Sharing, learning and connecting at Turing Fest

We were delighted to be one of this year's Diversity Partners for Turing Fest. Kin + Carta worked with the organisers to provide tickets to members of Girl Geek Scotland, Women Who Code, Black Professionals Scotland, and Code Your Future. As a B-Corp with a triple bottom line approach to business, working with underrepresented groups in tech is a continuous focus.
It was also great to be part of Edinburgh’s tech community in person as we continue to grow our Scottish hub. From kicking off the day with a hosted breakfast from Jamie Murray, client partner and Scotland Engagement Lead and a top tips for networking workshop with Turing Fest’s Chief Operating Officer, Tannya Gaxiola. It was great to learn and connect with the best in tech.
Turing Fest offered two days of practical insight into building, growing and leading successful businesses - from startups to high-growth tech companies. There was a lot to take in so, for those who couldn't attend or missed some presentations, here are the main insights we took away with us.
Maria Gutierrez, VP Engineering, Twitter, talked about building the operating system of a healthy and responsible tech business. As a business, it is vital to prioritise and assess risks. These three building blocks were discussed in harmony. When one of these elements isn’t working, the business fails:
Asia Orangio, Founder and CEO, DemandMaven, delivered the cheekily titled ‘Finding Growth Opportunities When Sh*t Hits The Fan’. Asia addressed how it’s essential to find growth opportunities when things don’t go to plan.
The pandemic turned our world upside down, this included the way customers viewed certain products and their need for them. Asia discussed a client case study where their product had previously been marketed on features, with a focus on simplicity, however it demanded a switch to quality and reliability.
Asia was tasked with overhauling their website to compete with competitors which previously had greater UI/UX and also fixed their onboarding and retention. Once she’d identified their ‘North Star Metric’, the value that is directly attributable to customer behaviour, they streamlined their third-party app process, updated product guides and onboarding emails. This resulted in a 20% increase in connection rate, 3x lift in sign ups to trials and 4x lift in revenue.
So that’s our wrap on Turing Fest 2022. We’re already looking forward to the next one and if you’re keen to see more, check out these short videos: