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Crucible Business Start-up

Now's the time to make your business idea a reality

Crucible - developing your own business

A crucible is a situation in which different elements interact, leading to the creation of something new and that’s exactly what we’re offering you as a person with the idea for a new business.

Crucible is De Montfort University’s flagship business start-up programme which is now in its sixth year. In that time, the programme has supported more than 80 businesses from a variety of sectors so it has a track record of helping to launch successful start-ups.

Now DMU is working with the Business Gateway to offer you this unique programme of support.

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How will we help you?

The key to business success is you

Our key strength is helping you as an individual to develop your confidence and belief in yourself. Of course, we provide the right support and business advice to help you build firm foundations for your business idea, but the real difference we make is in you yourself. That’s what our students have told us over the years and they are now successful independent business people, running their own companies.

You will receive expert teaching in key areas of business – finance, marketing, business law and so on – and you can use any of our state of the art equipment and facilities to design and prototype your ideas. But it’s the investment we make in you as a person that will make the most difference and enable you to take that step into launching and running your own business.

Five months of outstanding support

Over the next five months we have a series of practical workshops for you, if you’re keen to develop a business idea and business or if you’ve already set up your businesses and need further support in key areas.

The session will run over Thursdays and Fridays consecutively and there will only be one subject at a time. This will give you the space and time to think about what you are learning and how to apply it to your individual businesses.

One to one specialist mentoring

The programme offers you one-to-one time with each of our specialists to help translate the information you’ve learnt into your own business practice, through mentoring and advice sessions.

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What will we cover?

Network Building

How to get the best out of networking and building relationships

Marketing and social media

Understanding how marketing works and the effect it has on your business Building a robust marketing schedule / plan How to get the best out of social media

Branding - corporate verses personal

How to raise my personal brand to help influence my business branding

Content copywriting / story telling

How to tell your story while staying true to your brand

Growth management

Identifying opportunities for business growth, building a robust action plan, and identifying key partners/ stakeholders to help deliver the objectives

Funding – Venture Capital investment

The complexities of working with, managing, and maintaining these vital relationships

Intellectual Property and legal

An in-depth look at IP and contracting and how it will impact your business

Resilience

How to build confidence and foster resilience in an ever-changing market

Finances

A key understanding of all aspects of Cashflow, TAX, VAT and grant funding

Who will be teaching and mentoring your?

We're delighted to be working with a team at DMU on this project and they have recruited an impressive group of professionals to lead each session.

Jenny Cross:

Cross Productions

The foundations of marketing

24-25 Feb

You can expect to leave this session with an understanding of what marketing is and what it isn’t.

You will go through the foundations of marketing as well as understanding your audience and market segmentation. You will develop a marketing strategy that you will be able to implement for your business growth.

TBC

Law – Intellectual Property protecting your assets:

10-11 March

Intellectual property rights are foundational to your business.

Understanding how they work to protect your key business assets will help you plan for growth and prioritise expenditure.

This session will look at how to identify what rights there are

(copyright, trademarks, design rights, patents), who owns them, and how to protect them – using contracts, registrations, and active management.

We will discuss how far you can protect yourself, and when you should call in the professionals.

Practical exercises will help you build a dashboard for your business and articulate a long-term IP strategy.

black and white photo of a white woman with long blonde hair in a black jumper

Gillian Heggs

Copywriting, making the right impression:

24-25 March

Your products or services, your brand strengths…they all deserve showing off in their best light. Powerful copy can open the door to more success and better customer relationships. So, what could you do (and not do) to create hard-working words for your business? In this two-day training module, we’ll look at honing your messaging, writing for your target markets, standing out, crafting headlines, driving action, storytelling and much more.

A young man with black hair and a bear, wears a black tshirt

Thomas McQuade

Finance Matters

7-8 April

During this section of the course, you will receive an introduction to the world of business accounting and finance.

We will start off with the basics of what your business needs to be compliant with, the various bodies that require reporting, and how you can do this in an efficient way.

We will then move onto the financial management techniques that will help your business grow, such as budgeting and forecasting.

Finance tends to be a back-office function that is difficult to scale – we will therefore cover how to structure your Finance team in a scalable manner.

Finally, we will delve into the world of business financing. This section will provide an overview of how investment and lending impact your business, as well as how to get your business investor-ready.

Abigail Hall:

Abigail Hall Design

Business and change management:

28-29 April

In a dynamic business world, change is inevitable and to be static is to be stagnant. This module covers both how to identify new opportunities and how to manage that change while retaining your unique company characteristics.

A young white bearded man in a black coat

Cristian Zuzunaga

From Branding to Funding: 26-27 May

As a designer and CEO of a small company, I have learned to collaborate effectively. I can also communicate my ideas clearly and effectively with the many different components of the

creative process and manufacturing supply chain including PR, wholesale clients, exhibitors and other heads of design in collaborative projects.

In this workshop, firstly you will be able to understand the importance of personal branding against corporate branding and how the first forms and supports the second.

Second, you will gain knowledge of the fundamentals behind dos and don’ts.

Third, you will be developing a checklist in order to understand step by step the process that will enable you to work with a brand strategy and how to implement it.

From that you will have some initial ideas on how to attract funding to develop the company to the next stage.

a white woman, long blonde hair in a black blouse.

Alison Machin

Business Growth Management:

14-15 June

This practical workshop will review your progress to date and consider where the gaps are to achieve your vision.

It will encourage you to test the feasibility of your idea with a view of scaling and explore how this can be achieved.

We will discuss the importance of goal setting and will help you design an Action Plan to prioritise activities for your business growth.

Crucible Business Start-up

Crucible - developing your own business

How will we help you?