If you've got a great idea, we're here to help you make the most of it!
In mid 2007 Greig Holbrook, Managing Director of Oban Multilingual, knew he had a huge opportunity with his expertise in Multilingual search engine optimisation but was struggling to take full advantage. Based at the Sussex Innovation Centre (SInC) he decided to use a new SInC product, Superincubation, to help him structure and focus intensively on the growth of his business. In this podcast Greig gives his frank feedback on the process and how it worked for Oban.
‘I know, lets start a business, we’re all good mates – we don’t need a lawyer’.
So went one company I worked with recently, they created a great new company as four friends and to cement their egalitarian business philosophy set-up a shareholders agreement which required unanimous agreement between them for all major decisions.
So who wants to involve a lawyer in these matters, its not the money, they are just so depressing, all they do is make-up what-if-bad-things-happen scenarios and nothing bad will ever happen to us!
I’ve worked with groups of mates, husband & wife teams, brothers & sisters, extended families – the one common factor, they’re people and people fall out, get incapacitated or just have different outlooks or future plans. It is always worth recognising that company shareholders, directors and management have different roles and that having some basic contingency plans will make life simpler if things get sticky.
As it is we have a good company caught in legal limbo while ex-friends expend too much energy hurting each-other – and the lawyers still get paid.
Starting a business – get a lawyer– keep a friend!
One of the frustrations of helping new businesses start-ups is the amount of poor marketing advice that is doled out, usually by marketing consultants as a means of getting a company with little funds to splash out on a glossy brochure or a flier. There is nothing wrong with good marketing collateral, and indeed it should be a key part of brand and profile building, but not without a marketing strategy, a sales model and a good understanding of what you are trying to achieve and how.
So how delighted was I to receive through the post (I must have ticked a box somewhere) a Business Link book offering an Easy Step-by-Step Guide to Marketing. Not only that, the book had a bright yellow additional cover emblazoned with my own personalised title – ‘Mike Herd’s book on Marketing to Win More Business’. Stunning, if it had been a book on how to sell pointless marketing material to Business Link, I would have been impressed, but as example of how to use marketing to win more business it bombed.
Should you judge book by its cover? Hope not!
Mike Herd
Sussex Innovation Centre – November 2008
One of the frustrations of working with new product and technology entrepreneurs is that they can have a very blinkered idea of their markets. Often their business idea comes from solving a problem in the market where they have experience. This is perfectly reasonable, but can be very limiting.
A good example is a SInC company that developed on-body motion-capture technology. The product is superb and takes away many of the limitations of doing mocap for film, TV and games animation within a “light studio”, therefore quite reasonably they focused on the media markets. What they soon learned (mainly from their customers) was that their technology had enabled whole new mocap markets in industrial design and ergonomics, sports medicine and biomechanics research. Each of these new markets is potentially bigger than their initial primary market.
So a key aspect for new technology entrepreneurs is to keep an open mind to potential markets and to finds ways to promote the innovation far more widely, you may find customers where you never expected. This is one way that a good incubator can help as they can access their networks to canvas market feedback for new products.
As we enter an economic downturn, it becomes even more important how companies present and market their products and services. Now, it’s not just about being flexible in targeting your markets, what about re-aligning the benefits of your product to the changing concerns of your customers. Last year they may have wanted quicker now they want more efficient, companies are less concerned with carbon footprints and more with saving fuel. It’s important to re-assess the features of your products and make sure they best suit to your customers ‘perceived’ needs. As the marketeers would say – “where’s the customers’ pain”, well check it hasn’t moved!
Mike Herd, Sussex Innovation Centre, July 2008
On Thursday I was up at the House of Commons to attended a workshop run by the National Business Awards entitled “Innovation, Evolution or Revolution”. http://www.antara.co.id/en/arc/2008/6/12/uk-plc-must-invest-more-in-r&d-to-compete-worldwide-report/. I really enjoy visiting Westminster Palace and keep telling myself that I must make the time to take the family on the tour of parliament. The event itself was hosted by Andy Love MP, Chair for All-party Parliamentary Group for Small Business. It was well staged with a nice mix of panellists (including Lord Karan Bilimoria, Founder and Chairman Cobra Beer Ltd, and Martin Lyne, Marketing Director of Small and Medium Enterprise Orange), and there were certainly no punches spared in a fairly damming assessment of innovation in the UK.
A few years ago at SInC, www.sinc.co.uk, we made the decision that even within a technology incubator environment where investment is often seen as the key driver, for most companies trying to find a customer was a much more productive first step than searching for an investor. We therefore changed the focus of our activity from finance, business plans, investment pitches and business angels to sales, marketing, product presentations and customer networks. This change has been instrumental in maintaining such a high success rate in building sustainable businesses. It also helps to reduce the time to market for many new products and technologies. We have been pleasantly surprised by the positive reaction of large corporates to provide constructive input and customer mentoring to our companies.
Customers really are the hands that feed you.
Mike Herd, Sussex Innovation – June 16th 2008
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
Sussex Innovation Centre News