Scottish Edge Winners

Tailored Spirits Co. is honoured to announce that we are winners of a Scottish Edge Award 2024.

Being recognised as one of Scotland's most investable start-ups is something we are incredibly proud of and we are excited to be supporting Scotland's innovation and new business growth. The endorsement and recognition this gives new businesses is immeasurable and the process of application, pitch and competition allowed us to deeply test our business and ensure we were on to something special.

Here we provide some insight into just how we got through the process.

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The Edge Process

Navigating the Scottish Edge process is no small task and it is renowned for its robust testing of new businesses and their founders.

The Application

Starting with an in-depth application that analyses the core of our business. We were required to detail the scope of your innovation, provide an airtight business plan, detail the founding team and our roles, demonstrate our due diligence, market analysis and competitor research. Show considered thought to our value proposition, our social and environmental impact, considerations around circular economy and the UN's Sustainable Development Goals. Demonstrate a deep understanding of the potential client segment, the validation of the solution and a detailed spending plan for how any award funding might make a considerable difference to the business.

This initial part of the process is quite intensive, taking several weeks to compile the full spectrum of information and planning to ensure a complete and well considered application is delivered. The effort is certainly worth it even if unsuccessful as this intensive application allowed us to assess our own business as an investor would, this in itself is such a valuable way to step out and view your own business.

The Video

To support our application a 3 minute initial pitch video is also required. A daunting task that takes a little bit of craft and an understanding of storytelling to allow us to get our purpose across with passion and most importantly, precision.

It is surprisingly tough to limit your pitch to just 3 minutes describing the problem, the why you, the solution and how Edge can support you. Though refining this story into a script and sharing it with others to receive advice and feedback was a vital part of shaping this into a successful application. The video should not be underestimated and was our opportunity to show our passion and belief in what we are doing.

Progress and Feedback

Tailored Spirits Co. was one of the lucky businesses to have a successful application. We were notified of this, along with some very detailed and helpful feedback to help develop our pitch further and refine our story to ensure it was clear, compelling and investable. One of the toughest challenges is ensuring that those who don’t live and breathe your industry, understand the problem, your solution and are ultimately excited about it!

The Next Round and Online Semi-Final

The wider Edge community then provided the opportunity to practise our online pitch. This is something we feel was incredibly valuable as we developed a new pitch to further supplement our initial pitch video. We had the opportunity to test this new pitch and answer a number of detailed questions framed as if we were in the real semi-final and in-front of some extremely knowledgeable voices within our industry. This practice round not only allowed us to experience the environment of the semi-final but to also gain some vital insight for how the judges think and just how our pitch would be received by those within our industry sector.

With the practice pitch being as helpful as it was, this allowed us to enter our semi-final day with confidence. A 13-15 minute online video call including a 3 minute pitch and 10-12 minutes of questions from an esteemed group of judges. While this again seems a daunting task, preparation is everything, we rehearsed the pitch as much as possible and asked peers, friends and family to hear our proposition and ask us questions, the tougher the better, this way we left very little chance of being surprised on the day.

Progress and Feedback

We were one of the businesses that thankfully impressed the judges enough in our semi-final to be notified of our success and progress to the live, onstage final. Additional feedback from this round of judges and industry/sector professionals was also provided. One key take away from this for us was the recognition of how well we simplified the explanation of our business, even not knowing exactly what it was that Tailored Spirits Co. offers beforehand we were able to explain the problem and the solution clearly to all judges and with the credibility that we knew exactly what we were talking about. The more concise and simple you can make the delivery of your pitch, the more compelling it will be.

The Final

This is where the real test begins, a live in-person and onstage pitch with judges questions and with an audience. Having made it this far in the competition we could take confidence in knowing we were one of a select few businesses that have impressed throughout the Scottish Edge process, though this also meant we were up against some brilliant ideas with passionate and eloquent founders. Getting to the final is in itself a fantastic achievement and shows you have something.

Preparation is again everything here, though the process to this point has done just that, providing the perfect gradual preparation for a live final.

Onstage with a microphone in hand and a single slide screen behind us, delivering our pitch with clarity is what was required here. The judges listened intently and questioned with consideration as our 15 minute pitch slot was nestled amongst another 15-20 finalists.

Delivering a memorable pitch is of course important, as the judges go away to deliberate after our session, though truly listening to the judges questions and providing answers to exactly what they have asked was our key takeaway here. The short questioning time seemed to fly by and giving concise and direct answers allowed each judge to feel heard and understood whilst allowing us to show knowledge and credibility.

We had the chance to speak with other finalists and audience members during the final day which gave us a good idea of how we performed from these helpful conversations. And then we  headed home, hopeful and ready for a dram.

The Winners Announced

We had done all we could and thankfully were not kept waiting for too long with a member of the Edge team reaching out within a week to let us know if we had been successful and announced as a winner, though our award was kept under wraps until the Scottish Edge Award Ceremony.

The award ceremony was our time to enjoy the moment and revel in the success of a hard fought competition and very tough process. We shared the stage with other winners from the whole round to collect the all important Scottish Edge Award and savour the moment.

The Scottish Edge Award has allowed Tailored Spirits Co. to accelerate our growth beyond our initial early stage goals. Being a part of the Scottish Edge Alumni also comes with access to a brilliant network of entrepreneurs, successful business people, investors and professional services, an ecosystem that ensures new Scottish business has the best chance of success.

We would like to extend our gratitude to all those who offer incredible support throughout the Scottish Edge process, especially those that work so hard to deliver such a vital route to funding, Evelyn McDonald, Kevin Walls and the whole team at Scottish Edge, thank you.

We hope you can join us and follow the Tailored Spirits Co. journey as we continue to grow this year and in the years to come.

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