powering entrepreneurship arthur meadows product manager venturenavigator

Powering Entrepreneurship

Arthur Meadows

Product ManagerVentureNavigator

VentureNavigator for Entrepreneurs

3principal features

Business Assessments

Online business evaluation engine Objective assessment of business or

venture

Plus 20 other assessments Investment Readiness

Licensing Potential

Management Skills

Legal Structure for Social Enterprises

.....

1

Targeted, impartial feedback

Business Assessments

Online business evaluation engine

Question

Feedback

1

Possible Answers

Business Resources

Relevant, practical business

resources

Sourced from UK Universities (and

others)

2

Community

Forum for SMEs / Entrepreneurs Post questions

Solve each others’ problems

Sell services to each other

Additional Advantages Forum for Networking

Permanent (searchable) record of advice and

signposting

3

Community

Forum of Entrepreneurs

3

VentureNavigator’s History

Origin

Consortium of UK Universities£4m grant from

Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF)

Assessments and Content sourced from Universities

and others

Launched in November 2007

to end users

12,000 users

Recent Stats

100k+ interventions

4,000 businesses

assessed2,000+ business creations

(estimated!)

Innovative use of VentureNavigator

in HEIs

VentureNavigator in HEIs

Student Enterprise Competition

Careers and Student Job Shop

Entrepreneurship Teaching

Others?


Business Plan Competitions


Competition Module Questionnaire with free text + multiple choice

answers


Advantage for Applicants Benefit from VN’s Assessments, Resources and

Community before making an application

Advantage for Organisers Complete Solution

Questions are entirely customizable

Brandable (for sponsorship)

Stats: Applications Completed / Started

Judging Sheets


Some Examples

Connect Goa

(India) Business

Plan Competition

John Logie Baird

Competition 2010


VentureNavigator Scotland


Scottish Parliament to Scottish Universities:

How can we innovate out of recession?

Universities are fountain of knowledge

(technical, business, etc)

“Demand side” problems of accessing this

knowledgeSolution:

Grass roots encouragement of

entrepreneurship

Signposting to SME Support in Scotland and

specifically within academia eg ‘Interface’


Scottish Business Assessment:

Advice and guidance

Signposting to additional resources in Scottish

Innovation and Business Support System


Scottish Business Resources:

Business Support organisations

Grants and Loan Schemes

University Resources........


VentureNavigator Nigeria


Entrepreneurship education in Nigeria

Collaborative project with UK

Universities and Nigerian Universities

funded by the British Council

Implementation

Separate community

Most of the existing assessments

50% of the Business Resources are “locale

agnostic”


Resources specifically created for

Nigerian entrepreneurs and SMEs

‘How To’ guides and Case Studies


Feedback from VN Launch on 24th

July in Maitama, Abuja, Nigeria:

Emeka Delvis Tochukwu of the Department of Psychology, University of Nigeria, Nsukka has this to say:

“If there is anything students need, it is VentureNavigator.

It provides an avenue to equip students to monitor,

control and manage their future in the right time and right

direction. It is revealing, educative and brings up the

dead side of anybody.”


Skills Training and Education at HEIs

Skills Training, Education at HEIs

Transferable Skills Assessment Identifies skills deficits

Signposts to resources (inc. instructor courses)

to helpPartnership

University of Essex

University Campus Suffolk

Learning and Enterprise Access Point Suffolk

Essex Development and Regeneration Agency

Colchester Borough Council

Funded by Economic Challenge Investment Fund

(ECIF)


VentureNavigator for specific sectors

VentureNavigator for CleanTech

Interest in providing a portal for

CleanTech in Switzerland Clean Tech Assessment(s)

Clean Tech Resources

Clean Tech community for emerging cluster

New Game in town??

Local Enterprise Partnerships

Local Enterprise Partnerships

HEIs ‘have a seat at the LEP table’ VentureNavigator is participating:

Online platform for Business Support

Local Community for SMEs

However..... No top down strategy / formula for LEPs

Awaiting Dept of BIS decisions.......

Summary

Summary

VentureNavigator provides a

venture support platform Business evaluation engine

objective, benchmarked evaluation signposting to resources to improve

business Resources for business

Community for SMEs to help themselves

portal for communicating with SMEs and

Enterpreneurs

VentureNavigator

Arthur Meadows

Product Manager

Appendix

VentureNavigator for Local Communities

Your Community Forum

Landing Page

Customisable Community Home Page

Your Community Forum

Users can ask questions to

community members ... and to the whole VentureNavigator

community

Questions to / from

Community

News and Event Management

Community Leaders can announce

News and Events to members

Community Messages

Community Broadcast Messages

<h2>Social Media Can Save Councils Money, Says First Specialist Officer</h2><p>The first local authority worker employed to handle and shape a local authority’s social media output has been appointed by Brighton and Hove Council. </p><p>As the council’s social media officer, Jane Postlethwaite’s responsibilities include creating strategies to develop its use of sites like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and

Community Reporting

Query Membership Statistics

Bells and Whistles

Seeding your Community using

existing Contact Lists

Best Practise in Community

Management Consultancy

Business Plan Competition

Functionality

Widgets that can be embedded on

your Authority web pages

Pricing

Setup, configuration and training

Annual Licence - dependent on

working head of population

Optional extras / bolt-ons

Summary

Improves the chance of

success for local businesses

Gives the Authority a

communication platform in the

community

Provides information about early stage and SMB businesses

Improves the effectiveness of Local Business

Support

Appendix

Member Upload

When you start

your community,

we can pre-load

it with your

existing

contacts.

Just supply us

with a

spreadsheet of

names and

email addresses

of your contacts

and we will

invite them to

join your online

community.

Competitions

Our Competition

feature enables

you to set up

sophisticated

business plan

competitions

quickly and

efficiently.

Community Management Training

You need to

manage your

community to get

the best results.

To help get you

started we offer a

half-day training

workshop.

This is a non-

technical session

that covers

community

planning and

management,

and social media

marketing.

Invitation to Trial

Join the ‘Community of Community

Managers’ Use VentureNavigator as your community

members will experience VentureNavigator.

Network with other business community

leaders - ask questions, share best practise,

leverage this community of power users!

powering entrepreneurship arthur meadows product manager venturenavigator

Documents

heis slide

business support system

interface slide

business creations

practical business resources

impartial feedback slide

locale agnostic slide

scottish universities