3-Day Startup (3DS) – apply now!

Have you ever had an idea you would have liked to turn into a project or even a full business?

Would like learn the skills required to do just that? If so, the qEnterprise team have a fantastic opportunity for you.

3DS is a free startup bootcamp running from 10^th – 12^th November. 50 QMUL students will come together to take initial ideas and intensively develop them into viable businesses, all in the space of three days. It will be high-energy, fun, practical, unconventional and extremely educational.

3DS is a superb opportunity to learn the essential skills required to launch businesses and other projects (or to impress employers), be involved in founding a startup yourself and to meet smart, engaged students with similar interests as future friends and collaborators. It doesn’t matter which subject you study or what experience you’ve had: we believe the skills required to get projects and businesses off the ground – idea generation, user research, prototyping, project management, marketing, presenting, commercial awareness – can be applied to all jobs and walks of life. Accordingly, 3DS is open to everybody receiving this email (yes you).

For a taste of what the weekend is like, and as evidence that 3DS is for everybody, check out our video from last year:

Applications are now open! To apply, and for more information, head to the website here: http://queenmary.3daystartup.org/.

We look forward to seeing you there,

The qEnterprise Team

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Enterprise: Who we are

Are you interested in starting your own business, developing an existing idea or networking with other aspiring and established entrepreneurs?

Do you want to develop your employability skills?

The Enterprise team can help you achieve these goals whether you want to start a business or learn more about the process itself. If you have a creative idea or an existing business that you want to expand, we can provide you with the funding, mentoring and skills that you need to succeed.

We provide seed funding, an incubator programme, mentoring, enterprise boot camps, specialist workshops, free stalls at markets both on and off campus, pitching events and talks from local entrepreneurs. To sign up to any of our events, see our events calendar.

InQUBEate is Queen Mary’s 8 week start-up incubator programme, which has places for students to join in Semesters 1 and 2.  During the programme you will have weekly meetings with mentors from a range of industries, receive training on a range of topics including marketing and legal issues, meet like-minded students to share your ideas with, and pitch for funding to a panel of judges.

Want some free money to develop a business idea? Deadline this Sunday!

Not sure what to do with your summer?

Why not use some free money to develop a business idea?

Take a look at our different awards below and note the deadline for submission will be the 18^th June at midnight. You can find details on how to apply here, but if you have any immediate questions, please contact Natasha on n.triay@qmul.ac.uk.

If you are successful, you would be automatically given a place on InQUBEate, our incubator programme that begins in October.  However, we are in the office all summer and can support you develop your business over the next few months.

We look forward to hearing from you!

‘Try It’ Prizes
Win funds of up to £500 to get your social enterprise or business idea off the ground. To win a Try It prize, you don’t need to have a business plan, just a problem you want to solve and some idea how you might do it. You might want to test a solution to a problem you see around you on campus or in the community. Or it might be you want to test out a business idea.

‘Grow It’ Prizes
 
Win funds of up to £5000 to develop your existing profit-making or social enterprise. To win a Grow It prize, your enterprise doesn’t have to be profitable yet, but you need to show a clear pathway to profitability. We’ll also ask you to outline exactly how this money would help you to take your enterprise to the next stage.

‘Build It’ Prizes

Win funds up to £10,000 to build a new product – an app, a website or a physical prototype – all you need to do is show your idea has commercial potential.

East London Social Hack

This weekend 50 students from QMUL took part in the ‘East London Social Hack’, an intensive enterprise bootcamp that tasks participants to set up social enterprises in just 3 days to address key issues in their local community.

The first ‘East London Social Hack’ took place in March 2016 and, due to its popularity, the event was expanded this year with the support of an £18,500 grant from the UPP Foundation. This allowed the bootcamp to be increased from 2 to 3 days, and enabled the winning teams to receive a package of workspace and mentoring for 3 months in co-work space Launch 22, along with £500 of funding to market test their ideas.  

The grant also enabled the university to assemble an impressive line-up of 16 local social entrepreneurs who helped students to develop and validate their ideas over the weekend, including Junior Ogunyemi, a QMUL economics graduate and author of ‘How to be a Student Entrepreneur’, Katherine Hibbert, founder of hugely successful property social enterprise DotDotDot, Junior Smart, founder of SOS Gangs Projects, and Alexis Olapido, founder of Gym Bites.

On day 1, students discussed social issues that they were passionate about and formed teams based on their values, culminating with their first pitch of the weekend. They heard from Katherine, who set up DotDotDot Property in Tower Hamlets to link empty property with renters who were willing to volunteer in their local community in return for cheap rent. The company now turns over £1milllion a year and has expanded across London.

Student Enterprise Blog: Ammarah Javid

History graduate Ammarah Javid

I took part in 3DS in 2015 and it was such an exciting learning opportunity for me. I learnt so much in the space of a few days and built long lasting relationships with the mentors who were genuinely interested in helping us grow our ideas. Essentially, it gave me the confidence to start a project I am working on now, one and a half years later. Starting a business always seemed so difficult and complicated to me but the incubator session proved that team work and strategy planning were all the ingredients you needed to execute and bring to life your business idea.

Using these skills, my Co-Founder Abdul Shakur and I have planned our first event on the 8th February which has also been sponsored by NatWest, within a few weeks of coming up with the initiative. Our project is called London Diverse Professionals (LDP) and the aim is to tackle the diversity issues in various industries by creating greater interaction between professionals and minorities, women and those from less privileged backgrounds. We hope that we can help students build their networks before entering the workplace as opposed to after beginning their careers.

I have a lot of faith in the underlying objective and I look forward to embarking upon my own journey of challenges. Incubators like 3DS are great because they create so much more than 3 days of activity. They instil confidence, spark interest and ignite potential within students that lead to future lightbulb moments which may well be life changing for themselves, let alone anyone else. 3DS was definitely my wake-up call and I recommend it to anyone that wants to either start their own business, develop their skills, or simply want to unleash their entrepreneurial drive and spirit!

Event Link: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/diversity-networking-evening-sponsored-by-natwest-tickets-31240861257.

InQUBEate Final Pitches

On Tuesday night we held the final pitches of our 8 week incubator programme. Over the past 8 weeks, 13 businesses have explored topics such as customer validation, market research and pitching, as well as having weekly support from mentors that have backgrounds in different industries such as advertising, Fin Tech and the charity sector.  The students pitched to a panel of judges and an audience of almost 50.

The judging panel consisted of 2 representatives from JA Kemp law firm (image below) who were providing £1,000 of legal advice for the winning business.  Another judge was Adam Goddall, a tech entrepreneur, product specialist and start-up mentor. Adam co-founded Monizo, the world’s first bank account for freelancers. Our fourth judge was Hannah Jackson who manages Expert Impact, a charity that supports established social entrepreneurs who are in growth stage by matching them with expert mentors. Prior to this she was at The Princes Trust running their enterprise programme in North London, supporting young, unemployed people to start and launch their own business.

There were 4 prizes up for grabs.  The winner of Best Pitch was ‘Scenicly’, a next generation navigation app which takes you on a personalised journey instead of the standard A to B. Best Progress went to social enterprise ‘Just Like Mama’s’ which is an app that will allow unemployed women in the Tower Hamlets area to cook home cooked meals for University students. Best Idea went to ‘Sweeter Than Pi’ which uses relevant and colourful social media posts to encourage young girls to engage with Maths and move towards STEM based careers.

Our overall winner was ‘SickCover’, an app that allows supply teachers to book cover in high schools. This received £1,000 of free legal advice from JA Kemp and this will be tailored to their business following an initial meeting. Other business ideas included a robotic device that aids the rehabilitation process for stroke victims, a cycling safety device and a vintage fashion brand.

Next Award Funding/InQUBEate Deadline: 16th December

InQUBEate is our 8 week mentoring and training programme that supports student entrepreneurs. Participants have weekly group and 1-1 mentoring workshops, receive seed funding, supplemented by training sessions covering all aspects of running a successful start-up business, including marketing, pitching, and business planning. If you are successful in receiving an award, you will automatically secure a place on our InQUBEate programme which will begin at the end of January.

Our Award breakdowns are as follows:

‘Try It’ Prizes
Win funds of up to £500 to get your social enterprise or business idea off the ground. To win a Try It prize, you don’t need to have a business plan, just a problem you want to solve and some idea how you might do it. You might want to test a solution to a problem you see around you on campus or in the community. Or it might be you want to test out a business idea.

‘Grow It’ Prizes
 
Win funds of up to £5000 to develop your existing profit-making or social enterprise. To win a Grow It prize, your enterprise doesn’t have to be profitable yet, but you need to show a clear pathway to profitability. We’ll also ask you to outline exactly how this money would help you to take your enterprise to the next stage.

‘Build It’ Prize
If you have an idea that you can’t test before you’ve developed a prototype, you can apply for up to £10,000 to develop one (e.g. an app, website, or physical prototype). To win a Build It prize you need to undertake significant market research to show that your product has commercial potential and offers an innovative solution to a market need. 

For feedback on your idea please book an enterprise appointment by calling 020 7882 8533 and click on the following link for more information and applications: 

http://www.careers.qmul.ac.uk/students/enterprise/Funding/