How tapping into Gateshead's innovation ecosystem can help tackle your business challenges
Taking your first steps towards your start up business journey can be exciting. But it doesn't come without its challenges.
Many new founders find it tricky to know how to take their innovative ideas and turn them into fully fledged businesses. There can be several barriers' founders come up against, including accessing finance, understanding specific business practices and language, and finding the right market.
However, you are not alone. In the North East there were 7,250 new businesses formed in the North East LEP area in 2022 (Our Economy 2023 Evidence Hub), many of which have taken on the challenges you might be facing.
Innovation SuperNetwork has proudly supported over 1,700 businesses in bringing their ideas to life. Andrew Hodgson, Senior Innovation Manager at Innovation SuperNetwork works with businesses to help them innovate and grow across the region, providing detailed support and guidance to help them take on their current challenges.
We spoke to him about the importance of an investment ecosystem and how Innovation SuperNetwork is supporting businesses in the North East to tackling the challenges faced when innovating.
Barriers to innovation
There's a notion in business called the 'innovation valley of death'. This is when a business needs funding for development, but the investment opportunity isn't de-risked enough to gain external investment. Sometimes this is down to barriers faced by people from minority groups or certain geographic and economic backgrounds, and sadly these barriers are very real for businesses in the North East.
This is partly because of the social economic make-up of the region. You don't find many successful working-class people raising funds and they're often too afraid to go with their idea and grow it. It's quite scary sitting down with investors and asking them for money when you feel as though you don't belong in that space.
One of the reasons I wanted to get involved with Innovation SuperNetwork was that, as I was going through this process of developing a business, developing a product and looking for external funding, I realised how tough this is in the North East. Through my work now I get the chance to help people overcome the pitfalls that I experienced.
Understanding business founders
As a founder myself, I recognise the limited amount of time founders have to accomplish the many tasks larger businesses might have several people working on. This includes business development and strategy, securing finance and IP and exploring new innovative avenues, which is a big task to be done as a solo trader, or as a small team.
This is where business support and guidance are crucial to success. By having a group of experts and peers to ask questions to, seek advice from and network with, founders have a much better chance of reaching their goals, and most importantly, not feeling excluded from the world of business because of the potential barriers they might face. Having worked with countless businesses, helping them access finance and innovation support, I've seen how this network can be the stepping stones a new founder needs to make an impact.
Developing a strong ecosystem in the North East
By establishing a strong and diverse regional ecosystem, we can help to minimise the amount of time founders spend on finding innovation and financial support and make it easier for them to overcome some of the geographic and economic barriers they face because they're based in the North East.
Strong financial ecosystems also help invigorate people who might want to be investors. Trying to empower people in the region, whether it's investees or investors, helps to strengthen the ecosystem. If you're pitching for investment from a group of people that you recognise as being 'like' yourself, it instantly negates that feeling of imposter syndrome and helps to build confidence in regional founders.
Tips for start-up businesses
Engage with your end customer as early as possible. The sooner you talk to them, the sooner you can understand how your product or service will be received and this should give you confidence to go to investors and say, 'I know this product will be a success, the market loves the idea.'
Getting out there and talking about yourself and what you do is also important. Attend networking events, break into communities who don't look and sound like you. You might meet the right investor, or the right person who has what you need to take the next steps, whether that's knowledge or finance. That person will remember you as that interesting individual who they had a good chat with a couple of months ago, so they'll be more receptive to start up a conversation and lend you a hand.
The biggest thing is realizing that you are not alone on this journey and there are people who want to help.
Pathways to Innovation
Open to businesses and social enterprises based in Gateshead, Pathways to Innovation looks to help enterprises overcome the barriers preventing them from accessing innovation and growth.
Pathways to Innovation uses a series of one-to-one support, mentoring and consultancy to help businesses tackle challenges. Advice and guidance can cover a wide range of topics, including accessing finance, launching new ideas,insight into key business concepts including IP and business value, understanding your business market and much more!
Register your interest: https://supernetwork.org.uk/support/pathways-to-innovation/
