Open Tech Calendar

Overview

Two day workshop for ambitious entrepreneurs and firms who wish to develop a compelling story for use in marketing and fundraising campaigns and for those wishing to raise capital and customer funding from North American (USA and Canada) markets. The focus will be on crowdfunding and fundraising from customers, strategic partners and venture capitalists. The workshop is a partnership between The Academic Entrepreneur and Storyteller Period of North America. It’s hosted graciously by Design Informatics at the Edinburgh College of Art at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, United Kingdom and will benefit its Resident Entrepreneurs programme. For entrepreneurs with high-growth intentions, it is never too early to start considering expansion and international funding for related strategic decisions play into storytelling and structuring from the very early stages.

Why This Workshop?

With the rise of crowdfunding, the use of multimedia and the shortening of investor attention spans, the ability to tell a succinct and compelling story of a product or service, conveying its benefits and differentiation is more important than ever for entrepreneurs. Not only that, but experts are noting the importance of a really good foundational story as well. Such is easier said than done. "How can I build and tell a compelling story?" This is first question the workshop will answer and work on with you in hands-on fashion.

Innovative young companies with exciting, game changing designs, technologies and/or business models usually need outside investment -- "entrepreneurial risk capital" in order to grow and flourish. However, such capital is in short supply in the UK and Europe as investors are more conservative and less willing to take bets, especially big bets, on game changers. While London is now a major source of venture and business angel capital, its investors are reluctant to invest north of Cambridge. North America continues to be the land of opportunity in terms of risk capital for technology and media ventures. The USA with its healthy supply in the Silicon Valley, New York City, Boston, Seattle, Austin and now Chicago MSAs; Canada is the up-and-comer in the world in terms of increasing supply,catalyzed by government initiatives. The land of Canucks is currently boasting the highest rate of per capita venture capital investment in the world, according to the Global Innovation Index 2013. How can my UK-based startup access capital in North America through crowdfunding, customer funding, strategic and venture capital investment strategies? This is the other question the workshop will answer.

What is the Workshop Like?

This workshop is fun, intense, intelligent, and sophisticated. Entrepreneurs are expected to put aside at least 24 hours over three days. Kerra and Michael complement each other in their styles and deliveries. Kerra, the Storyteller, is artsy, fun, and uses common language that is easy to understand. Michael, The Academic Entrepreneur, while sometimes goofy, feeds you with a fire hose in the hopes that you'll swallow what you can. He delights in explaining the mechanics of strategy and the "whys" and uses vocabulary that you will be forced to ask about and learn, on purpose, so that you will learn how to better play the game. He teaches the Israeli Model and his learners will understand why and how Israeli companies are successful in raising venture capital from the Silicon Valley market. Kerra's sessions are to English and theatre class as Michael's are to and MBA classes. However, both use interactive methodologies and the combination of the two keep the workshop exhilarating and fast-paced.

By the end of the workshop you will have:

- Identified and developed a compelling founding story

- Identified the best format in which to tell your story on video

- Learned how to construct an AV (audio/visual) script for a marketing, brand and/or crowdfunding video

- Learned how to conduct an effective crowdfunding campaign

- Gained knowledge on how to go about raising capital from international sources in North America (such as customers, strategic partners and Silicon Valley venture capitalists)

- Built the base level strategy for an international fundraising campaign

- Be provided with references for additional action-oriented learning on your own post-seminar

Format and Schedule:

We will begin the workshop at 10:00 am on Monday the 4th of August and end at 5:00 pm with an hour break for lunch on your own. Tuesday the 5th of August you will do research and homework and further develop your story and research to develop a fundraising strategy. On Wednesday the 6th of August we will reconvene at 10.00 for the second half of the interactive workshop

Core Programme:

Monday, August 4th, 2014: 10a-5p with a 1p-2p break for lunch. Boardroom, Evoluation House, Edinburgh College of Art



- Basics of Developing a Compelling Founding Story



- How to write an AV script to make your story a video reality



- Crowdfunding: What makes a successful North American campaign? What platforms, and what are best practices?



- Fundraising from USA and Canadian Sources: Strategic and Venture Capital



DAY 2: Tuesday, August 5th, 2014: Homework (8 hours on your own)



DAY 3: Wednesday, August 6th, 2014: 10a-5p workshop with a 1p-2p break for lunch. Boardroom, Evolution House, Edinburgh College of Art



- Brand and Content Strategies and Tactics for Storytelling for your business



- Structuring and Strategizing for raising funds from and expanding into North America

Optional Sesions:

Thursday, August 7th, 2014: Independent consultations and coaching available for additional 1-1 or 1-team sessions, not included in the workshop prices

Friday, August 8th, 2014: Independent consultations and coaching available for additional 1-1 or 1-team sessions, not included in workshop prices


Optional sessions, determined on an individual basis include the following:

- Strategies and tactics for videography and filming (*nuts and bolts*)

- Script review, advising, and coaching, over and above that completed in the workshop

- Deep dive into venture capital fundraising strategies and tactics: Thursday and Friday (ask about pricing)

- Specific cases and recommendations on target platforms and investors



Terms:

+We will need at least 10 participants by July 15th in order to deliver the workshop. We will refund monies to participants if the workshop is not held. Otherwise, no refunds are available.

Disclaimers:

The event organizers make no promises that any entrepreneur or entrepreneurial team will be successful in its fundraising campaign. Numerous factors are involved in a successful campaign over and above messaging and strategy; market receptiveness and timing are difficult to predict. Product development is challenging for all startups, as is product-market fit. Human resource strategy is essential, and dysfunctional teams can lead a startup to failure, often cited as the crucial factor in failing or not.

Additional Information and References:

Storyteller Period’s own brand video – written, directed and produced by Kerra Penn www.youtube.com

Article on storytelling from Inc Magazine

www.inc.com

Scotland: Ape Israel to build a start-up Nation

www.newscientist.com

Global Innovation Index 2013

www.globalinnovationindex.org

Startups Funded by Global City from Richard Florida of the Creative Class Group

www.citylab.com

Department of Finance, Government of Canada, Venture Capital Plan

www.fin.gc.ca



Workshop Leaders, Partner and Host:

Kerra Penn, Content Strategist

Chief Story Consultant

Storyteller. Period.

www.storytellerperiod.com

Chicago, Ilinois and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA



Michael Clouser, Fundraising Strategist

Venture Consultant

The Academic Entrepreneur

academicentrepreneur.wordpress.com

Vancouver, British Columiba, Canada and Palo Alto, California, USA





Dr. Chris Speed, Host

Chair of Design Informatics

Edinburgh College of Art

www.designinformatics.org

Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom

CONTENT STRATEGIST



Kerra Penn

About Kerra Penn, Chief Story Consultant, Storyteller. Period.

What better way to introduce myself than to tell you my story? A few years ago I was out with friends and after I finished telling a story which had everyone laughing, a friend of mine paid me a nice compliment. She said to me, "You know Kerra, it's a shame there's not a job where you could get paid for telling stories, you would be so good at that!" I looked at her and said with a grin, "But that is exactly what I do."

At the time I was a video producer by day and a segment producer and host of a local cable TV show by night. In my long - and certainly never boring career path - I have told stories through web content, press releases, case studies, success stories, newsletters, comedy writing, script writing, packaging, television producing and copywriting. I was even a finalist in a high-profile stand-up comedy competition once.

I also have a successful track record as a top sales producer working in a variety of companies spanning several industries. Why is my sales background relevant? It is important to know because although there is definitely a storytelling element involved in a killer sales pitch, there are some important steps which must happen before the pitch to make it truly effective. There must first be a process of asking the right questions while practicing active listening in order to find the customer's "tick point" (what makes them tick aka key drivers). This way when it comes time for you to tell your story - it is one which lets that particular customer know what experience your product or service will give them - one which answers their particular needs. This is how you engage your audience - this is your hook.

In this digital age of content overload, content is not king, compelling and relevant content is. Never before has there been so many possible ways for the world to hear your story. Unfortunately - this opportunity is also available to the other 7 billion occupants of our planet. So what do you do about this? As your Brand and Content Strategy Consultant it is my job to make sure your story is heard.


Storyteller Period








FUNDRAISING STRATEGIST

Michel Clouser The Academic Entrepreneur

About Michael Clouser, Venture Consultant, The Academic Entrepreneur


Michael Clouser is an entrepreneur, venture consultant and business academic. Currently he works in North America between Silicon Valley and Western Canada. He assists high potential startups with positioning, strategy, and raising capital. Formerly he was an Associate and Technology Entrepreneurship Lecturer with the Edinburgh-Stanford Link at the University of Edinburgh for 7 years, teaching master level informatics and digital design students. Michael has first hand experience with hundreds of startups from countries around the globe including Scotland and the UK, the United States, Canada, and South America, as well as Israeli startups in Silicon Valley. He has delivered lectures and written on the Israeli Model.

Prior to this he was a venture capitalist in Palo Alto, California with an early stage, Stanford-affiliated fund that invested in postgraduate and staff- startups from computer science programs at leading universities. Michael has also managed and started incubators. He was the CEO of Student Agencies Incorporated in Ithaca, New York. Amongst other student startups he wrote the business plan for CouseInfo (now Blackboard), and two other starts, one of which IPO'd as well and the other which was sold to Microsoft for $40 million. He played an instrumental role in TechCube, writing of the business plan and delivering the pitch for the its start in Edinburgh. He is also the co-founder of the Edinburgh Entrepreneurship Club in 2005 and played a key role in its growth to Scotland largest entrepreneurship society in the 2005-2011 era through sheer networking finesse and the Silicon Valley Speaker Series. After an event with Jim Buckmaster, CEO of Craigslist, Michael introdued the co-founders of Fanduel to each other in Doctor's pub, and the Edinburgh-based startup was seeded. In addition Michael co-founded Entrepedia, once a keens source of valuable information for Scottish entrepreneurs from the University of Edinburgh. He also taught a residency for GirlGeeks Scotland on fundraising over a weeked a few years ago, organized by Morna Simpson. Michael has co-founded ten firms and assisted client and portfolio companies in raising over $50 million in venture capital. He has a wide-ranging network in North America especially, but also in Europe and Asia as well. He introduced Teamly, at the time an Edinburgh-based startup (now in Las Vegas) to 500 Startups which funded the firm in its acceleration program.

Michael earned the MSc from the Business School at the University of Edinburgh (entrepreneurship and innovation) where he researched for a PhD as well (Triple Helix Scotland). In addition Michael earned the MBA (venture capital) from Cornell University's Johnson Graduate School of Management, and was a Student Agencies Incorporated Fellow and a Weil Fellow. Michael's first degree is from Cornell University's entrpreneurial breeding instition, The School of Hotel Administration, where he concentrated hospitality technology and entrepreneurship. Michael is from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA and founded his first company while in High School at Mt. Lebanon, another entrpreneurial breeding ground, where Mark Cuban, Mike Markson and Richard Skrenta attended, as did his workshop patner, Kerra Penn of Storyteller Period.


The Academic Entrepreneur





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Partner and Host: Design Informatics, Edinburgh College of Art, University of Edinburgh


Informatics is about structure, behaviour, and interactions. It’s about natural and engineered information processors. Design is about the generation, development and testing of concepts. It’s about the creation of physical objects, capabilities or services. Design Informatics focuses on designing with data. We can harness massive connectivity, analytic power and industrial-strength simulation to design tangible products and intangible services to transform the ways we work, live at home, care for each other, and play. The Centre for Design Informatics is for the agents of change who want to make a difference through computational thinking and design, to make things better, bit by bit. Our vision is that Scotland can take a lead in designing with data, combining informatics and design, to support the augmented society; just as virtual reality is blending into augmented reality, the digital economy and the information society will evolve into the augmented society. Already, social media tools are increasing the social and economic value that can be generated by extremely varied collections of people. As the products of informatics further augment our society, natural human intelligence will intertwine with vast data-processing power. These emerging products are revolutionising the means by which social and economic value can be generated. Old divisions and distinctions are shifting and dissolving: designers and users, producers and consumers are working together in new ways to create new value. Design is embracing adaptive devices and services that both learn and teach. At the same time, the fields of design and informatics are being enriched through research by design. The merger between the University of Edinburgh and the Edinburgh College of Art creates a unique opportunity for Scotland and the UK to realise Design Informatics. The Schools of Informatics and Design have formed the Centre to inspire, equip and nurture a new generation of design-informatics researchers, practitioners and entrepreneurs. The Centre weaves together four threads from each school, with machine learning an overarching theme. For design: product, media, fashion and architecture. For informatics: vision and robotics, interaction, sensor networks, and synthetic biology. The academic year 2011/12 sees the Centre growing its activity in research, entrepreneurship, teaching and outreach.

About Resident Entrepreneurs of Design Informatics

The Centre has hosted Resident Entrepreneurs who we helped to take their own informatics products to market, designing with data, to build innovative prototypes and transform them into viable products. The Centre currently has half a dozen residencies, housed in Evolution House, with access to entrepreneurial education, and support for spinning out. The Centre’s community of interest is being developed to help forge the links between academics and local and global companies and organisations, both large and small. These links will underpin the placements being established for future students. Visit the Residencies page to find out more about the companies taking part. Unfortunately we are currently not recruiting new entrepreneurs but hope to in the future.