It's not all about Unicorns...Growth through Innovation: Start-up to Scale-up
Queen's University Belfast hosted a keynote lecture and masterclass to a capacity audience at Riddel Hall as part of the All Island Innovation Programme on Tuesday 22 January.
Professor Joe Haslam, Executive Director of the Owners Scaleup Profram at IE Business School in Madrid, Spain gave a keynote lecture and masterclass to a capacity audience at Riddel Hall on Tuesday 22 January to kick off the Business Engagement series of events for 2019. This event was hosted by the University as part of the InterTradeIreland All Island Innovation Programme, in partnership with Dublin City University Ryan Academy, NUI Galway and University College Cork.
When it comes to growing and scaling businesses, Professor Haslam has a wealth of expertise having started eight companies of his own; and growing, scaling and managing these companies. The full house at Riddel Hall, engaged with Professor Haslam for a keynote breakfast lecture and a small number joined him for a small, interactive masterclass exploring real life business issues later that morning.
Joe's advice for sclaing included:
- The need to 'experiment' to identify a product market fit
- Deep sector 'knowledge'
- Have 'courage' to be able to 'gamble your eggs in one basket'
- Management skills needed to 'simplify'
- Education - either formal through a business school, or informal - from the internet and YouTube
You can download Joe's presentation here.