A practical workshop series for web companies and entrepreneurs
With the new year we bring a new round of the ever popular ‘Tech Business MiniMBA’. Working to the same format, it will be delivered in three core modules – Web Start Up Finance 101, Web Start Up Essentials and Web Start Up Innovation and Growth. Since we began offering these events in 2009 our programmes have gained a reputation for being one of London’s best resources for new businesses, helping attendees to gain a deeper understanding of what makes a web start up grow and how to avoid costly mistakes.
As usual, we’re employing a practical minded, no-nonsense approach to the design of the workshop series and will address common business issues in web and tech companies. To present the programme we draw on a pool of highly successful entrepreneurs, CTOs, investors, lawyers and accountants who are amongst the best in the UK’s web sector.
This workshop series will be free to attend thanks to the generous support of our sponsor the ICT Knowledge Transfer Network (ICT KTN). To read more about our presenters, topics or to register, follow the links below.
The Programme
1) Web Start Up Finance 101: this module opens with advice on how best to approach and pitch to investors to secure funds. We then move on to Intellectual Property protections around software development to future proof your start up. This is followed by legal basics and strategic approaches to termsheet negotiation. In addition we finish off this module with some essential accounting advice including; establishing the accounting basics of a business, using equity in lieu of wages and how to take advantage of R&D tax credits.
15th January: Fundraising for Start-ups
Presented by Matthew Stafford, co-founder of Collider12, 9Others and StudentUpstarts
6th March: IP Basics for Technology Businesses
Presented by Ciaran Hickey, Gurminder Panesar and David Deakin of Wiggin LLP
20th March: Term Sheet Negotiation Skills
Presented by James Paton-Philip and Thilo Schneider of Pinsent Masons LLP
2) Web Start Up Essentials: any business or start up that relies on the web to successfully deliver a product or service needs firstly to manage the building of a web product efficiently and minimize risk of failure. Secondly, they need to understand where their traffic is coming from, how to convert it into paying customers or even how to create and increase relevant traffic so our next module focuses on online marketing, SEO and web analytics. In addition the success of a web business relies on having a scalable software and hardware infrastructure. For this we will provide a workshop on Cloud Computing and Scalability as an introduction to what services exist and how to measure their reliability and cost effectiveness.
Date TBC: Effective Software Development Management
Presented by Peter Brownell of CodePositive.
[DETAILS OF ALL FURTHER SESSIONS OUTLINED BELOW TO BE CONFIRMED]
Effective Marketing with Social Media
Web Analytics
Search Engine Optimisation
Secrets of Scalable Software Architecture and Cloud Computing
3) Web Innovation and Growth: business and revenue models online need continuous adaptation and innovation. In particular start ups will often change their business model and revenue delivery radically to find their optimal customer reach. This module will focus on real case examples of how successful online businesses adapt and innovate.
Business Model Development for Web Start-Ups
Go Mobile – How to Use Apps to Grow Your Business
Each session will be 2.5-3 hours long, doors will open at 6pm for most events and presentations will begin at 6:30pm. It will include approximately 1-1.5 hours of presentations, plus 1 hour of open exchange sessions where presenters and participants can explore solutions through discussion. The workshops are conducted in a relaxed manner and so offer good opportunities for peer-learning and networking. To make attendance easier we are hosting the workshops in the evening. Drinks and snacks will be provided as we appreciated you will probably have been working hard all day.
