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

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.

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!

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

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

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 

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