Business Launch Weekend

Christian van Megen reports on the first Business Launch Weekend.

The first ever Business Launch Weekend (BLW), organised as part of the Business School Enterprise Development Project on behalf of the Adams Smith Business School, took place at the Gilbert Scott Building from 1st-3rd February 2013. The initiative was supported by the University of Glasgow Undergraduate and Postgraduate Business Clubs from initial conceptualisation to delivery.

Boasting 38 participants from various disciplines, including Computing Science, Engineering, Economics, Management and Modern Languages, students were given the chance to take their existing business ideas and transform them into viable ventures over an intensive weekend of support and mentoring. The event started with students pitching their business plans and ideas to fellow participants and then forming interdisciplinary business teams around the strongest projects.

An expert array of 14 academics, alumni, entrepreneurs, IP-lawyers and enterprise development professionals then coached and mentored each group, providing inspirational talks and practical advice throughout the weekend. These included entrepreneurs Donnie MacLean from Eat Balanced and Philip Hannay from Cloch, entrepreneurial alumni Waqar Chatta and James Campbell, Professor Denis Fischbacher-Smith of the Adam Smith Business School and Fiona Godsman from the Scottish Institute for Enterprise. It was an intensive weekend for the students as they developed their ideas, conducted market research, identified target markets, formed brands, created business strategies, calculated start-up costs and developed business plans. Sleep was rare and during the final night the last group stopped working at 4am.

To conclude the weekend, students delivered 5-minute presentations to a panel of four judges, who critically evaluated their business ideas in terms of feasibility, chosen target markets, roll-out strategies and overall presentation, before grilling them on the financial detail of their plans. In recognition of the high quality of student business ideas, Entrepreneurial Spark, the Glasgow-based, start-up incubator, agreed to take the top three ventures in for further assessment and evaluation. If successful, the teams will be offered 5 months’ office space, equipment, and intensive mentoring to get their businesses off the ground. The atmosphere throughout the weekend was professional, collaborative and innovative and many excellent professional working relationships were formed between coaches and students.

Since the weekend, the vast majority of student teams are still working together to drive their ventures and two teams have recently applied to represent Scotland at the MIT Summer Accelerator in Boston, MA from June until September 2013.

The Adam Smith Business School is currently pursuing plans to integrate the Business Launch Weekend into its core University provision.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all speakers and mentors, our alumni, academics, entrepreneurs, external business partners and friends of the Adam Smith Business School, who gave up their weekends in order to be involved in Business Launch Weekend.

To find out more about the speakers and mentors, or if you feel you could support future events like this, please email Christian.vanMegen@Glasgow.ac.uk or follow this link: www.gla.ac.uk/colleges/socialsciences/info/students/employability/enterprise/blw/speakers/