Commercialisation of an Idea or a Scientific Discovery

The last couple of weeks have been amazingly busy and enormously rewarding. It was a real privilege to deliver 6 x 2-hour virtual Masterclasses on Enterprise and Entrepreneurship concepts to a group of highly engaged and inspired research staff and Doctoral students at University of Bath to expand their knowledge and enhance their understanding of the fundamental building blocks necessary for establishing a successful and sustainable start-up or spin-out venture.

During these Masterclasses we covered the following topics:

Master Class 1: Fundamentals of Entrepreneurship – Developing the right mind-set

Master Class 2: Introduction to Business Model Canvas, defining your “Value Proposition”

Master Class 3: - Customer Discovery Journey - Finding Your "Why"

Master Class 4: Route to Market Options and Customer Engagement Channels

Master Class 5: The “F” Word – All Things Finance

Master Class 6: The “L” Word – covering all things legal

It is very rewarding and heart-warming to receive the following feedbacks from the attendees:

“Overall, I very much enjoyed attending the Entrepreneur Masterclass presented by Ali Hadavizadeh. He gave me a good overview of what is important when starting my own business. Especially the business model canvas made me approach things differently, and I believe in a more organised way. His tips and anecdotes, underpinned with real examples, are very helpful indeed. He has undoubtedly many years of experience. I can only recommend him to anyone who's interested in starting their own journey”.

Research Assistant – Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering”

“The masterclasses have provided a detailed and concise overview of the fundamental concepts behind developing a successful business. Principally, the classes were pitched at just the right level, targeting researchers who are looking to commercialising their work, but have little experience of how to market their product/service. A good selection of practical tools and techniques were covered that help establish both the value of the product and its potential market. I believe the classes were well spaced out having 6 blocks of 2 hours over 2 weeks. Thank you to Ali for providing these informative sessions!”

Doctoral Student – Department of Mechanical Engineering

“Thank you for running these educating set of workshops. I really enjoyed them. Specially the PESTEL table and market segmentation parts helped me a lot to make some difficult decisions about my entrepreneurial ideas. The business canvas was also a great way to see all different aspects of a business in one wholistic view an indeed interesting for me.”

Doctoral student, Department of Chemical Engineering

Last week’s activities also included attending SETSquared ICURe Program Cohort 35 - as an observer to learn the ropes for becoming a facilitator for the future cohorts. It was an absolute pleasure to be in a virtual room with 12 teams of incredibly talented Early Careers Researchers from 10 UK universities starting their research commercialisation journeys. What a privilege.

The week also included attending the mentor briefing for a mentoring assignment by Discovery Park supporting Curtis Analytics taking part in their scale up Reactor Program . Looking forward to getting to know and supporting Tanya Curtis and her team in the coming weeks and months. The week ended with a virtual Board meeting of The PIPE Company in which I am a Non-Executive Director discussing progress of current university commercialisation projects and brilliant future projects in the pipeline.