Recently I had the pleasure of attending #SMR5 on product Saturday (unsurprisingly) . Silicon milkroundabout is billed as a jobs fair for 120 start-ups to interact directly with potential candidates. It also has lightning pitches from the start-ups for them to sell themselves and their products to potential clients and new staff followed by a Q&A with leaders in the field.
Whilst not actively seeking to change job it did seem a little silly not to take advantage of this excellent opportunity to network with other product manager, ensure the CV is up to date, meet some fantastic new companies and its always good to be prepared as you never know whats around the corner.
I had a great time talking to all the startups, made some great contact and recieved some excellent feedback
The Q&A also gave me the reassurance that the problems I have faced are the same across the industry and got some excellent advice on solving them!
The event was well organised with 2 large rooms full of startups as well as free fruit, coffee, sweets and beer! it also had a bizarre pirate theme but as anybody who knows me will tell you I love pirates. It also had a reasonably sized area for the lighting talks and Q&A although it could have done w
ith slightly more amplification and some more seating but both were minor annoyances. The only real comment I would make was that for some of the startups it was unclear what positions they where looking to fill and as the day progressed hastily produced signs appeared in true lean startup way.