For this series of entries, I will be explaining the steps I take in developing my startup during my placement year at the Northumbria Business Startup Hatchery. Hopefully, these monthly report-style blogs can be useful to someone in a similar position, who is looking to get started with developing their business idea.
ACTIVITIES UNDERTAKEN FOR March 2017
- Attended the VRTGO hosted VR Workshop with Jason Lovell (CaptivateVR), where he demystified the use of VR and AR as well as covering some of the best strategies and advice he knows for building a successful VR company.
- Attended multiple, start-up oriented Grow Your Business sessions ran by the university’s Student & Graduate Enterprise, covering topics such as;
- Key pitfalls that can kill a start-up
- Investor readiness and business planning
- Seed investment and what you need to do
- Brands and brand protection
- How to increase revenue from existing clients
- Created storyboards and communicated my ideas in meetings with Northumbria University‘s VRV department, where we discussed their clients’ needs for a creative media piece.
- Refined and presented those storyboards to the client, Sunderland Council, in a meeting between them and their contractors, which opened up further avenues to explore in their product.
- Hosted a further meeting with the councils Urban Design Team Leader, Idris Balarabe, to discuss the key communications each part of the project must address, helping me solidify the overall story that needs to be told.
- Gateshead College provided an opportunity to trial one of my services, giving feedback to students on their VR assignments, allowing me to test the viability and structure of my methods.
- Made different arrangements and content for the VR seminar and workshop sessions at the TyneMet College work experience week, including:
- Booking a room and equipment from the university to be able to host the event on the premises, as the college did not have PC’s that meet the minimum spec of the software I planned to use.
- Working on producing content in the form of custom presentations, activities and software assets for use in the seminar and workshop.
- Practising my delivery of the activities with a test group of similar skill to the target audience.
- Rescheduled with the college when they encountered unforeseen problems in their students attending the event as planned.
- Looking at my long-term aspirations I went back to the business model canvas to re-evaluate my customer segments, problem statement and value proposition – leading me to pivot towards a different concept and revenue model.