I recently had the privilege of speaking at the Slush’d festival in Heilbronn, a hub for innovative start-ups, forward-thinking investors, and visionary entrepreneurs to connect and showcase ground-breaking ideas.

Taking to the stage alongside Eleanor Warnock, the Deputy Editor of Sifted and co-host of Startup Europe, we discussed my career journey so far and Luminance’s growth trajectory. Since I became CEO of Luminance back in 2021, I’ve overseen countless exciting milestones, including the launch of Luminance Corporate, the expansion of our customer base to 500+ organisations worldwide, and the opening of new offices in New York and Singapore, so I shared some of my top tips for other businesses trying to scale and break into new markets. Read on for a recap of the highlights of our discussion!

Priming a Start-Up for Success

The start-up ecosystem offers exciting possibilities, but those early stages can be tough for business leaders to navigate, especially when faced with high growth targets from investors.

My top tip? It’s a numbers game. The more initial meetings, the better! Meetings provide an invaluable opportunity to get early feedback, improve your product and build your brand. These feedback loops with prospects are vital, whether about your company, product, or marketing strategy. I would advise any young business to seek out that feedback and circulate it internally – there’s simply no better way to develop your business and vision when starting out.

Breaking into new markets early on is another great way for any business to scale, but this comes with its own challenges. Every market is unique. Have confidence in your business model, but don’t be scared to experiment… and then make some fast decisions! Take Luminance as an example – we started out mainly targeting law firms, securing validation from arguably one of the hardest markets in the world. Since then, we’ve taken those learnings and expanded into corporates in every industry around the world.

My final tip was to not neglect marketing! Industry conferences, thought leadership events and private dinners are a great way to get a brand’s name out there in an informal yet targeted way to maximise business opportunities. This approach has undoubtedly played an important role in Luminance’s growth journey.

Capitalising on the AI Boom

Having worked for cutting-edge AI companies throughout my career, I was keen to share my experience of scaling AI businesses in what has been, until very recently, a relatively nascent market. To be sure, with all the excitement around AI at the moment, the market is in a state of exponential growth, so now is the chance for emerging AI players to grab opportunities with both hands! But as interest grows, so does the competition, presenting the new challenge of breaking through all the noise.

I offered my take on how to stand out in the increasingly crowded AI market: as more and more companies try to hop on the AI trend, differentiation becomes key. It’s vital for AI start-ups to be able to show their value from day one. Luminance has always done this by offering free trials of our AI, so prospective customers can see the value for themselves. It’s easy to throw marketing terms around, but nothing is more important than the tech holding up in practice.

What Does the Future Look Like for Luminance?

Having spoken with Eleanor about Luminance’s start-up success, we rounded off the conversation by discussing how Luminance will continue this growth trajectory in the future.

First and foremost, constant innovation is a must to stay ahead of the competition in the ultra-hot AI market. That’s why, in the past few months alone, we’ve released an array of exciting new features, including an AI-powered legal chatbot which gives instant responses to clients’ questions about their contract, expediting the process of understanding and negotiating contracts.

And even further ahead? We envision AI completely taking the routine, labour-intensive contracting work off the plates of lawyers and business professionals alike. This could even mean a world where two AIs negotiate against each other, with no human in the loop. In fact, a couple of weeks after my talk, Luminance featured in the BBC, after revealing a glimpse into the future of contract negotiation, with Luminance Autopilot – the first AI in the world capable of auto-negotiating a contract between two parties.

Participating in this fireside chat certainly made me reflect on how proud I am of Luminance’s journey so far, from an idea on a whiteboard in Cambridge to a global business with over 500 customers. I hope that by speaking to organisations in similar positions to where Luminance once was, I was able to show that every business concept needs to start somewhere. What it really takes to succeed is a great product and a great team committed to a clear vision. If you have both of those, growth is sure to come!