WHAT IS THE INNOVATORS' WORKSHOP?
Designed to take aspiring innovators from initial idea to a sustainable, repeatable business model that can be implemented almost immediately. This carefully curated line-up of interactive discussions and hands-on learning will help budding entrepreneurs to create the right processes and systems to scale their business model.
9 AM - 10 AM: Bootstrapping 101 - Achieving Your First $1M in sales with no outside financing - Joel WegnerIn less than four years, Joel Wegner has been able to build his company to surpass $10M in annual sales with no outside capital. Bootstrapping (building your company without any outside financing) is an attractive way to launch and run a startup for many founders, primarily because it gives more freedom to the founders than getting investors to invest in the company.
However, bootstrapping is also a very risky move, as doing so means you may not have lasting funds to cover operational costs. Too many promising startups have failed because the founders neglected to make informed decisions with their limited funds or utilize their available resources to their full potential. During this session Joel Wegner, Co-founder and CEO of
Juniper, is going to share the tactics and processes necessary to bootstrap your business to its first $1M in sales.
10:00 - 11:00 AM: Achieving Human Centred Design - Jacquie WortleyThe customer demand for great design is stronger than ever. Users are no longer satisfied with digital products and services that they find difficult to use. Intuitive, beautiful, and useable products are becoming a standard for any successful business.
But where do you start?
In this workshop, we’ll be covering basic human centred design principles to help startups and founders better understand their customer’s needs.
In this workshop we will cover:
- What is Design Thinking?
- How to understand your ‘photo persona’.
- Using empathy to make better business decisions.
- Basic design tools for digitizing your ideas.
- When to consider hiring a designer & what to look for.
Become a forward thinking business and learn about the value that user centric design can provide.
11:00 - 11:15 AM Break11:15 AM - 12:15 PM: How to Nail Your Positioning so that Customers Get It, Love It, and Buy It - April DunfordThis workshop teaches you how context and market positioning can make or break a new innovative product. April outlines a process for building context around a product to ensure that the awesomeness of it is obvious to customers. Using stories and examples from her own experience, April gives you actions you can take immediately to help customers understand what you do and why they should care. This talk draws on April’s experience launching 16 products into market —as the former VP of companies like IBM, Huawei, and Nortel— and her successes (and failures) along the way.
12:15 PM - 1 PM Break1 PM - 2 PM: From Idea to Exit with Colin KnoxColin Knox serves as the Director of Product Strategy, SolarWinds, and is the founder & former CEO of Passportal up until its acquisition by SolarWinds in April 2019. With an education in software development and information technology, Colin Knox has spent the past 15 years deeply embedded in the technology field. Previous to Passportal he founded, operated, and successfully exited a multi-million dollar technology service consultancy firm.
During his closing presentation, Colin will talk about thee process his team went through in defining a need, building a proof of concept before iterating and gaining product market fit, strategic pivots to establish a competitive stance, raising money, and creating an opportunity for exit (sell) their business.
