Step on the great accelerator

Throughout the next year, Sussex Innovation is launching a series of live events across the South East, offering a comprehensive toolkit for start-up founders to refine their business model. Join the Business Hot House Great Accelerator for a programme of intensive training, held across two days in the company of other growing businesses

If you’re a fast-growing start-up based in or around Horsham, Chichester, Brighton & Hove, Worthing or Haywards Heath, Sussex Innovation’s expert team are coming to town with a packed two days of workshops to help jumpstart your business. Sign up now to reserve your free place at the Business Hot House Great Accelerator.

THE SPECIALIST INNOVATION CONSULTANTS WILL DELIVER A SERIES OF SESSIONS INCLUDING:STRESS-TESTING YOUR BUSINESS MODEL Interrogate the key building blocks of your business with the Business Model Canvas, a one-page plan to help you rapidly road test new concepts or explore necessary changes to an established model. Delivered by Simon Chuter, an experienced start-up mentor and sales and marketing specialist with a background running his own charity fundraising business.

PITCHING YOUR BUSINESS Learn how to tell your story clearly and effectively, engaging investors, partners, customers, employees and media with your values, vision and mission through a well-chosen narrative. Led by Joseph Bradfield, a content and communications expert with experience at one of the country’s biggest PR agencies.

BUILDING AND LEADING YOUR TEAM Find the right plan to scale your business successfully by understanding the key concepts in recruitment and management, and how they help keep your employees motivated and aligned behind the same ambitious plans. With Nigel Lambe, Sussex Innovation’s CEO and a veteran of leadership teams ranging from Small Batch Coffee to PepsiCo.

REBOOT YOUR SALES AND MARKETING Explore tactics to reach and convert your customers on a small business budget, and get your marketing department focusing on the activities that deliver the best return on investment. Delivered by Helena Jevons, a strategic marketeer with experience in blue chip brand management at the likes of GSK and Kraft Heinz.

TRANSITIONING TO NET ZERO Get prepared for the sustainability challenges of the next decade, with a session focused on the incoming regulation that will help UK businesses target net zero carbon emissions, and the steps you can take now to get ahead of the curve. With Anya Ledwith, Chartered Environmentalist and founder of sustainability consultancy Eshcon Ltd.

MAKING IDEAS HAPPEN Future-proof your business by learning how to encourage a creative mindset and realise successful ideas from within. A masterclass in innovation strategy led by Tanya Popeau, a former advisor to Nesta’s innovation in international development strategy and the United Nations’ Asia-Pacific Innovation Fund. FINANCIAL PLANNING MADE SIMPLE A crash course in navigating risk and managing your cashflow, with advice on how to model best and worst-case scenarios and the key figures that every investor wants to see. With business finance expert Neema Amin, who heads up the investor matching service Suss Ventures.

If you’re an ambitious start-up with plans to grow, contact Sussex Innovation to find out more about the Great Accelerator and be the first to hear when it visits your area. Go to https://bit.ly/3CZ4VrR ALREADY SCALING? CHECK OUT THE BAMBOO CLUB If you’re already turning over more than £200,000 and on the fast track to growth, Sussex Innovation’s peer-to-peer network group may just be right for you. The Bamboo Club brings together regional business leaders in East Sussex for a programme of masterclasses, group action learning and one-to-one mentoring, incorporating new and emerging business management theory.

The Bamboo Club comes fullyfunded through the Business East Sussex Growth Hub, and is recruiting now for next year’s cohort. Find out more here.

The Business Hot House is funded by the European Regional Development Fund as part of the European Structural and Investment Funds Growth Programme 2014-2020. The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (and in London the intermediate body Greater London Authority) is the Managing Authority for European Regional Development Fund.

Established by the European Union, the European Regional Development Fund helps local areas stimulate their economic development by investing in projects which will support innovation, businesses, create jobs and local community regenerations. For more information visit www.gov.uk/european-growth-funding

The Bamboo Club is part of the Business East Sussex Pivot Programme, managed by the Business East Sussex Growth Hub on behalf of East Sussex County Council and the South East Local Enterprise Partnership.