Helix Hub Impact Accelerator

Introduction

Queen's University Belfast is renowned for its strengths in entrepreneurship and innovation, ranking 1st in the UK as the most entrepreneurial university in 2019 and 2020 (Octopus Ventures Impact Rankings). The ranking measures UK universities' effectiveness in terms of their production of intellectual property, creation of spinout ventures, and successful exits from such spinout companies, relative to their total funding. Our long tradition of entrepreneurship and success in commercialising research through spin-out companies has secured £155m in capital investment into the region and has resulted in the creation of many of UK;s top tech companies including LSE listed companies Kainos Group Plc, valued at over £2.0bn.

This success, in part, is due to its strategic engagement in 'customer discovery' focused entrepreneurship activities. These programmes have helped accelerate the efficient and effective translation of ideas into commercial and societal impact. This is because they are focused on establishing 'product-market-fit' in the innovation process, addressing the fact that over 42% of early stage ventures identify "the lack of a market need for their product". Absence of this market fit is the single biggest reason for startup venture failure. From a single cohort of 10 teams in 2015, Queen's now leads the online delivery of high-impact innovation training programmes across the island of Ireland, UK and Europe supporting up to 500 participants per year.

Overall Approach

The approach builds on extensive experience in commercialisation of early stage ideas and innovations -

 - Innovation to Commercialisation of University Research (ICURe) to help strengthen research commercialisation throughout all UK Universities. (Funding source: Innovate-UK; annual budget £12m since 2018; URL: https://www.nxnwpartners.org/))

- Lean Launch Programme (LLP) uses a lean start-up methodology, taking the scientific method (hypothesise, test, evaluate) and applying it to embryonic business ideas to test what potential customers think about an idea, product or service. Funding source: Innovate UK; annual budget; £500k since 2016, URL: https://www.nxnwpartners.org/our-programmes/lean-launch-programme/))

- DigiSpark (AI/Cyber/Digital) Accelerator (2021) (in collaboration with Ulster University, InvestNI, Innovate-UK and Techstart Ventures)- The programme aims to boost business productivity using digital technologies by supporting ideas that can have an impact in areas including health sciences, agri-food and climate change. (Funding Source: Innovate UK/ Techstart Ventures; Budget £160K; URL: . https://helixhub.crowdicity.com/

- Scaling the Edge (SMEs) (2021) (support for business innovation): An Intrapreneurship development programme for SMEs. Funding source: Innovate UK; Budget £350k (to increase to £4M in 2022); URL: https://www.qub.ac.uk/Business/Support-for-business/Innovation-smes/.

Our programmes are supported by the delivery team at Helix Hub who have specific expertise and experience in delivering training and coaching on lean start-up approaches using the full range of Strategyzer tools and techniques. Four of these consultants and the Lean Programme Manager have completed a 2-day Master Class in with the founder of Strategyzer, Alexander Osterwalder. This Master Class focused on using the Value Proposition Canvas to create clearly defined value propositions and the Business Model Canvas to generate successful and sustainable business models. It also introduced new tools to help test the hypotheses that underpin the Business Model Canvas which improves upon previous lean methodologies for the validation of business model assumptions in real market conditions.

Proposal

We propose to design and deliver a focused virtual training programme around the cardano eco-system to develop a sustained pipeline of innovative technologies that have the potential to make a positive impact within the cardano community. Based on our experience with ICURe and delivering similar online programmes as described above, we propose to deliver a pilot cohort of up to 12 teams. This allows for practical engagement, peer learning and interaction between the participants and the trainers/coaches resulting in much better understanding and embedding of the key concepts. The programme will be delivered over a two month period in late 2021.

The programme will be divided into the following 6 key tasks:

- Project Catalyst entrepreneurs onboarding (2 hour kick-off session approximately 1 week before the Bootcamp);

- Initial Training Bootcamp (carried out over 2 consecutive days);

- Market Discovery Phase (carried out by participants over a period of 8 weeks with weekly mentoring calls);

- Pre Pitch Training session (2 hour session)

- Practice Pitch Session (half day session);

- Final Pitch Event (full day event).

The bootcamp will be delivered by two Helix Hub trainers with expertise and experience in training 100's of participants on Lean start-up methodologies. The two trainers will be supported by up to 6 coaches with experience including Cryto currencies, blockchain and FinTech. This arrangement provides sufficient time for one-to-one coaching during the training days between the delivery team and participants. The training programme will be delivered remotely using Zoom/Teams alongside a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). Queen's and Helix Hub have been using this online delivery model with over 250 teams since March 2020 in other similar accelerator programmes 

The Opportunity

An focused programme built around the cardano community will provide training & support and a dedicated commercialisation intervention to help drive:

- Increase skills and awareness within Project Catalyst entrepreneurs

- Increased access to downstream funding and investment within the cardano ecosystem

- Increased engagement with global businesses to support new partnerships beyond the immediate community

- Out-Licensing opportunities

- Formation of new early stage cardano focused ventures

We anticipate the proposed programme to offer the following impacts:

- Developing support tools and an online curriculum for aspiring Project Catalyst entrepreneurs

- Early stage validation (go/no-go indicators) using data driven decision making of technologies that have potential commercial application in the crypto sector

- Develop world class solutions to global challenges that fosters sustainable growth, creates high quality jobs and improves the outcomes of citizens.

- Transforming young entrepreneurs and creating professionals able to tackle disruptive grand challenges based around cardano ecosystem 

Training Course Principles

We have a simple principle when designing and delivering our programmes which is that participants 'learn by doing'. This means we design our courses with the minimum amount of 'classroom' styled content and focus on allowing the participants to engage in discussions, case study exercises and Q&A sessions. This means that participants will spend much of their time actually building their own Value Proposition, Business Model Canvas models and Action Plans with hands-on support from our expert team of trainers and coaches. Each team is also assigned a Business Advisor who will support the teams throughout the entire process.

The proposed training programme will follow the principles of:

- Peer cohort learning;

- Short bursts of taught content;

- Exercises and examples which build up learning in stages;

- Acquiring knowledge through experiential learning.

Strategyzer Toolkit

We propose to use the Strategyzer toolkit to train students on the principles, methodologies and implementation of Lean-Start-up approaches.

The key techniques that will be covered during the training course include:

- Verbal Business Card – this helps students articulate their idea in a succinct and understandable way during the market discovery phase;

- The Value Proposition Canvas – this explains how businesses can create value for their customers and helps to design products and services that customers want;

- The Business Model Canvas – this is a strategic management and entrepreneurial tool that allows businesses to describe, design, challenge and pivot their business model;

- Testing Business Ideas – this will explain how to use the 'Test Card' and run experiments to test 'hypotheses' as a systematic process to validate new business ideas from discovery to validation in real market conditions. It pairs with the Business Model and Value Proposition Canvases and de-risks the process.

The Business Model Canvas offers a holistic view which facilitates better conversations with business stakeholders. Combining the Value Proposition Canvas with the Business Model Canvas and using testing cards offers a more complete approach for commercialisation of new research ideas.