Snapshot Brief:

Intending Academic Founders can understand 'what's needed to form a University spinout by attending this 1-day intensive master-class course. By doing, the course can help facilitating the academic to become an investable DeepTech Founder while creating an investable company (out of the University). Due to lack of awareness on the expected behavioural and business domain knowledge as a spinout founder (in the context of a University environment), Academic Spinout Founders often struggle with transitioning their role from being an academic staff (with the responsibility to continue ‘ongoing teaching and research works within the University’) to being a company founder running the spinout operations in the early days of company formation, after having gone through the ‘complicated procedures of getting a spinout company proposal approved by the employer University’.

Requirements

• Reasonable understanding/experience of undertaking a research/commercial project
• Having a reasonable technology/product development experience (inside/outside a University)
• Basic understanding of project budgeting & company's financial cashflow estimation
• Able to use online training platforms & basic IT tools (e.g. Zoom, Google Meet, MS Office)

Features

• Sharing practical examples of sample spinout projects & University Founders in UK
• Easy to adopt techniques and approaches by Academic Founders on own spinout projects
• Explaining bigger picture logic of 'expectations of diverse stakeholders involved in spinout formation'
• All-in-One training course capturing the essential needs to form an investable spinout company

Target audiences

• Academics in Research-intensive institutions (e.g. University, Research Institutes)
• Post-Graduate (PG) Research Students or Students with Research interest
• Technology Transfer Office (TTO) Staffs with spinout formation support roles
• Research Support (RS) and Knowledge Exchange (KE) Professionals

Overview:

Course Description

Due to lack of awareness on the expected behavioural and business domain knowledge as an academic spinout founder (in the context of a University environment), Academic Spinout Founders often struggle in preparing themselves to transition from their existing role of being an academic staff (with the responsibility to continue ‘ongoing teaching and research works within the University’) to being a company founder running the spinout operations in the early days of company formation, after having gone through the ‘complicated procedures of getting a spinout company proposal approved by the employer University’.

Similarly, Post-Graduate Research (PGR) Student Founders also often find uneasy to transition from being an independent researcher on a complex technology development project to being an investable startup founder (alongside the lack of support guidance that can help in quick transformation of a R&D project from a technology prototype status to a market-acceptable product).

For Startup Founders, it is crucial to prepare themselves & their startup proposal by aligning to the expectations of angel investors and Venture Capitalists (as per the usually known Founder/Startup investment checklist used by these investors) and the founders ought to know in advance the pros & cons of joining an incubator/accelerator programme run by some funders or startup support operators (apart from preparing applications to get approved into those startup support programmes)’.

Intending Academic Founders can understand 'what's needed to form a University spinout' by attending this 1-day intensive master-class course. By doing, the course can help facilitating the academic to become an investable DeepTech Founder while creating an investable company (out of the University). Technology Transfer Office (TTO) staffs who are moving into 'spinout creation and post-spinout support' roles can also join this course to understand the practical aspects of spinout formation tasks essential to form an investable spinout.

Note: Deep tech (or deep technology) refers to companies and startups that develop innovative products based on substantial scientific discoveries or meaningful engineering breakthroughs. Unlike "shallow tech," which focuses on incremental improvements to existing digital services (e.g., a new mobile app), deep tech aims to solve complex, global challenges like climate change, disease, and resource scarcity.

This course intends to provide an overview of ‘a list of tasks (with tips on how to complete them)’ needed by an academic or an independent researcher/student for supporting self-transition from their current roles inside a University or research project to being a spinout/startup founder.

What You’ll Learn From This Course

• Module-1: Walking through a spinout/startup journey to realise responsibilities – Basics
• Module-2: Working on the needs of a spinout/startup conception – Intermediate
• Module-3: Preparing tasks of company formation and surviving early years’ operation – Advance

Certification

All attendees will be provided an acknowledgement certificate (PDF copy) of having completed the training course.

Duration

1 day [9:00-11:30 (Module-1), 12:00-14:30 (Module-2), 15:00-17:30 (Module-3)]

Curriculum:

Module-1: Walking through a spinout/startup journey to realise responsibilities – Basics

·       University’s Spinout approval process – IP Policy, Spinout Policy, HEBCIS/KEF relevance

·       Investor’s expectations on a university spinout or a startup – Investable founder/spinout

·       Protecting personal interests of being academic or founder – Making Self transitions

·       Moving commercialisation/research project into a spinout/startup – Project examples

·       Accessing freely available resources on spinout/startup – Online and at university

·       Making sense of Commercialisation – IP protection, market awareness, technology/product development

Module-2: Working on the needs of a spinout/startup conception – Intermediate

·       Technology Development to Product Development – Productisation plan

·       IP package protection & IP right management – IP Cost-benefit analysis

·       Identifying Customer Values of target markets – Product-Solution Matching map

·       Evaluating resource requirements of transition – ‘Research to Commercial’ proposition

·       Attending essential trainings of being a Founder – Basic company operation, Directorship

·       Receiving customer’s voice to test idea viability – Market exploration, Investor interaction

Module-3: Preparing tasks of company formation and surviving early years’ operation – Advanced

·       Preparing draft business plan, finances, pitch-deck – Product Sales and Corporate Model

·       Identifying target investors and business advisors (incl. team members) – Founding team

·       Preparing negotiation points to deal with investor or University – Deal Terms at formation

·       Applying to startup support programmes with seed funding – Access startup fund

·       Initiating engagement with potential customers and investors – Presales, Support letters

·       Reading through draft Spinout company agreement templates – Solicitor consultation