9. Q2. ‘What should the seminars should look/feel like?’
Post-its.
Group 1: themes emerging include a festival-style approach; less formal
style; more than one day; questioning accepted definitions
Post-it note responses:
Twitter at same time
Get away from suits!
Route to market – documenting in simple ways
Business planning simplification
Bars, restaurants, coffee shops
Promoting local businesses
Walk around – food festival model
Music festival – Swn; teepees
WG favour certain types of industries
Question ‘entrepreneur’ as a word
Fringe events
Connect with towns
Why a day?
Group 2: themes emerging include international perspective; use of
social media; involving stakeholders
Post-it note responses:
Participative and interactive
Wacky!
Maintain momentum created?
Core business problems
Solve
Small community – reputation is everything
All stakeholders
Make money – save money
Internationals
World experts
High energy
Exploit social media to encourage networking
Ideas I can use straight away
Group 3: themes emerging include involving universities; providing
10. support for students; focus on funding
Post-it note responses:
Funding round table – VC; Finance Wales; Bank; Crowd funding; WG –
grant?
More £ to invest in entrepreneurs helping entrepreneurs
One single go-to resource
Seeder investment
Student base
Students help to set up companies
Getting universities actually involved
Group 4: themes emerging include use of high-energy tools (eg music;
headline presenter; entertaining approach) to provide stimulation;
global perspective including connecting with West Coast USA; skills
development; big thinking; use of social media.
Post-it note responses:
Cater for start-ups
Use high-energy music to ‘anchor’ the event
We need ‘headline’ presenter
Attract co-founders
Must be invigorating – high energy – entertaining
Break out sessions that address themes 1-4
Advertise the event – and charge a ticket fee
Delegates need to leave with at least ONE new skill
Connections to West Coast USA
Live peer to peer funding session
Ways to experiment with ideas
Overseas opportunities being twittered
‘Meet the buyer’ opportunities
Business modeling for high growth
More ‘clinic’ based events, not lectures
Ways to collaborate together to win big contracts
Sessions that help participants ‘think bigger.’
Group 5: themes emerging include provision of practical help for
entrepreneurs; focus on co-operation; entrepreneurs providing advice,
support, sharing ideas.
11. Post-it note responses:
Entrepreneurs helping other entrepreneurs
Bottling the entrepreneur mindset
Wales psychology
Forum for joined-up help (capital; mentoring; services etc)
One step support service (marketing; payroll; accounts etc)
Permission to go for it
Lack of leadership
Harnessing Wales’ co-operative culture
Give us real help not statistics!
Reputation payment for advice
Helping ideas be realized
Give ideas without bravado
Getting groups together to solve problems
Dynamo model – WG.
Greatness in culture
Info sharing hub forum
Group 6: - emerging themes include global perspective (including
exporting; world events; connecting with large global businesses who
have links with Wales); using success (and failure) stories; educating
academia.
Post-it note responses:
Sell abroad – how to?
Corporates with cheque books
Deals being done
David and Goliath Conference
EADS; TATA; GD; GE; Admiral
Success stories
R&D links
Educate academia
Open innovations
Connectors
Valuable awards (£)
World events
Sales process – export
Do the right business
Celebrate failure
12. Q3. World Café discussion identifying key areas and what
WG support should look like. Table-sheet responses.
Table 1: Accessing startup and growth finance
- Understanding different finance models
- Funding escalator – right pitch for right funds
- Welsh Government – leveraging what is available from grants
- Remove peripheral costs
- Advertise help available
- Cluster of expertise
- Indentify level of funding
- Leverage Finance Wales and Welsh assistance to attract business to Wales
- How to raise first £5k
- Crowd fund from ticket sales
- What do we mean by entrepreneur?
- How do we create connections?
- Investment readiness
- Homework
- 349 banks in UK
Table 2: Doing business with large corporates (helping David dance with
Goliath)
- Why? – customers, partners, investors? Scale of one company can make or
break you.
- It’s a question of risk
- Death by procurements
- How do you find the innovators
- Difference in culture
- How? – It’s about culture! How can we underwrite the risk to the corporate?
- Procurement processes.
- Private or public?
- Relationships.
- Get overseas corporates to tell us how to engage. Based on experience.
- Who’s cracked it? What are the issues?
- ‘Open innovations/innovators’ – a good way in.
- Relationships ‘people buy from people.’
- Corporates – customers, partners, investors.
- Risks?
- Bureaucracy of Goliaths
- It’s hard to get in!
13. - Appreciate risk of small business – from corporate point of view – can Welsh
- Government underwrite risk?
- Can we find corporates who are not just interested in the bottom line?
Table 3: leveraging the resource and knowledge of the university sector
- Take examples from best of spin-offs
- Marriage between entrepreneurs, investors and academics
- Enable more of a market mechanism – fight for survival
- KTP – Knowledge Transfer Partnerships
- Symbiotic
- Impact assessment
- JVs with universities (skills coupling)
- Enable the business ethos and drive in the university (not just the next bit of
funding!)
- Connectors – informal – investors; academia (technical knowledge);
entrepreneurs
Table 4: Entrepreneurs helping entrepreneurs
- Therapy sessions
- Reliable network meetings
- Outreach from groups
- Bases of start-up
- Wales – reward best connector; goodwill incentivized
- Recognition – non-financial
- Trust – NDAs; openness about specialists; levels of entrepreneurs.
- Opening up conversations
- Effective communication; entrepreneur network; secrecy – incentives?
Willingness
- Help source talent
- Help establish links and connections
Table 5: Other key ideas?
- Set standard for getting paid on time for work done
- Test bedding for university technology
- Set Welsh business apart from UK others in terms of being polite in the
sales process
- Sales skills
- Personal skills
- Exhibition stands/tables
- Route to market
- Competition to promote Welsh ‘Entrepreneur of the Year.’
14. - Lack of selling skills
- Sales process
- Professional selling
- Register of specialist coaches
- Finding customers
- Lean startup
- Regional competition
- Pop up shops
- Growing a business to sell it!
- Learning journeys
- USA testbed for bridging HEI technology with entrepreneurs
- CRM – Responsive; embedded technology; best in the world; e-commerce;
multi-channel; mobile; best practice
- Internationalisation – represent our culture (what is that?); Wales Ent
conference in Shanghai?
- Youth – under 6s; literacy; code
