A week in the life of Andy, Co-Founder & CEO

This month, we're taking our 'Day in the Life' series a step further by featuring an entire week in the life of Andy Cockburn, Mention Me's Co-founder & CEO. Read on to discover Andy's work with high-end brands, his secret to staying sane, and why bonding over beer is a monthly highlight. 

Monday

I wake at 5am to jiggle a screaming 6-month-old and his 2-year-old sister. After a couple of hours of bleary-eyed baby time I commute into London and wiggle my way down from Marylebone to Vauxhall on my Brompton bike. Cycling through Hyde Park and past Buckingham Palace makes for a nice start to the day.

A different person hosts our company meeting every Monday to keep things fresh. Today's host is Simon, Head of Client Success, who tells us about beekeeping(!) between each team update. Next is our weekly Leadership meeting, where we review performance and our bigger projects, including progress on our new French office. The rest of the day is spent having 1:1s with my direct reports. I try to have all my internal meetings on Mondays so I can focus externally the rest of the week.

The day finishes with a beer with a fellow founder in Victoria. The startup journey is an emotional roller coaster - I've one of the best ways to stay sane is to catch up with other founders. I leave feeling recharged with a renewed sense of perspective.

Tuesday

Today I have a few interesting meetings dotted around London. First up is a high-end fashion brand we’ve worked with for a few years, to review how things are going and future activity. Mention Me Refer has helped their business generate a huge proportion of new customers; today we’re excited to present our latest product, Mention Me Retain, to discuss how it can help increase their customer repeat rate.

The afternoon involves meeting with a national supermarket to talk about how we could grow their online business. It goes well and feels like it could be the start of a great partnership. I still sometimes have to pinch myself when I come out of meetings like this - we've come a long way from being a two-man company with an idea and a handful of clients!

I finish the day back in the office to run a mentoring meeting. Each senior leader at Mention Me mentors others in the business on career progression and life goals. I’m currently working with Lottie, one of our Sales Directors and love it. We always have fascinating conversations that make us both take a step back and think about things differently.

Wednesday

Every other Wednesday is Perspective Day at Mention Me; a chance to step back from the day-to-day and think creatively about longer-term projects. Today I’m working with a few people from different teams about how we’re going to go to market and sell our new product. It’s a satisfying day solving an interesting challenge without any distractions.

Thursday

Today I’m in Paris. We’re currently setting up a team in France and have been part of La Fayette Plug and Play, a brilliant accelerator programme. It’s been a great way to learn about the french market and meet some major French brands. 

It's the final day of accelerator, so there’s a big, glitzy event with 200 French retail brands coming to hear our pitches. I have just four minutes to pitch Mention Me on stage, but the number of brands who come up afterwards to hear more and set up meetings makes it all very worthwhile.

I dash off to catch the last Eurostar home and spend the journey catching up on life admin.

Friday

Friday starts with breakfast with our biggest investor. In addition to quarterly board meetings, we meet monthly to discuss our long-term goals. 

Once that ends, I head to the office for a hack day with the engineering team. This involves our engineers dedicating a day to exploring how they can improve an aspect of the business. Today they’re focusing on how we can make the client onboarding process more efficient. Towards the end of the day, myself and the Client Success team judge the best solution - it's one that could save a lot of time for every client we onboard. These sessions always amaze me; the team gets so much done in a day! 

The day ends with our monthly team drinks at the pub. This is always a highlight; we have a great team of people at Mention Me and it’s always fun to get together and chat with everyone over a beer.

This piece originally featured in Prolific London. Read the full article here.