From idea to market - Ekstasy workshops with Imperial College London student entrepreneurs

I had a lot of fun doing the workshops with students from Imperial College London. Innovation is something I truly enjoy. Sharing some of my insights with startup leaders of the future was exciting.

We conducted two workshops on behalf of Ekstasy and received some glowing feedback. Attending students were eager to learn, and asked questions that sparked conversations. There was a range of attendees - from startup founders, to students interested in the business and marketing world of startups.

Day 1: Workshop 1: Go To Market and Product Commercialisation

• The workshop started with a simple concept - don’t be afraid to kill your darlings. All founders should be comfortable with pivoting, in order to succeed.
• We simplified the concept of founding a startup to a few basic questions, pushing students to think critically about the problem they are attempting to solve, and its scalability.
• There was a focus on product pricing and funding, providing a framework that guided entrepreneurs towards the right source of funding for each individual startup. Some interesting tips were shared, such as how to approach an investor, ask for a referral and choose the right person that would be interested in your specific kind of business.
• The opportunity was taken to take a deep dive into growth hacks surrounding GTM strategy, including launch checklist and social media planning.
• Examples were shared from different founders’ launch stories, giving students inspiration for ideas, all the way to pitching investors, and finally to ensuring success in new markets.
• Aida Bejgane, Ekstasy’s digital media specialist consultant, shared her tips around customer acquisition through digital marketing and media planning.
• Antonella Socci, investor in Notpla, shared her tips on what investors are looking for in a pre-seed early stage startup, pre-revenue and pre-traction.

Day 2: Workshop 2: Messaging, Branding and Creative

• The second workshop took a more creative turn, as we talked about the power of messaging and branding.
• Each student shared their startup idea with the cohort, and received feedback from the speakers and attendees.
• Students were asked to design a billboard that would stand at a busy London road. How would they sell their business if they had a few words to catch the customer’s attention?
• We then went through Ekstasy’s clients, and revealed the strategic creative process that brought results - asking the question “What problem is the product really trying to solve?”
• We were joined by the Marketing manager and Communications representatives from the wider Imperial Enterprise Lab team.

Some exciting startup ideas that Imperial students were developing:

• Secure dating app (members need to do identity verification as part of the signup process).
• Queuing app. People wait in line on your behalf (post office, shopping, etc).
• Intelligent fridge using computer vision. Automatically restocks the items that you are running low on.
• Specialist food delivery app, catering to those with critical heart conditions.
• Interior design furniture manufacturing business.
• Dog training app for distressed dogs.

Some inspiring ideas surfaced from the 2 day workshops. Ekstasy enjoyed speaking to the bright minds at Imperial College London, and we hope to keep in touch with the aspiring founders and continue to give our support to Imperial as their innovation and entrepreneurship hub grows stronger and supports founders of the future.

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