Archive for the 'Investment / Funding' Category

Finance and Funding – Part 1 – Setting the Scene

Published August 26, 2009 Investment / Funding Leave a Comment
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Picture it..A Blogging Virgin, a surely insurmountable challenge –Interesting, Finance and Funding all in the same sentence. Surely not possible. You’re in for a treat..

Me ?  I’m a recycled Bank manager , 26 years worth in a past life.  I loved the good bits, people, training, knowledge building, team building, customer service, service to the community, the seductive remuneration package but around the end of the last century I wanted to see if I could find what my customers kept calling the real world.

This isn’t the place to expand upon the very real world ‘early’ experiences but sufficed to say I’m not without a wide selection of development stories in my career work portfolio.. Kama of a sort, I expect.

Government grants were eventually my saviour, and Gamekeeper turned Poacher probably the best behavioural change descriptor….. to cut a long story short, I now work for the Sussex Innovation Centre where we help people to make businesses out of their amazing ideas. Big businesses. Just for good measure, I’m also a SFEDI accredited Business Advisor for our work with Business Link.

Grants, Risk Capital and standard Banking debt all feature in the day to day but thankfully there’s more to my current role and Strategy, Marketing, Sales, Operations, Planning all come into play…potentially far more interesting than finance…but not workable without it…you wont eat without it, to state the obvious. 

So the exiting Blog 1 message is this..‘Bankers are just Suppliers’ Build the right Professional Team. Choose carefully

One of my roles for the Innovation Centre is to match personalities – Bankers and Clients – so I’m always on the look out for Bankers who will work for their money and actually add value to their client’s objectives…even want to do a deal. Yes, they do still exist even when it’s a ‘High Growth Innovative Research and Development.’ Don’t deal with this every day. What no security!

Those we know, do it well and they talk and deliver big numbers. However we do ask them to do things they can do, which can be half the battle.

This isn’t new: searching for the right personality to support your goals. Building the right ‘professional’ team and recognising that the team will change as your business needs change. Historically the right team has always been a must have and sets aside business that works on achieving outcome that is ambitious, growing and  as consistent / predictable as possible.

The core team has always been; Banker, Accountant, Lawyer, though probably now you would want to add external expertise from Marketing, PR, Media/ Design and SEO as must have drivers for success. Sometimes I don’t think business spends enough time selecting the right people in the early stages and it can be the same with Banks and Bank managers.

Paul Jordan, Innovation Support Advisor

Recession starts global collaboration trend

Published March 17, 2009 Business Structure , Investment / Funding Leave a Comment

I went to a talk last year on trend spotting, hosted by Marcus Lindkvist, which explained that most trends sneak up on you and then one day suddenly (it seems) they are commonplace and you don’t remember life before that. They are not things that are easy to see coming. Facebook is a prime example where relatively few people knew of it only 3 years ago and now if you are not on Facebook, you are making some sort of statement.

There have been many efforts to collaborate and understand innovation and the globalisation of business and it just feels like this year, ‘suddenly’ it is everywhere we look. We are involved in CLIQ, (Creating Local Innovation through a Quadruple Helix), an EU project to optimise the benefits of globalisation and innovation to SMEs and entrepreneurs in medium sized towns.

There are many similar initiatives we are involved with simultaneously ‘suddenly’ and all of these things combine between 15 and 20 countries working together on getting innovations to work across regions. The premise “together we’re stronger” has never been truer and maybe a global recession – or even the idea of one for those sceptics out there – is the tipping point we needed to push many organisations from Government, corporates and SMEs alike into being more collaborative, innovative and receptive to new ideas. In a sense, we are all forced to innovate to survive. With this backdrop, it is easy to see why, in times of crisis, new ideas have a strong track record of flourishing. In fact, a company in Bristol recently suggested that it’s lower risk right now to start a business than get a ‘proper job’.

In any case, we welcome the surge in collaboration and the focus on innovation funding from the Government and corporates alike. Long may it continue for the sake of our growing number of brave entrepreneurs.

Nice Idea – Wrong Place

Published June 11, 2008 Investment / Funding 1 Comment
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A sports car is travelling fast down a quiet country lane, braking fast it stops alongside a farmer leaning on a 5-bar gate looking out over the fields.  “I’m lost”, says the driver, and goes on to ask directions to a local country house hotel.  The farmer thinks deeply before he replies – “I wouldn’t start from here if I were you”.

 

When I read about new technology investments in the magazines like Growing Business, www.growingbusiness.co.uk, I am often struck by the high proportion of deals that involve regional public sector funds such as Scottish Enterprise, www.scottishenterprise.com, or One North East, www.onenortheast.co.uk, is this because they have better technology start-ups there.  Of course not, its because innovation has become a regeneration issue. 

 

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for supporting new enterprise in regeneration areas, some of our own companies have moved to Wales to take advantage of cheap manufacturing space and employment incentives (that are not available in Sussex).  But to me it’s counter-intuitive to discriminate new technology ideas on where in the UK they come from.  And its not just investment funds, as far as I can see, proportionally more public money is made available for research & development and commercialisation funding for projects outside London and the southeast. 

 

How does this help the UK?  New technology ideas should be taken on their merits and funded where they are.  Support the company through its early stages and then you can offer incentives to encourage companies to move to regeneration areas (their decision). 

 

ENCOURAGE the NATION’S INNOVATION! !

Mike Herd, Sussex Innovation, www.sinc.co.uk