Businesses run by women continue to be the shining light in the present market. The recent Global Entrepreneurship Summits are testimony to the fact that more women are playing an important role in business and inspiring others. One such inspiring businesswoman is Trina Watt, Founder of Watt Knowledge, a technical marketing agency providing a range of marketing services that address the specific needs of technology based companies. With a marketing background in global technology companies, Trina started Watt Knowledge in 2015 so she could use her wealth of marketing experience to help start-up and scale-up technology companies in their early years.
Translating Technology
Having been in the technology industry for over 25 years, Trina had seen a lot of technologies fail – even with a really good product – and companies failing to understand why people weren’t getting excited about their technology. This is especially true as technology is getting more complex with more innovations at risk of failure before they get started.
With her background in engineering and marketing, she knew it was often due to poor marketing messaging, not the technology itself. If the customer does not understand what your product brings to them or why it is better than the current products you will not be successful.
Trina has the rare ability to translate technical concepts into easily digestable marketing and business messages that are critical to the success of technology dependent businesses. This enables companies to maximize their visibility thus gaining a competitive edge and maximizing business impact.
Most marketing/PR companies start at the marketing level, however Watt Knowledge goes to a more technical level starting at the engineering level and building the marketing message from there. By doing this it translates the technology from the engineering level avoiding key features being lost in translation.
While mentioning about the challenges on the journey, Trina mentions that one of the challenges many technology startups have is getting experienced technical marketing people who can cover topics ranging from technical discussions through to PR. Watt Knowledge fills this gap in a flexible way that enables companies to gain an experience marketing team at lower cost or supplement their existing teams.
Focusing on Start-ups
Trina mentions that the UK is full of innovative startups and Cambridge in particular has both strong technology and biotech sectors. Initially in just the tech space, Watt Knowledge has diversified to include biotech bringing their wealth of marketing knowledge and expertise to this growing area. The company has also moved away from focusing on all company sizes. Over the last two years it has focused more on the start-up/scale-up space where it can bring the biggest return during these critical years of a company.
Celebrating Good Stuff
While explaining about the essential attributes every entrepreneur should possess, Trina highlights the importance of patience, resilience, having fun, and having fantastic group of people in the team. To begin with Trina found rejections hard to handle. She had always been in large organizations where losing business didn’t feel personal, but with it being her own company found it hard not to take personally. It took her a few years to work out that this can go both ways and that she can also reject working with companies that wouldn’t suit working with Watt Knowledge. She strongly believes that as a virtual marketing agency it’s important to work well with your clients and for them to see you as part of their team, even though you’re not in the same office.
As an entrepreneur, you need to have patience as things don’t happen overnight, resilience as things don’t always go in the direction you had planned, and you need to find ways to get through the difficult times. Trina advises celebrating the good stuff. She says, “It can be easy to overlook this but it is vital to celebrate – it helps to reassure you of why you are being an entrepreneur.”
Another lesson she learned on her journey is that the people you work with are what makes it possible. She mentions that her team at Watt Knowledge are all at the top of their game and she trusts them explicitly. This means it doesn’t all sit on her shoulders as it did in the early days. She stresses that you have to have fun and works with “the most fantastic group of people both in my team and my clients. Keeping it fun helps to get through the harder days”.
Clients are Best Advocates
When Trina started Watt Knowledge there were no other companies like it in the Cambridge area so many people were not sure how it could fit in with their current teams. This was overcome by her first clients all being people she had worked with before in previous companies. Since then all of Watt Knowledge’s business has come in through word of mouth. Trina mentions, “Our clients are our best advocates.”
Strengthening an Ecosystem of Startups
Watt Knowledge has a wide range and variety of clients and partners it works with on a daily basis. Many of them are working on market areas or products that are complementary. Trina’s near future plan is to grow and strengthen an ecosystem of startups and scale up who can help each other to be successful. Trina advises emerging entrepreneurs, “Go for it! If you have spotted a gap then you know there is a market. Don’t be frightened to pivot if your initial idea isn’t working – it is not a sign of failure but a potential route to success.”
URL: www.wattknowledge.com
Trina Watt | Founder | Watt Knowledge
