Budding student entrepreneurs making headway via LaunchBox

Posted on: 05 August 2016

This summer, 14 student teams have been developing business ideas via Trinity College Dublin’s hugely successful incubator programme, Launchbox. And, with a few weeks to go before they make their final pitches to potential investors, the participants have all made great progress.

Despite the variety of nascent companies and ideas being developed – teams include a service that helps connect Syrian refugees with aid workers and NGOS, a company that farms crickets as an energy-rich, green protein source, and a group creating an innovative safety device for surfers – many of the same lessons have been learned.

Many of the teams have underlined the importance of keeping their minds open, so as to be ready to change plans based on customer and market-force feedback, and of developing contacts and listening to brand managers and potential customers to find out how to produce a service or product that is unique and which will be in demand.

At the half-way point, the teams each wrote short blogs to explain what they had learned, and what goals they had for the remainder of the LaunchBox season.

Alison Kelly, of Nu., said: “It’s been a great few weeks for Nu. Launchbox has put us into contact with an incredibly diverse range of people with different talents and ideas. It’s a really creative place to work and there’s a great camaraderie between the different teams. Nu. Has spent the last few weeks planning our next events, improving our online content through photo shoots, introducing a new revenue model for our swap-shops.

Most importantly we are taking steps towards building our online wardrobe and have created an online pilot group to swap clothes as our proof of concept. We’ve also been talking to a lot of developers and are making progress on the tech side of things.”

Dylan Scully, of MatchDay, said: “…My single piece of advice would be to get mock-ups and a wire frame prototype of your product straight away; using a service such as Invision. It is so beneficial to actually have something to show people when you meet them – they won’t care that it doesn't actually work. They just care what it’s going to look like. Sell them the idea and the product will come.”

Finn Murphy, of IDly, said: “Right now, I’m feeling pretty good about our progress. We’re hopeful to have a fully functioning ID issuance and verification platform live by the LaunchBox Demo Day. This will give us a great springboard to start making sales beyond the university marketplace and developing partnerships that will allow us to on-board users quickly.”

To read more about this year’s LaunchBox teams and their business ideas, see here. To read more blog posts detailing their business insights, see here.

And to come along to the grand finale — the Demo Day, on Thursday August 18, between 5:00 pm and 8:00 pm — when you will be able to watch and listen to the final company pitches, hear how the teams got on during the programme, and celebrate their achievements, just sign up free here..