TechHub

We're hiring! We're looking for a fantastically talented, friendly, capable Front of House person for TechHub London. The role combines reception, member liaison, office management, facilities management and there may be an opportunity to get involved in our social media and comms as well.

This is an incredibly important role for the company and is so much more than just buzzing people in - so if you're looking for something that doesn't need to use your brain, or you can just coast in, move along!

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We're looking for someone to join our great team in this busy role in Shoreditch. Working at TechHub means you'll get to be part of  a fast-growing and very exciting tech community, and be right at the heart of it. You'll be working with a smart, fun, friendly team of 10 awesome people.

Would you like to be part of a tech startup phenomenon? TechHub launched 18 months ago and in that short time has had a huge amount of media coverage and interest from the tech startup community. We're committed to making a difference to tech startups in London and beyond, and have some very exciting announcements on the horizon about new international locations with the first TechHub Riga in Latvia opening in February! In the next few months we'll be moving (very close by) to a new location - we're growing really fast.

For this role, you'll need to be super flexible, quick on your feet, able to multitask and be ready to get stuck in no matter what the challenge.

This is a great opportunity for someone with excellent administrative and office management experience, who wants to take it to the next level and grow with TechHub. If you're successful, speedy advancement is definitely an option - you could end up working on operations for TechHub, moving into events, or setting up and managing a TechHub in an international city. There are huge possibilities for the right person! 

This is a great opportunity for someone who loves people and is keen to work in a start-up environment and have the opportunity to rapidly move up within the company. 

Core duties of the roles:

Reception 

• Greet members and guests, assign & monitor guest passes - you're the first port of call for any member queries
• Manage the physical sign-in process
• Book meeting rooms  and tours
• Answer calls, emails and queries

Office & facilities management

• Open up in the mornings and sometimes close up in the evenings when required
• You know everything that's going on in the space at all times - everyone that walks through the door is your responsibility, unlesss they're passed to someone else
• Managing property maintenance - getting on top of any issues instantly, and communicating with members about it when necessary
• Monitoring, ordering and managing consumables - from the milk in the kitchen to hand-towels in the bathroom

Event assistance (approx 1-2 evenings per month)

• All staff rotate on helping with events
• Help setting up the event space and catering 
• Greet speakers and attendees
• Manage the guest list

Role description

• This role will be full time 8.30am - 5.30pm (we're open 9am-6pm)
• Working on-site at TechHub London in City Rd, London EC1Y 2BJ
• The role will beging as a freelance/temp role for the initial three months, then become permanent, though this can be discussed.

You’re an essential member of the TechHub team and we’ll be relying on you to be a friendly, professional face of the space. You’ll be genuinely valued – we want the benefit of your experience, skills and expertise to help us shape how the space is run, the processes that need to be put in place, and to come up with ideas to make TechHub even better.

You are:

• Punctual, with excellent time-keeping and completely reliable – you’re such an important member of the team as sometimes you may be opening up in the morning or closing up at night and trusted with important responsibilities. We need to know you’ll be there when you say you will and are totally trustworthy! This is very, very important for this role.
• Super organised – great at managing your time and workload to ensure everything gets done and that handovers with other staff are smooth and seamless.
• Process-driven - while you're great at jumping in and doing things last-minute when necessary, you have strong skills in creating processes to ensure that nothing is forgotten and your work flows smoothly.
• Friendly and personable with great communication skills – you love interacting with people and helping make their day the best it can be. Our members are lovely people and we know you’ll enjoy meeting them.
• Excellent at remembering names and faces – you’ll be getting to know the people who visit TechHub and everyone loves to be treated like a valued member, rather than a membership number!
• Comfortable working independently - as you're sat away from the rest of the team, you'll need to really enjoy interacting with members as a big part of your day, but still work as part of the team
• Great with using computers and the internet - you'll need to quickly get to grips with our systems, so good skills with the ability to learn new software, applications and technology is a must.
• Excellent English language skills - top notch communication ability is a must including correct spelling.
• Happy to muck in – as with any startup, some duties might be unexpected, or there might be times when it’s all hands on deck. We’re looking for people who want to see TechHub succeed and will get the job done.
• Innovative, creative and proactive – you’ll be developing processes and working out the best ways of doing things, including problem solving. If you think something could be improved, we want to hear your thoughts, and we’d love you to anticipate issues before they arise, and take action where it’s needed.
• The kind of person who goes the extra mile – you’re genuinely helpful and committed and these qualities won’t go unnoticed at TechHub, we believe in giving credit where credit’s due.
• Ideally enthusiastic about technology and entrepreneurship – this is what we’re all about and we’d love our staff to understand why tech companies need TechHub and to gain an insight into what it’s like to start-up run a company.

While we're seeking someone who will really love this role, there are great opportunities to move forward with TechHub in time, either into events planning and management or into a more senior management role for one or more TechHub spaces.

As this role is very important to the company, we're looking for someone who want to join the TechHub team and who are interested in full-time, long-term work  (not suitable as a holiday temp job).

Important: To apply, make sure you do the following:

• email your CV to Elizabeth at elizabeth at techhub.com
• put 'I want to work Front of House at TechHub London' in the subject line
• include a covering email telling us why you're interested in the role. We want to know why you're excited by this particular opportunity.
• briefly detail your relevant experience and skills in the email. 
• tell us why we should hire you
• include your hourly rate & salary expectations - bear in mind that we are a startup, so won't be able to offer corporate salaries
• and include your earliest start date 

Be professional but with personality - don't write like a corporate drone, let your real self shine through your email.

NO PHONE CALLS - if you call, we'll assume that you're not able to follow direction or didn't bother to read the full advert.

If there’s something we really like to shout about it’s the success of TechHub Members.

This week our lovely resident company Betapond received over a million euros in funding.  Betapond joined us a few months ago but they’ve been operating since 2009 from offices in Waterford, Dublin, and California.

Betapond has some bragging rights of its own. They’re Ireland’s only Facebook Preferred Developer and have been able to expand into multiple markets with a small but strong team. 

Abed Hakim is Senior Account Manager and currently based at TechHub London and their CEO is Declan Kennedy. Abed showcased their product a few months ago at TechHub and showed how they create innovative Facebook apps and retail marketing products to help different commercial sectors incentivise consumers while generating social recommendations.

We’re excited about their recent accomplishments and are confident that they have a long way to go. Congrats guys and bon voyage on the journeys to come. 

With another batch of our extremely popular lunchtime mobile meetups taking place in the New Year we’re looking for more talented and engaging individuals from the world of mobile to facilitate this staple of TechHub’s monthly events calendar.

So, if you’ve got something interesting to say about mobile and would like to spend an hour or so leading a conversation with a bunch of the brightest and best developers from our membership and beyond please complete the info form with your details, a short bio and your idea for discussion and we’ll get back to you (put Mobile Meetup Ideas in the subject line).

Other Ideas for Lunchtime Meetups at TechHub…

And if you have an idea for another lunchtime discussion that you’d like to hold at TechHub that you think would fit TechHub’s startup / entrepreneur audience we’d like to hear from you too. Again, complete this form and we’ll get back to you if it fits the bill.

TechHub has always prided itself in helping entrepreneurs and startups grow, through access to an amazing community, collaborative workspace, and gaining access to funding through the many events and one-to-one sessions we hold. 

We soon discovered that by accelerating the growth of our companies we were running out of room for them! We suddenly had a very good problem on our hands. How can we grow alongside our successful companies?

One of the answers we've come up with is Space Membership. Effectively, TechHub Space Membership is the third level of membership which provides our members with a dedicated and flexible space. This allows larger companies to have more control over their office, giving them the opportunity to choose the layout of their space, have their own furniture, or furniture supplied, and access to additional services such as landline phones if needed. All backed up by connection to our 100 mbps fibre line, and flexible rental (notice periods will start at just 3 months depending on how much space you take, so no need to take out a five-year lease somewhere). Space Membership also comes as standard with TechHub London Membership for all your staff using the space, so you can all be part of the TechHub community, access our online network, regular free events, advice sessions and more.

Currently, the space is offered by square foot instead of the per-desk model of our Resident Membership. The space is located only a few floors up from TechHub London's current location, allowing for easy access to both spaces and the ability for members to continue collaborating. It's a lovely space with natural light and high ceilings, and those companies first into the space will have the greatest flexibility to choose their layout.

At TechHub we want to share in the journey of our members and do whatever we can to accommodate  their companies wherever they might go. 

A huge well done to TechHub London team members Mike Marcus and James Knight who worked so hard to make it happen.

Want to know more or arrange a tour? Email our Membership Manager Michelle Nhan: michelle at techhub.com or call her on 020 7490 0764.

It’s been a smashing year for events at TechHub. In July we celebrated our 1^st birthday with a big bash – and our Winter Party was even bigger! September saw the launch of the awesome Roundabout Brewery and there’ll be more beery goodness from there  in the New Year.

We welcomed amazing speakers: Nicholas Negroponte, Fred Destin presenting his Startup Lifecycle while serial entrepreneurs Di-Ann Eisnor and Jack D. Hidary shared a cosy ‘fireside chat’ with our own Mike Butcher.

In October we launched TechHub’s Startup Resource Centre a popular series of 1-2-1 sessions providing invaluable help from VCs, lawyers, accountants, PRs… You can get the jump on the rest of the startup crowd by signing up for our new batch of pr/marketing, legal and finance sessions in Jan.

Our sponsors got in on the act too as we were joined in October by Google’s marketing guru Obi Felten, Pearson talked Tablets in August while Bluevia provided tip top advice in their monthly mobile 1:2:1s.

We introduced a host of new & exciting products to a lively & engaged audience at our ever-popular Demo Nights. Register for a chance to showcase your mobile related product in February’s Demo Night mobile edition. And if you’re something of a mobile guru drop us a line here if you fancy facilitating one of our laid back monthly mobile meetups.

If all this wasn’t enough we partnered with Internet Week Europe and hosted a cornucopia of events for others including: Facebook Developer Garage, Heroku, Londroid, Product Tank, Virgin Media and of course our awesome TechHub members!

Email us to find out how to hire TechHub for your event and join TechHub and enjoy 2012’s exclusive Members' Only events.

Auld acquaintances and all that...

We’re now recruiting for a new Events Superstar to take us full steam ahead into 2012 as I head off after 6 excellent months at TechHub. Thanks to everyone who's made it an enjoyable stay!

I’m off to continue growing my own startup, an exec coaching practice, and am focusing on the start up community, so get in touch to find out more.

Limited Founder Memberships now available!

As the first step in our expansion throughout the world, we selected Riga, a choice that was obvious to us once we met the local team and community. As one of the fast-growing tech centres of Eastern Europe, it is fertile ground for many new ideas and technologies.

The TechHub Riga team is busy setting up our operations there and working towards a grand launch on 9th February 2012. 

And that's not all! TechHub Riga will now be hosting TechCrunch Baltics as our first event on 9th February 2012, and all Founder Members, both those from Riga and those from London will be invited to an exclusive Founder Member breakfast before the event. You'll have the chance to meet TechHub Founder & CEO Elizabeth Varley, TechCrunch Europe Editor Mike Butcher and the Foudners of TechHub Riga, plus some other special guests (to be announced).

When TechHub was founded in London, we received the generous support of the London technology and investment community, many of whom became Founder Members. Founder Membership is a once-in-a-TechHub opportunity as there's a limited number of these memberships available. Not only do you grab a great deal (a year for free!) and become one of an exclusive group of early TechHub Members, you'll be supporting an exciting initiative. 

You've missed your chance for Founder Membership of TechHub London, so don't miss the opportunity with TechHub Riga. You can sign up for Founder Membership here. Go! Do it now! Before they all run out.

Already a Founder Member of TechHub London? Why not get involved in Riga too and collect the whole set - become a Founder Member of every TechHub in the world!

Hey you guys!

TechHub has hired me to figure out how our community can best interact with that mysterious beast, the potential investor - and you’ll be pleased to know this initiative is the result of considerable demand on their part...

Over the next couple of months I’ll be going through TechHub’s little black book interviewing them for their investment preferences, while simultanously talking to you lot and learning about all your projects to help find the perfect match. I’m hoping we’ll soon discover that a few months’ hard work on our part can save you literally hours of networking and help both investors and entrepreneurs to find what they're looking for more effectively!

When not nattering with you guys, I’m inventing software for chatting more efficiently, as well as balancing a handful of other ventures; with any luck, next year I’ll be getting a book published, selling a screenplay, producing a toy, organising a 1000 person conference, beginning a fine art career, and releasing an album. Fail often, right?

I have quite a varied experience... I spent many years doing event planning and promotion in London, even running my own nightclub at one point, I’ve been in various slightly questionable bands, and - deep breath - I spent four years designing exotic financial products for a major investment bank. But please don’t hold it against me!

Come and say hi (in person or online) or add me on Facebook or LinkedIn if you prefer).

Ed

Need some sound advice from top-notch professionals but can’t afford an arm and a leg?

Looking for tried and trusted services but don’t know where to start?

Then welcome to TechHub's Startup Resource Centre!

Launched in October, the TechHub Startup Resource Centre is a brand new initiative aimed at providing tech startups and entrepreneurs with greater access to key services and professionals who will help to support your business and product from those vital early stages and onwards…

For help with monetizing & protecting your IP, employment and shareholder agreements and a host of other legal issues we have Ron Moscona from Dorsey & Whitney joining us on Thursday 1st Dec. Book your place here

And if you missed out this week on our sessions with Vodafone Ventures’ Frederic Lardieg or with Horizon accountants you can still get some great advice on how to prepare your company for investment, save money through R&D initiatives or just keep your books in order at our finance & business 1:2:1 sessions with ABG accountants on Thursday 15^th December from 2pm. Book your place here

 

(Please note places are exclusively for tech startups and entrepreneurs.)

There’ll be further sessions taking place over the coming months with more legal, accountancy and PR/marketing firms as well as VCs, Angels and other finance and tech professionals who are keen to support startups and entrepreneurs and encourage development of the tech community. And if there's a particular service you'd like to represented then please let us know...

To keep up to date and book places Non-Members will need to sign up to TechHub’s newsletter.

 

Last night we celebrated a very important milestone.  After one year and four months of operation the community for tech entrepreneurs in London will soon expand to serve the tech community in Latvia with TechHub Riga.

Techhubbers celebrated in style by holding a special edition of Members Drinks in which TechHub CEO Elizabeth Varley made the big announcement on a map of intrigue signalling other possible locations.  With raised champagne glasses and an atmosphere of excitement members and visitors alike welcomed the big news. 

While Riga, Latvia may come as a surprise for TechHub's first international expansion it soon became obvious why the decision had been made. Andris Berzins, who is helping lead TechHub Riga, presented a strong team of co-founders and a great lineup of startup companies that are already committed to becoming a part of the new TechHub community. 

"Riga already has a lot of very switched on entrepreneurs and developers. The opening of TechHub Riga should help the TechHub community develop further and opens up some great opportunities for collaborations with TechHub startups in London" says Drummond Gilbert from GoCarShare and fellow London TechHubber.

We've come far by beginning our global expansion in a relatively short amount of time but it's certainly only the beginning. There is so much left to do and this great community of entrepreneurs is rooting for us every step of the way. They deserve only the best. 

To find out more, visit the TechHub Riga info page, or contact Andris Berzins at andris at techhub.com or @akberzins on twitter. To hear more about future announcements stay tuned to our website and if you'd like to receive TechHub news than sign up for our weekly newsletter filled with great events, discounts, and other exclusive information.

See you @TechHub

FOR GENERAL RELEASE

London's 'hard core' tech startups are booming

DOWNLOAD INFOGRAPHIC HERE

TechHub and Duedil identify 200 hard-core tech startups in London

LONDON: The UK government has identified over 600 tech, digital, and
creative companies in the East London Tech City cluster.  Today
TechHub and the Innovative company data startup Duedil have completed
deeper research into London's tech scene and boiled that number down
to find the "real hard core" tech startups.

We've defined tech startups as companies less than 10 years old that
are "product focused" or data / development driven. The data excludes
companies that are digital advertising or creative agencies.

As such we've identify that there are over 200 hard-core tech startups
in London.

In addition East London has seen a 40% year on year rise in company
incorporations and is responsible for 76% of all tech startup growth across
Central  London in the past year.


The findings include:

• EC1, which includes Old St, Clerkenwell, and Farringdon, has
experienced a 40% year on year rise in company incorporations and is
responsible for 76% of all growth across Central London in the past
year.

• The tech startup boom began in 2007, with the scene proving
remarkably recession-proof. Almost half of these have been founded in
London since 2008 have been in "Tech City", the area also known
locally by tech companies as "Silicon Roundabout" which stretches from
Clearkenwell to Shoreditch and East across London.

• Venture capital firms Index Ventures, Passion Capital, and The
Accelerator Group are the most influential VCs firms in the London
tech startup scene.

• Of the 920 associated real tech startup directors, 3 out of 10 are
running their 1st company and 1 in 10 are female.

• The hot sectors for London's tech startups are, unsurprisingly,
social networking, app development, and software & game development.

More information:

NOTES:

Launched in July 2010, TechHub is the tech-startup focused coworking
space for tech entrepreneurs, housing over 25 companies and hundreds
of coworking Members. Situated right on 'Silicon Roundabout' in the
Old Street area of London, TechHub plans to expand with spaces in
continental Europe and San Francisco, linking its Members
internationally. It was cofounded by Mike Butcher and Elizabeth
Varley.

Launched in April 2011, Duedil is the largest database of free company
financials in the world. It aggregates over 30 billion data points to
bring you indispensable information on every company & director in the
UK & Ireland, for free
.