Business students from the University of West London sat around a table in the Westmont Business Hub.
Business students from the University of West London sat around a table in the Westmont Business Hub.

Business students at the University of West London explore Venture Making at Westmont Enterprise Hub

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Twenty-one BA Business and Entrepreneurship students at the University of West London recently began a programme of Venture Making, a tool for weighing up the viability of business ideas, at the Westmont Enterprise Hub. The Hub is the ideation, innovation and incubation centre for entrepreneurs at the University and the wider west London community.

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As part of their final projects, the Claude Littner Business School (CLBS) students are spending three hours a week for 14 weeks going through the process of Venture Making, which begins with finding a problem and then devising a solution to it.

The first thing we look at is desirability. Is there a market? Will someone buy this product or service? Is there a need? Is there a desire?”

explains Stephen Fry, Executive Director of the Westmont Enterprise Hub.

The other key concepts of Venture Making are viability, feasibility, adaptability and sustainability. The process completes with a pitch, similar to BBC’s Dragons’ Den, to a panel made up of Stephen, investors and other local business entrepreneurs.

The University is full of bright ideas, but they are usually in one person’s head. A start-up does not go far with a ‘solopreneur’, so we look for three people to start a business together: a visionary, a hacker and a hustler. The roles are different, but they are all entrepreneurial,”

explains Stephen.

Liana Hayrapetyan, Module Leader of the Start-up Project and Senior Lecturer in Finance and Accounting at the Claude Littner Business School, says,

Venture Making provides students with a great opportunity to apply their academic knowledge. The most exciting part of it is that students can pitch their work to a panel of investors at the end of the programme.”

Joaquim, a student on the programme, says,

I have business ideas, but had no idea how to start a business. Doing this analysis of the desirability, the what, the who, the where, the when, the why and the how much, has helped so much in understanding how to start.”

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