Student - November 17, 2011
From idea to company in a week
From idea to company in one week
How do you turn a good scientific idea into a viable commercial company? Eighteen PhD students have been racking their brains on this question at the Entrepreneurial Bootcamp on Wageningen.
The eighteen students, eleven of whom are studying in Wageningen, are divided into four groups, each of which works out a concrete idea. The students learn about marketing, cultural differences, finances and - very importantly - they have to learn to make a pitch to sell their idea to potential investors. On Friday they will pitch their ideas to a jury and the winner can apply for €10,000 in microcredit from Dafne StartLife.
To get some practice in making a pitch, the students meet up with 'business angels' on Thursday. The angels are people who run several successful businesses and are looking for new investment possibilities. They offer young entrepreneurs both advice and practical support.
The Wageningen bootcamp already has a few successes to its name. The Wageningen companies, Waste2Chemical, Plant-E and In2Care have the bootcamp to thank for a lot of knowledge. And there is a lot of hard work still going on. Organizer Anneke Roes expects three new Dutch enterprises to be launched this week.