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Innovation and Intellectual Property

	"Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration" - Edison. This quote is often attributed to Einstein but it was actually Thomas Edison who said this at a press conference. Edison was one of the greatest inventors of all time. He lived by the creed of hard work and perserverence. "Many of life's failures are people who did not realise how close they were to success when they gave up" - Edison. and "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work" - Edison. Edison also understood the importance of protecting his inventions. The US patent office granted Edison 1093 patents throughout his life while there were another 500-600 patent applications that he let lapse for various reasons. These patents protected the vast body of his work and formed the foundation of his great legacy, The General Electric Company, or GE. Innovation is at the heart of what drives entrepreneurs. We can work with you to help 'tease out' those ideas that add value and then help to refine their application to a range of markets. Being lateral thinkers, we often combine skills from disparate disciplines to reach creative solutions to both the technical and market challenges. Patenting your idea is a very costly process and there are many pitfalls for the first time inventor. There are other means to protect your idea that have various pros and cons. In general however, patent protection in certain chosen jurisdictions will be the protection method of choice. We can help you navigate the IP process and explain the implications of what and how you choose to protect your invention. We can also help you to structure your thoughts and minimise the costs of working with a patent attorney.
Strategy Validation and Planning

	You have an idea. Does it make sense? Can it be built? Is there a market? Are there competitors? Will it make money? Is there longevity? Where will the next idea come from? You are at the very beginning of a scary new path, perhaps your first entrepreneurial activity. Are you on the right track? We can help you to analyse the opportunity strategically. Does your idea have the potential to become a profitable business and what do you need to execute it? Ideas are cheap, but team, product, process and execution determine the success of a business. Going through a planning exercise will give you the peace of mind that there is a roadmap ahead and begin to prepare the documents you will need to secure investment. Business Plans are living documents. Don't be tempted to create one for your investor and then file it in the completed basket. They are constantly changing in the lifecycle of your startup. The Business Plan should be updated whenever you receive some new, important market intelligence or strategically significant breakthrough. Business plans are often overdone. Nobody wants to read a 50 page document. We will help you distill the important information and present it in the most potent format, be it document or presentation.
Financing / Investor Readiness

	Securing investment can be incredibly difficult and is always very time consuming. Know exactly how much you need to raise and be prepared to burn more than you thought. Decide what type of investor your business is best suited to – business angel, bank loan, grant, crowd-funding, crowd-investing, venture capital - then tailor your financial plan to your chosen audience. Banks and Venture Capitalists have a different risk appetite and consequently view your business in a completley different way. We need to define the business logic behind your key assumptions. The strength of your financial plan lies not only in the technicalities of the financial model, but in the logic behind it. Seed investors challenge every tiny bit of your business. Being grilled by a seasoned investor can be a daunting experience. There will be questions that you can't answer. Honesty is the best policy here. Don't be tempted to make up a convincing answer on the spot. You will most likely be called out by an expert or worse still, rue that statement down the track. An investor needs to be able to trust you and the best solution is often to get back to them with the answer. You don’t need all the answers on the spot, but timing, metrics, team and your roadmap are the key to getting funded. We’ll challenge your model, numbers and pitch just like an investor would. Then you will be prepared.
International Market and Business Development / Founder Coaching

	Marketing is the key input to your product development cycle. This is often overlooked, particularly by the first-time entrepreneur. Extracting the salient points from the mountain of market information out there is often tricky and a proper reading of this information is neccessary to properly inform strategy and business model decisions. We can help you to wade through this information, make the right linkages to key market participants, fill the gaps in your knowledge and begin to add commercial value to your operation. VentureNext can add real value to your interational market development activities through our extensive network of key influencers across the globe. We have exensive connections in Middle Eastern and Asian health and medical markets while for other technology products and applications we have greater reach into the US. Professional mentoring can be invaluable for founders. Don't underestimate the role that psychology plays in setting up your business. Each member of the team will be driven by different goals and have different needs. Together we address the main challenges that every startup faces, including the emotional roller coaster that founders are on. We focus on your milestones and encourage you to think outside the box. Founder coaching can function as a methodological approach to developing your business strategy but it is often most powerful in the “interim-co-founder” format.