Business Bootcamp boost for Yorkshire’s future entrepreneurs
Friday, 25th June 2010
Twenty-nine student and graduate entrepreneurs from across Yorkshire’s 11 universities are to undergo an intensive 4-day business boot camp this week (28 June – 01 July) to learn the practicalities and pitfalls of starting and running a business.
Now in its third year, the Yorkshire Graduate Entrepreneurs Bootcamp not only provides legal, financial and start-up advice but brings in graduates who have set up successful companies in the region to present a real-life business problem to those taking part. Students have a chance to ask probing questions to get to the bottom of the problem, then work in groups to develop a solution.
Joining the Bootcamp to give the students their thorny problems to tackle are Xing, a smoothie company set up by University of Hull graduates which runs healthy food roadshows for schools and colleges, and Plus Minus Design, a product design company set up by three University of Leeds graduates with a focus on sustainability and reducing environmental impacts.
Plus Minus Design’s Adam Robinson says he has no doubt that the Bootcamp experience will be hugely beneficial to the fledgling entrepreneurs. “Last year when I attended Bootcamp, our company was just at the ideas stage and we’d been struggling to translate our ideas into a business plan and an operating business. Bootcamp really gave us a kickstart – it gave us the inspiration we needed and also a structure of how turn our idea into a real functioning business. Now we’re in city centre premises, have a growing client base including several international blue chips andare developing our own world-changing products for release.”
Sessions will also be provided by marketing experts, solicitors, HMRC, the Chamber of Commerce and Business Link. The Bootcamp will round off with a Dragon’s Den-style pitch process, with all those attending voting on which business idea to back.
The Bootcamp, held at BishopBurtonCollege in Beverley, is organised by the Graduate Entrepreneurship Project. Project manager Susan McColl sees it as particularly important in the current economic climate.
“Two of the main driving forces that are seen as critical to pulling us out of the recession are the university sector and new business start-ups,” she says. “This project brings both of these elements together, equipping bright, enthusiastic young university students and graduates to go and start new companies that could become regional – and national - success stories. In the past year alone, we’ve assisted 91 new businesses to get off the ground, which has created 92 local jobs.
“But even if students decide after the Bootcamp that running their own business perhaps isn’t for them, they’ve still gained useful business knowledge and skills that will be valuable to any future employer.”
Bootcamp 2010 attendees:
Case study: Mark Fairbairn (Leeds Metropolitan University)
Case study: Elizabeth Nassem (University of Huddersfield)
Case study: Benjamin Ziapour (Leeds College of Music)
Case study: Chris Kenworthy (University of Leeds)
Case study: Samantha Logan (Sheffield Hallam University)
