The Growth Support Programme: a springboard to success

The New Enterprise Competition’s (NEC) award-winning Growth Support Programme (GSP) is open for applications.

The NEC is a year-long programme that offers you the chance to build your dream business, taking it from an idea scrawled onto a pub napkin, all the way up to a sustainable, successful, and profitable business.

What does it all mean?

After the initial Ideas and subsequent Development Stage, the final Growth Stage begins. It’s the highest point of the competition, where you will be competing for up to £20,000 in funding for your business.

Logo: The word "Growth" in green letters
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Calling all future founders! The Development Stage is open.

The Development Stage of the New Enterprise Competition (NEC) opens on 28 November for applications until 27 January.

The New Enterprise Competition is the University of Bristol’s flagship start-up competition and will soon be entering its 20th year. The Development Stage is where we can help you turn your start-up idea into a more realised business.

The word development

If you have a business idea and would like to take it to the next level then you should absolutely apply now on MyCareer. Read on to find out exactly why should apply for the Development Stage!

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Happy Global Entrepreneurship week!

It’s Global Entrepreneurship Week this week, which means people all over the world are coming together to celebrate start-ups and new business ideas.

Here at Basecamp, we have a lot of exciting events and opportunities coming up this academic year, to help you get a leg up for your start-up. Read on for more info, as well as some insights from former students who have worked with us and turned their start-up dreams into reality. You can also visit the Global Entrepreneurship website where they have more information, as well as events running all week, online and in-person, all over the world. 


How we can support you

 

A picture of Rose Tan, a female student, smiling

PlayThru is an amazing education tool, designed to bring the fun and innovation of video gaming into a learning environment.

Its creator, Bristol graduate Rose Tan (pictured left), worked closely with us here at Basecamp, and shares her thoughts below: 

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What is the Ideation fund and why should you apply?

The Ideation fund is a 7-week experimental learning programme, (running between the 2 November- 14 December), which provides applicants with specialist training, support and funding for founders who want to explore and test out an early-stage start-up idea. This programme is sponsored by The Bristol Grid.

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Meet our New Enterprise Competition winners! 

The New Enterprise Competition drew to a close this year at our celebration event. Route Zero were crowned the winners of the Growth stage, winning £10,000 plus 12-months incubation at SETSquared.  

RouteZero logog, a lime green arrow that links to a z

RouteZero was founded by Computer Science graduate Albie-Baker Smith and his co-founder Dan Brown with a mission of stopping catastrophic climate change through their platform which helps individuals and organisations switch out high-emission travel for greener journeys.

A picture of Albie, founder of RouteZero

“The UK has just experienced its hottest temperatures on record, and winning the competition provides us with the opportunity to attack one of the UK’s highest emission sources: travel.  We’d like to say a massive thank you to the New Enterprise Competition and the University of Bristol for catalysing RouteZero’s potential.  The investment allows us to accelerate our work with customers and deliver them journeys that are Green, Anywhere, Anyway.”

 

Albie and Dan- RouteZero

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PEEQUAL: The 2021 New Enterprise Competition winners- Growth Stage

PEEQUAL co-founders presenting at an event

It has almost been an entire year since Amber Probyn and Hazel McShane, the co-founders of PEEQUAL, won the New Enterprise Competition (NEC) – Growth Stage. We were keen to catch-up with them, to hear all about their success since winning £15,000 in last year’s NEC competition. 

 

Can you summarise what PEEQUAL is? 

PEEQUAL is the UK’s first free-standing women’s urinal, making it quick, safe, and sustainable for women to pee at events.   

Why did you choose to apply for the NEC last year? 

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What is the Foundership Scheme and why should you apply?

Our summer enterprise programme, The Foundership Scheme is back for a second year, running from 8 June to 6 July.

Maybe you have been tempted to apply but are unsure whether it is suitable for you, or you are not sure if your start-up is ready for this next step? Here are all the things you need to know to work out if the scheme is right for you.

1. It’s funded!

You no longer need to choose between having a summer job or working on your start-up. We will fund £1000 each, for up to two co-founders, to successfully complete the scheme. You can use the money to put towards anything that will support your business idea.

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Young Goat: The New Enterprise Competition – Growth stage alumni

GrowthThe Growth stage of the New Enterprise Competition (NEC) is now open for applications. This stage offers up to £20,000 of funding and pro-bon support to help launch, advance, and grow your start-up to realise its full potential. The competition is open to final year students and recent graduates.

We had a catch-up with Young Goat, the 2021 People’s Choice Award winners, to see what they had been up to since winning £2,000 in last year’s competition. (more…)

International Womens Day 2022 – 5 stories of women working hard to #breakthebias

“Imagine a gender equal world. A world free of bias, stereotypes and discrimination. A world that’s diverse, equitable, and inclusive. A world where difference is valued and celebrated. Together we can forge women’s equality. Collectively we can all #BreakTheBias. Celebrate women’s achievement. Raise awareness against bias. Take action for equality.” – tagline for International Women’s Day 2022

Happy International Women’s Day (IWD)! 

We LOVE hearing your stories, and get to hear so many of them through the various activities and programmes that we run here at the Careers Service; The Bristol PLUS Award, SME internship scheme, Bristol Mentors, New Enterprise Competition and much more.

Today, we are taking the opportunity to highlight and acknowledge a handful of brilliant female students and graduates who have helped to #breakthebias by exemplifying the missions of International Women’s Day through their various projects, start-ups, and volunteering activities. Prepare to be inspired!

IWD mission: To shine a spotlight on activity uplifting and inspiring women to pursue goals without bias or barrier

Arooba Hameed, Year 3 Cancer Biology and Immunology (BSc)

Picture of Arooba
Arooba

Arooba completely embodies this mission and recently won £1000 of funding in the Development Stage of the New Enterprise Competition for the non-profit community group she founded, Higher Education for Asylum Seekers & Refugees (HEAR). HEAR aims to support refugees and asylum seekers in accessing educational opportunities through guidance, training, mentoring & advocacy. (more…)

Last chance to apply for the Ideas stage of the New Enterprise Competition!

The Ideas stage for the New Enterprise Competition is open for applications for another week. For the opportunity to test out your idea by pitching to us and to win up to £200 in equity free funding, what have you got to lose? 

 

We caught up with Shabaj, who created the Success Program, a sports journaling app, which was awarded  funding from the Ideas stage of the Competition last year. 

 

In a nutshell, what is your start-up idea and where did the idea come from?

I’m working on a sports journaling app that allows individuals to track their weightlifting performance and provides customers with a quantitative measure of how their training programme is impacting their performance. Having our customers reflect on what they achieved on their last workout allows them to compete against themselves from one workout to the next.  

The aim of the game is progression, but how can you know if you are progressing if you aren’t tracking your results?

I’m not the strongest person in the gym, by far. Often, if I push myself more than I am physically capable of and I get an injury. I got tired of repeating the same mistake and started to record my workouts in a notebook. However, I got fed up with flicking through the pages to find what weights, reps and sets I should do. I also lost more pens in the gym than most students do in three years at university. So I decided to build an app to think and carry less in the gym.

 

Have you always been interested in entrepreneurship? What inspired you to get into it?

I let my curiosity direct where I put my attention- which has its own set of pros and cons! My journey into entrepreneurship is more self-centred than most. From the projects I worked on, I always had a personal connection with problem I was trying to solve. Since I couldn’t find a product or service that met my needs, I would find out how I can create my own solution. If I have that problem, someone else might too.

Picture of Shabaj who founded the Success Program
Shabaj, founder of The Success Program

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