Earlier this month, BCC held a boot camp at Massey University in Palmerston North for their External Relations Department.  Staff from the Wellington and Auckland campuses as well as from Manawatu attended.  

Assistant Vice-Chancellor for External Relations and Development Penelope Bar-Sellers and her team enlisted the help of BCC to run a day and half event for staff members to troubleshoot some problems/opportunities they had already identified in an innovative and effective way, as an alternative to more traditional approaches such as senior staff member meetings.

Dave Craig, Roger McEwan and Nick Gain from BCC designed a programme for the external relations team, borrowing some of the methods BCC use to run Startup Weekend and Innovate to accelerate problem solving, and teach some valuable skills.

After running through some MBA style workshops and being introduced to the social lean canvas, the teams worked on clarifying the main problems that the staff wanted to address. The different groups started breaking down each issue on the social lean canvas and formulating ways of implementing improvements in both their own workplaces and Massey-wide. Each team presented a five minute pitch to the group which was ranked by everyone else based on their innovativeness, pitching prowess and use of the social canvas.

To wrap it all up, working groups were formed to implement the most creative and practical ideas and continue development on the solutions. “We have extensive experience in early stage start-up practices and have found a way to successfully implement some of these procedures to get groups to work together in a new and effective ways,” says Dave Craig.  “Team work is critical not only with start-ups but SMEs and big corporates like Massey.  Our boot camp pushed everyone’s comfort levels and the final result was outstanding.”

The Sprout companies had their last block course in Invercargill from the 12 – 14 February, focusing on Capital Raising and Finance. Guest Speakers included Al Monro, Marcel van den Assum and Alex Wong. They had opportunities to talk more in depth about their company’s next steps with our Sprout team during this course and for most, had their first taste of pitching.

The teams gained valuable feedback from the guests in the room about what was good and what needed improvement in their pitches. Steven Bird, from the Shepherd team, came away with top honour’s for the best pitch of the day.

The Sprout companies have just under three weeks prepare for the Sprout program’s culminating event – the NZTE 2016 New Zealand Agribusiness Investment Showcase* in association with ASB. This showcase, being held on the 16 March, is designed to help New Zealand agri companies raise money to grow internationally, and promote the sector as a vibrant investment destination.

They are working hard on their pitches, as well as continuing to develop their product and service offering. Dean Tilyard recommended the teams practice their pitch a minimum of 100 times before they should feel comfortable their pitch is close to perfect. Based on this recommendation we can see there’s going to be a lot of minutes spent speaking in front of the mirror in the coming weeks.

*The NZTE Agribusiness Investment Showcase is part of NZ Agri Investment week, being held from from 14 – 19 March in Palmerston North.

Read a short description of each of the Sprout companies here.

 

BCC is excited to announce a new team member, , in the role of Entrepreneur in Residence. His main focus will be supporting Sprout companies.

The Entrepreneur in Residence role will encompass:

* Supporting Sprout companies through both strategic and operational activity

* Working closely between company and market to ensure rapid progress to product/market fit for Sprout companies

* Assisting Sprout programme with curriculum and strategy to provide best value to agritech entrepreneurs and wider sectors

“I’m excited to get the chance to work with some of New Zealand’s most interesting and innovative minds and learn about their successes and challenges. I hope to help by looking at things from a different perspective,” explains Stu.

Stu has extensive experience in commercialising products and services in the agricultural sector and has developed strong exit planning skills. He was the founder and CEO of ‘Where’s my Cows’ which was acquired by Lindsay Corp USA in 2010, and is the current Managing Director of Agrioptics, a Precision Agriculture (PA) specialist with a focus on crop sensors and farm and field mapping.

“I’m looking forward to helping companies bring their ideas and prototypes to the New Zealand and global markets,” says Stu.

The Young Enterprise Scheme is a year long competition that takes secondary school students through the process of beginning with a seed idea and trying to develop it into a functioning business. It’s not uncommon for teams who have done very well in the competition to continue on with their business outside of school, or to go on to start new ventures. One case is Jamie Beaton, who did YES in 2011 and founded Crimson Consulting which today is valued at a whopping $60 million!

As well as offering students a pathway into entrepreneurship and business, the competition accords the students a wide range of skills by the end of the year. “The best part about the YES is the independence, confidence, leadership and communication skills that the students learn. Its incredible watching them start at E-Day then seeing how much they grow during the year,” says Victoria Crawford-Flett, a YES project coordinator who came up from Wellington to help with the event.

The day started off with roughly 150 students in year 12 and 13 coming together from Manawatu. They formed small groups of around five, completing some team building exercises and challenges and were talked through an outline of what would go on in the year as well as what they might accomplish. The real fun began when teams spread out and began envisaging possible businesses they could develop in the year.

Some teams had one idea that they were adamant about focusing on, whilst others had three or four to decide between. A lot of them thought of some new ideas on the spot after hearing some examples of what people had done in past YES competitions, and others had already done some market research to validate their ideas. A team of mentors were brought in during the afternoon to talk to the teams and offer their own expertise, advice and experience to the mix. Ideas were everything from chocolate flavored cheese to multipurpose, fireproof gloves.

As the teams progress through the programme we hope to see some really exciting start-ups develop.

Visit the YES website here.