startups

Know your figures back to front


Get Creative: Flaire focuses on using AI to generate creative ideas and concepts, as well as styling and generating visuals.

Please introduce yourself and your startup GetCreative to our readers!

Get Creative uses artificial intelligence to enhance people’s natural creativity.  Our first product is called Flaire and it focuses on using AI to generate creative ideas and concepts, as well as styling and generating visuals.  Our CTO, Dr Davy Smith, is a world leading creative technologist with an interdisciplinary background that spans creative practice and artificial intelligence.  He did a PhD in computational creativity which focussed on the design and implementation of algorithms which formally define specific aspects of creativity. It’s Davy’s belief that much of the creative process can be enhanced and enabled by creative artificial intelligence, by assisting with ideation and lowering the skills barrier to content production. 

CEO Sharon Reid has 18 years’ experience working for Edelman, the world’s leading global PR agency.  She worked her way up from work experience to the Edelman UK board so her knowledge of the creative industry is extensive. 

How did you get the idea of Get Creative?

We were working together on a short film last year and were talking about the challenges in the creative industries, and how technology hasn’t been able to enable much  in the way of change.  We realised that our backgrounds in PR and computational creativity fit perfectly to solve this challenge and genuinely change how the industry works.

Why did you decide to start with Get Creative?

During our customer development, the consistent feedback was that every day people are asked to come up with new, different and interesting content and ideas for multiple clients and industries.  And at the same time, they’re trying to create new and different on-theme assets and creative. We realised we could make an impact very quickly by making this process quicker.

What is the vision behind Get Creative?

We want to enable everyone to unlock their creativity, regardless of their training and background. 

How difficult was the start and which challenges you had to overcome?

It wasn’t necessarily difficult, because our backgrounds work so well to solve this problem.  What was challenging though was that we had to put all of our assumptions to one side and listen to what our customers want and need, rather than think we already knew.

Who is your target audience?

In the short term we are targeting people who work in creative industries, particularly in agencies.  We know from our customer development that our product works across many industries, but our knowledge and contacts in the creative agency world makes it the best place to start.  In the medium to longer term, our target audience is anyone that produces creative content – particularly those who spend lots of their time writing slides in powerpoint, google slides and keynote.

What is the USP of your startup?

We’re the only team in the world combining deep knowledge & contacts in global PR with expertise in computational creativity, & access to the few people in the world able to build this platform. There are no specific competitors in this space.  

Can you describe your typical workday ?

There’s not really a typical one right now – we’re working on pilot projects so I’m spending time with our customers to make sure the product is delivering what they need.  Plus sales is a huge focus so I’m out meeting people and explaining the product.  And also fundraising ahead of our full launch in 2020.  Usually I’m at my desk at 8am responding to overnight emails before planning out the day ahead.

Where do you see yourself and your startup Get Creative in five years?

Creativity will no longer be seen as an exclusive talent that people are simply born with, and creative production will be augmented, a process of curating and iterating over millions of possibilities rather than through manual labour; the hard lifting will be done by algorithms. 

What 3 tips would you give to founders?

1. Customer development is the most important part of the job – we’ve spoken to hundreds of industry people to make sure we are building something that they need.  It’s so easy, particularly when it’s an industry you know well, to make assumptions.  

2. Know your figures back to front – our extensive research also meant we had so many figures and statistics which we used to put our business case together.  When I’m pitching now, either to clients to potential investors, I have so many anecdotal figures to bring our story to life and show that we’ve put a lot of thought into it.

3. Enjoy it!  Being a founder is very rewarding and super fun.  It’s easy to get caught up in the day job and forget to actually enjoy what you’re doing.

 Picture Sharon Reid and Dr. David Smith PhotoCredit Tom Medici

More information you will find here

Thank you Sharon Reid and Dr. David Smith for the Interview

Statements of the author and the interviewee do not necessarily represent the editors and the publisher opinion again.



READ SOURCE

Leave a Reply

This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this site, you accept our use of cookies.