London is abuzz this summer, with the Olympics next month and Wimbledon taking place this week. Today in Green Park nearby the Microsoft offices, the WWII Memorial was unveiled and our startups were treated to an airshow by the Royal Air Force above the office this morning. The excitement at MAW London just keeps coming! After the unexpected events yesterday, the startups returned this morning ready to tackle more development.

After a busy week of content, most of the day was spent focusing on technical support and 1:1 business consulting sessions. With Demo Day coming up tomorrow, Brian Hoskins, Director of Business Development on Microsoft’s Emerging Business Team, discussed what to present and logistics for the day.  The startups will be presenting:

  • Their company (founding team, background)
  • Their app (business need/pain point solved, what it does)
  • What they accomplished at MAW

Each company will have 15 minutes to present, along with a live demo of their app. Many of the startups are gearing up for another funding round too, so Brian shared some best practices on how to do a venture capital pitch.

Brian’s Presentation

William Coleman, Product Marketing Manager, presented on UI design and resources available for developers in the UK.  He shared several links including Ubelly Blog, Windows Phone User Group, and Design and developer camps.

Today, Brian had the opportunity to meet with Blue Butterfly and Milestone. Blue Butterfly is a recently launched startup taking on the NFC space. They have developed an app that allows you to connect to a WiFi in any location by simply tapping on an NFC sticker. The company recently won an investment from Telefonica and will be unveiling their WP app this fall with the WP8 launch. Milestone is focusing on the video surveillance space. They are developing an app for Windows Phone that allows you to monitor your security cameras remotely, from anywhere in the world. The team recently raised a $27M funding round and is aggressively expanding in the enterprise, SMB, and personal security segments.

1:1 Session with Frottfal

This has been an intense and productive week, but we’ve had a lot of fun learning about WP and building our apps. Demo Day promises to be no less exciting as we see the great work our startups have been doing!  Follow the event progress on Brian’s Twitter or using the hash tag #MAW.