistant for a meeting, she tracked down Jeff Bezos email and actually managed to get a response from the king of Amazon himself. Of course he couldn’t make it but to get a reply was good enough for us… for now. Martha Lane Fox always answered back directly, no PA’s or EA’s. Her calendar is obviously fully booked but we intend to peresevere with her.

I learnt that you should never be afraid to ask and the bigger the entrepreneur the nicer they are. In the end we got an amazing line up of entrepreneurs and investors on the day.

2. You need a team to make your dream come true.

Start.Build.Grow was my idea but it would never have made it out of my head and into an event if I didn’t get Jess on board. It would have been too much work for one person. Even with two people it was still a massive mountain to tackle although having to juggle work, being a mum to my two toddlers and setting up the event was a whole lot more difficult than I anticipated.

But I have to admit I could never have made it through without having someone else to rely on. Although I have to admit that despite the fact we are sisters and we are pretty close it took some time for us to find our synergy. I learnt that I find it hard to trust and delegate which made things a little difficult at first.

But we eventually did find the synergy and I let go. We worked to our strengths I was the self-taught techie, deal closer and front face of the endeavour. Jess did research, scouting and admin. Marketing was the task we both had to work on simultaneously. Once we were both working from the same page things moved pretty quickly with both of us covering anything else that came up.

For all those entrepreneurs out there doing it on your own, I fully understand and I am one of those lone ranger who believes doing it on your own can get things done better and just they way you like it. I feel like I will always put in a bit more effort into start.build.grow than anyone (..including jess) because it is my concept and baby. But I also know that the key to its success will be my ability to delegate tasks to jess and anyone else who joins the team.

Because the to scale-up any start-up you need to have the help. So the key benefits I have found of having a team-mate are that you can get more things done quicker and the pressure is spread evenly. I’m now a convert to the fact that two hands on board the ship are definitely better than one. You just have to remember to give the relationship the time and patience it needs to work out the kinks because once you hit your grove there will be no stopping you.

3. Stay Calm and Keep Going.

Getting the conference of the ground was an absolute roller-coaster. There were quite a few crisis points first our venue fell through which was catastrophic but I kept true to this mantra. I stayed calm and went searching for a new one by speaking to anybody I could think of. At one point I got a promise from a venue that we could use them then they decided to give us the runaround.

In the end I went back to the first lesson…Ask…I emailed everyone I knew and got a response from Innovation Warehouse. Had a great meeting with them and got the event back on track.

The day before the event we got the biggest crises of all 3 of our speakers dropped out. To say I was despondent would be an understatement. By then I had barely slept more than 2 hours, I hadn’t spent anytime time with my toddlers for days (…which being toddlers they were not impressed with and being spirited toddlers they were quick to express their unhappiness at my absence…with my 3 year-old telling me Mum you are working too much…you need quiet time) by this time I was absolutely shattered.

One Speaker dropping out you can cope with but three is a massive body blow.

But having Jess in the mix with me was once again the difference between the event succeeding or failing. We picked each other up and began calling, writing and reaching out to as many people as we could. In the end we managed to get 3 speakers to substitute on the day of the event.

4. The magic is in the connections you make. So get out there and make some.

This lesson was learnt from facing the crisis of our speakers dropping out.

The week before our event I had attended an event at Wayra and spoken briefly to Ramy Khuffash, an entrepreneur building an amazing start-up called Narrato. At the time they had not even launched, he had a business card but it was not his, it was his business partner’s Tony Million who had already left for the day but he gave it to me anyway.

So the day before our event as I was desperately scrambling for speakers (…guess whose card fell out of my notepad.) Pure desperation made me call the number on the card for a guy whom I had never spoken to (…quick mini-lesson when you want something bad enough all these lessons will come into action… I applied every lesson I had learnt.)

I called the number on the business card and spoke to the business partner I had never met… I quickly explained who I was before he could decide if I was cuckoo or not. Turns out Ramy was busy but Tony didn’t think I was too crazy so he was happy to talk.

Now the moral of this tale is I could have left a message for Ramy to call me back afterall he was the one I had met (… he might have done or he might not who knows) But …the opportunity was there to talk to someone now and …ASK, ASK, ASK… was screaming in my head so I asked. I briefly explained about the conference and our need for last-minute speakers.

The answer …unfortunately was that they were busy BUT (…this is the point i’ve been building up to so read it carefully because he said some magic words.) Tony said I can send out an email to some people I know to see if anyone is up for it. It was something to hope for and I said absolutely yes.

The call was a long shot and it was an even longer shot that he could rustle up an inspirational entrepreneur who was willing to re-arrange their schedule and get down to the event the next day. But rustle he did not just one but two entrepreneurs.

This is how we managed to secure Richard Harris who was one of the key speakers on the day. To make this story even more unimaginable Richard actually heard about it on the day of the event and he wasn’t even in london at the time but he scrambled to get there and saved my life. He and all the speakers that attended on the day were simple amazing.

5. Don’t give up!

The hardest part of the event has been the aftermath. The adrenaline has been spent and now we are faced with the long road ahead to continue building the vision.

The event was a success, the feedback we got from people was inspiring and motivating. Yet it felt like there was a big gaping hole between me and the vision I wanted to create.

We didn’t hit all our expectations and being a bit of a perfectionist it made me feel a little unsure if I should take the gamble and keep going with this business.

To be honest that’s why its taken some time to get started on the next event. But I think for all entrepreneurs you reach a point when you have to weigh up the question should I go forward or try something else (…or pivot as they call it)?

The lesson I learnt and am still learning is don’t give up. Keep going just a little bit longer because its the small steps that will build the big dream.

So we have taken some time to re-focus and re-desigin the vision and now we are ready to Start.Build.Grow. So for all you entrepreneurs out there feel free to join us for the ride either at one of our events or in the conversations we create online.