Celebrating Duncan Silvey and Bristol Daddin — Canopy Community’s People’s Choice Winner

At Canopy Community’s first ever in-person demo night, held at Bath Spa University, the audience cast their votes — and one founder walked away with the People’s Choice award. That founder was Duncan Silvey, the man behind Bristol Daddin: a thriving community playgroup for dads and those who identify as dad, with children aged zero to five.

Meet Duncan Silvey and Bristol Daddin

Duncan is a Bristol-based founder with a background in the arts, a part-time university job, two children, and a business partner named Cags. Together, they run Bristol Daddin — a monthly playgroup for dads in South Bristol that has grown from a one-off trial into a fixture of the city’s social calendar.

Duncan didn’t arrive at this idea through a spreadsheet. He arrived at it through lived experience — the particular, disorienting experience of becoming a new father and discovering that the social infrastructure he needed simply did not exist.

From Loneliness to Living Room

When Duncan became a dad in Bristol during the pandemic, his entire social architecture shifted. His work and social life had been built around evenings; fatherhood moved everything to the daytime. He loved baby classes, and attended them eagerly — but found that the spaces were overwhelmingly attended by mums.

There was nothing wrong with those spaces. But there was a gap: nowhere for dads to meet other dads, build friendships, and find their footing in this new life stage. For any founder who wonders what it means to belong somewhere, that gap is both a personal wound and a business case.

Duncan spoke to Cags about what he was feeling. Her response was simple: “Build a space for them.”

Forty Dads and a Closed Café

Duncan and Cags trialled a Saturday morning playgroup in South Bristol. It was modest in ambition — a test, a try, a see-what-happens. Forty dads showed up to the first one.

That number overwhelmed the venue’s capacity entirely. It was proof of demand in the rawest possible form: not a survey, not a focus group, but forty people walking through a door because someone had finally opened it. The playgroup has run monthly ever since, and the name has grown with it — from BS3 Daddin (after the local postcode) to Bristol Daddin, as families arrived from across the whole city and beyond.

Two years on, the community is real, it is rooted, and it is still growing.

A Spontaneous Stage, A Winning Story

Duncan only found out on the day of the demo night that a pitch spot had become available. He stepped in — no extended rehearsal, no months of preparation — and took the stage at Bath Spa University in front of a live audience and a Mentimeter voting screen.

He opened not by talking about himself, but by asking the audience two questions. The room was mixed: tech founders, social enterprise founders, investors, advisors. His questions were simple, direct, and personal. By the time he reached his second question, something had shifted. Stewart — watching from the room — described it as a Jerry Maguire moment: he had them.

The vote was live. The audience decided. Duncan won People’s Choice.

Advice from a People’s Choice Winner

Asked what he would tell any first-time founder preparing a startup pitch, Duncan’s answer was clear.

“Storytelling wins. In five minutes, get across what you do, why it matters to you, and why it matters to society.”

He is equally direct about the mechanics. Ask questions that make the pitch about the audience, not about you. A founder who walks onto a demo night stage and immediately makes the room feel seen is already ahead of most of her competition — before a single slide has loaded.

What’s Next for Bristol Daddin

The monthly playgroups continue. This summer, Bristol Daddin will appear at Forwards Festival on Clifton Down — a significant step up in public visibility for the brand.

Duncan and Cags are using the quieter summer period to zoom out and think strategically: should they write a playbook so that others can replicate the model in their own cities? Should they build brand revenue streams? They are also looking for a facilitator to join them — someone to help carry the load as the community scales.

Duncan now enters twelve months of virtual incubation with Canopy Community as People’s Choice winner — access to mentors, a peer group of other award winners, and the resources to ask the big questions properly. Any founder’s journey changes shape when she stops building alone. Duncan is no longer building alone.

Connect with Duncan

If you’d like to learn more about what Duncan is building, you can connect with him directly on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/duncan-silvey-885b5530.

About Canopy Community Demo Nights

Canopy Community hosts monthly demo nights across Europe and globally online, bringing together early-stage founders, investors, and advisors from across the world. Each event features live startup pitches, expert panel feedback, and the People’s Choice award — voted for by the audience and judges combined. Whether you’re a founder ready to pitch, an investor looking for early-stage deal flow, or a supporter of the startup ecosystem, there’s a place for you at demo night. Find out more and register at lu.ma/canopy.