NCGE-Kauffman Entrepreneurship Fellowship (NKEF) Application tips

The 'NCGE-Kauffman Entrepreneurship Fellowship 2007' application is now open here. Apart from the stupidly long name this fellowship has given me more opportunities in 5 months than I have had in the last 24 years. Plus its been a huge amount of fun. So thought I would offer some thoughts on what you need to do I think will help.

The selection is in 2 stages: Application and Interview.

The application last year had to be about 3,000 words. So prepare it carefully before writing it up on the internet, have it checked by as many people as you can. The focus of the application should be on the following:

• Entrepreneurship, leadership, business
• these words mean nothing unless you can give examples showing how they apply to you
• A solid technology based business idea
• You don't necessarily have to have a technology/engineering background but it helps
• the most popular degree out of this years Fellowship is 'Product Design' because their final year projects focused on a real world need and product
• Extra marks for having a patent/ actively pursuing the idea but this is not essential
• The business plan and the customer is more important than the idea itself
• The unfortunate problem for most of us Engineers out there is that we like 'cool gadgets' thats not what the fellowship is about, its about a real business which means a customer and a market. This is most important. Whats the need the product is filling? whose need? why will they buy?
• You
• Your enthusiasm
  
• Your desire to want to start a business
• Again give solid examples of your experiences in the past
• How you're going to spread entrepreneurship when arriving back in the UK
• At you university etc.
• This was one of Gordon Browne's hopes for the Fellowship

Interview
The interview is split into 2 parts, Q&A and 10 minute presentation.
The presentation is you only, no powerpoint. Make sure you can give the presentation without referring to notes. Some people like to memorize talks word for word; I like to memorize the main points and talk conversationally. Whatever works for you. Pratice normally works for everyone.

The Q&A session will test what you really know about leadership and business (at least it did for me). Knowing isn't the most important thing - although it helps. How you respond and compose yourself is most important. One word of warning Ian Robertson, a former serial entrepreneur and Director of the NCGE is very concerned that you know who the customer for your product is be sure you have worked this out!

And good luck!!

p.s. the profile an average Fellow this year was:
Male, 25, Degree and above in Engineering or Product Design, a prototype of their idea,

Saying that I don't fall into any of those categories (except male ;o)

I think if you're female and have a great idea then you should definitely apply for the fellowship. NCGE and Kauffman are eager to bring on females to the scheme. (And the 16 boys this year would have been equally eager ;o)

Week 10: Inbetween placements at Kauffman Foundation

This week I have been in between placements which has given me an excellent opportunity to work on my business idea. I have teamed up with one of the other Kauffman Scholars: Luke Jefferson (see his profile here). Together we are working to start a web company which will monetize social networks.

Why? For many reasons. Here's my take on the social networking:

1. Epitomized by the dot com bubble a lot of web start ups thought that if they could get enough page views they could figure out where the money would come from later. 'Eyeballs over earnings'. *
   
2. Just look at the number of websites on the internet and compare that to website revenue. I think the internet has a long tail of very low earners and maybe 100 winners (and then the anomaly Google).
3. Now narrow the market down to just Social networks. Of the top 100 sites on Alexa only 10 are true social networks. Compare that to the 10,000's of social network startups this year which have faded into obscurity.
   
4. How much revenue do these sites make? There is very little solid evidence to confirm this as there are no published figures, the only real solid figures are the prices that the web companies were acquired for. (And theres only 1 big social network acquisition: Myspace by Newcorp for $580,000,000).

So it appears that most social networks don't wish to disclose earnings, and yet its very easy to find approximate page views (like Facebook's staggering 5.5+ BILLION page views per month and rising). It would seem like conversion of adverts into click-through/ sales is phenomenally small.

Despite this, businesses are still turning more and more to the internet to target their audiences. It would seem like internet advertising is either:

1. more successful than traditional media
2. potentially more successful than traditional media
   

Yes I agree targeting of the prospect in the right situation is much better on the internet than traditional media, but engaging the prospect to look at the advert and take it in is still very very difficult.

To combat this problem, and to exploit what Luke and I see as a huge gap in the internet advertising landscape, we aim to launch a new type of innovative advertising platform which will focus on earnings for the advertiser and ourselves from day 1. With our focus in the area of social networking.

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*In a way I also think Google has spread this false model: "if we build it they will come: if they're here then we'll figure out how to make money" but what they have that no one else has is the best advertising platform on the earth. This huge financial security allows them to try and fail at many things until they hit another great idea (like Gmail). The founding entrepreneur simply doesn't have this money cushion.

Week 5: Last week in Kansas City

This being the final week at the Kauffman Foundation, before we travel to California, we've been asked to prepare presentations on our business ideas; as a 15 minute pitch. So I thought it would be a good idea to introduce the rest of the Global Scholars and their business ideas.

Scholar	Business Idea
Aaron Mannis	A product to dramatically improve firearm safety.
Ade Bamidele	Web based platforms for Image Retrieval
Chris Mitchell	Automated sound genre classification system
Craig Hellen	Video design production company specialising on a new UK sport mountain boarding see www.fnkydesign.com
Daniel Currin	Patented and is now hoping to license/create company around an innovative balloon product
Devin Cheevers	Create mobile phone features to aid developing countries such as his home town in South Africa.
Georgios Diamantopoulos	An automated quality checker for Video Codec which creates a metric of image quality.
Gerhard Symons	Co-founder of CamStent: a bioscience company aimed at revolutionizing a particular surgical treatment for coronary artery disease.
Joshual Seal	Patented a energy saving product which reduces power consumption of devices in stand by.
Luke Jefferson	Assistive technologies for colour blind computer users.
Manu Bhardwaj	Funky wheelchair that has a novel folding mechanism
Scot Devlin	A non-destructive subsurface mapping provider that uses a unique 3D Ground-Penetrating-Radar system in the European construction industry
Simon Phelps	Started company ‘Fluvial innovations ‘ which is based on IP developed at university: a unique demountable flood barrier which can be constructed by one person. see more at www.fluvial-innovations.co.uk
Wasim Bhatti	Has a number of inventions which he wishes to develop under his own brand starting with an Unmanned Aviation Vehicle for the civilian market.
Will Griffiths	Has business Interests in social innovations focused on energy saving and green devices

So there was a brief introduction to all the other scholars. Next week I'll be in California and the heart of Silicon Valley: San Antonia.

Week 4: KC

Like the constant snow (I don't think I have seen the grass yet in Kansas City!) the quality of speakers has stayed at its incredibly high level with talks from David Aldridge, Bob Litan of Kauffman and Catherine Mann. As well as this we went on a visit to an established local entrepreneur: Danny O'Neil the Founder of the Roasterie a Kansas coffee supplier.

Bob Litan is one of the smartest people I have ever met (and this is after meeting the MIT and HBS lecturers) his background in Economics. Here is a quote from his biography on the Kauffman website:

"Litan has had a distinguished career in public service. He served on the staff of the Council of Economic Advisers (1977-79), as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Antitrust Division of the Justice Department (1993-95), and Associate Director of the Office and Management and Budget (1995-96). He also has been a consultant to the Treasury Department on financial policy issues."

And what he had to say to us in the 1 hour informal chat he had with our group was fascinating. Bob wrote an essay on what was required of the US to sustain and develop its Entrepreneurial economy in the future: effectively what were the primary concerns of an entrepreneur.

After a first draft of this essay he gave a talk on his findings to a audience of entrepreneurs and found that their thoughts on the issue compared to his and the governments were different.

"What would you expect an entrepreneurs primary concern is?.. Tax right?.. well it isn't, its the workforce"

After discussing this with these entrepreneurs and other he rewrote the essay and came to the following 4 concerns for a future entrepreneurial economy to be sustained and show growth:

1. Ensuring a skilled workforce
2. Reforming health care
   
3. Promoting Innovation
4. Limiting overly burdensome regulation and liability litigation

Interestingly 2 of these concerns, health care and litigation, aren't so important in the UK as health care is paid for by the state and litigation isn't so rife.

So why isnt the UK more entrepreneurial?

Weak 2: Kansas City

The snow just doesn't melt here in Kansas, the weather is so cold that it stays 5-6 inches deep all week. Which is great for snowball fights but not so good for learning my way around the city: everything looks the same: white and bland.
This is our first full week of lectures and visits. First I want to briefly introduce the Kauffman Foundation. The Kauffman Foundation was founded in the late 1960's by entrepreneur and philanthropist Ewing Marion Kauffman. Ewing set the vision of the Foundation to be:

"a society of economically independent individuals who are engaged citizens, contributing to the improvement of their communities."


Practically this means promoting entrepreneurship with a particular focus on youth. However this is only a small part of the Kauffman's reach in and around Kansas and America. Kauffman is one of the most prestigious foundations in America, employing many serial entrepreneurs, former Government advisor's and science magazine editors. One of the first things I noticed about Kauffman was the gravitas given to its name, speaking to Americans I met as I was out and about, they would ask what are you doing here in America and as soon as I mentioned Kauffman their eyebrows raised and I almost felt like i'd been given an extra level of respect just for associating myself with the name.

The most memorable speakers of the week were Ken Harrington, Howard Aldrich and Scott Shane.

Ken Harrington, who is the Managing Director at the Skandalaris Centre for Entrepreneurial studies, set us a task of evaluating our business based on scoring different aspects of our business development. For the whole lecture he put one slide up on the project- the slide showing the matrix of business aspects versus scores - and then we held a discussion on what it all meant. The interesting points which came out of this lecture were:

• There are 3 motivating factors for a business founder: Control, Impact and Money.
• It is good to first be aware of where you stand, which factor(s) motivate you the most to help determine what you want out of a business.
• Often the founder who likes control, creates a company which slowly but inevitable seeds control from him/her
• The Founder effectively creates a company he/she doesn't want to be a part of!

This is not a bad thing. There are different roles required of the company leader throughout the company's lifetime, and sometimes one leader isn't suited to all these roles.

This has really helped me re-evaluate why I want to start a company and what I want to get out of starting a company.

First Week in Kansas City USA

I arrived in Kansas city after 20 hours of traveling to the sight of snow everywhere, which covered the ground for the following week. First impressions: cold, white, sprawling.

The week began on Tuesday with a tour of the Kauffman Foundation, an introduction to its CEO Carl Schramm and the rest of the Kauffman directors, including the program organizer Wendy Torrance. Wendy explained to us that over the course of the next 5 weeks we would go through an intensive training course in business and entrepreneurship. In the first week we received lectures from Carl Schramm, Ted Zoller, Craig Armstrong.

Carl Schramm explained to us why we are here learning entrepreneurship in America: because Americans do it best! but the interesting thing to me is why Americans do it best. In Carl's mind is that it practically an accident that it turned out this way, heres his take:

1. American law changed pensions liability from company to individual.
2. American law changed to allow pension fund holders to put money into venture capital.

The reason these laws changed at the time had completely different political motivation but the effect was dramatic towards entrepreneurship.

1. Moving liability to individual made the workforce more mobile as they were no longer tied into one company, they could work where they wanted to more easily.
   
2. Pension funder holders could choose to invest there capital into high risk high return VC market, which gave Venture Capital Funds a huge boast in money to invest in start up companies.

One final piece which makes the American people entrepreneurial is that employment is at 95%.

If I'm an American employee and I want to start a company there's very little risk (compared to other countries).

• First I can be practically guaranteed a job should my venture fail due to the very high employment rate.
  
• Second should my start up require funding there is plenty of Venture Capital available.
  
• Third my pension is still fine, as its connected to me personally and not my company.

So the American Entrepreneurship culture is an accident? I certainly don't think America has been engineered to be this way; but there is certainly more to it than just these 3 chance factors, otherwise it would be straightforward for other countries to copy.

And there'd be no reason for me to be here ;) Thank goodness thats not true!

Kauffman Global Scholars Program, how it began

On 22 March 2006, in UK Chancellor Gordon Brown's Budget speech he mentioned that Enterprise and Entrepreneurship would be given a new focus by the government. One way this would happened is a partnership between the NCGE and the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation in America. The partnership would allow 20 of the UK's top University minds the opportunity to find out about Entrepreneurship in America, with the intention of starting their own business' when they arrive back in the UK. This program was being called the NCGE-Kauffman Entrepreneurship Fellowship (quite a mouthful!)
For more info see this document

At the time I was totally oblivious to the goings on of Parliament and the NCGE. I was studying Electronics with Management in the 3rd year of a 4 year degree at York University. However around the beginning of May York University had been given the opportunity to nominate 2 candidates for the NCGE Kauffman year. Tony Ward, the head of Enterprise at York University, had asked for nominations of potential candidates from Supervisors around the University.

Out the the blue I was sent an email telling me that I had been nominated, by a lecturer I didnt know. I then recieved a second email from that lecturer to say that he hadn't nominated me but all the best with the application. This unexpected (and possibly unintended) nomination for a course I had never heard about proved to be the best opportunity I had ever recieved. I wasn't going to let it go.

Students can only apply to this program if they have a technological based business idea and a background in the Sciences or Engineering. Places are awarded to students who have this background and business idea, but they also need to have energy and drive and the desire to want to promote Enterprise back in the UK. Having gone through an intensive application and interview stage I am now one of 17 students from universities around the UK to be accepted onto the program as a Fellow.

The program is divided into two sections: 3 months in the UK and 6 months in America. The time in the UK is spent preparing for America; the time in America is spent taking intensive training courses in business, developing contacts, and an internship in a business which is in the same field as the business plan the Fellow has.

In the UK Fellows meet each other and share experiences. Each Fellow has a mentor and access, through the NCGE, to many contacts and resources which would not ordinarily be available. Each Fellow is at a different point in their business creation, and so each Fellow has different targets for when they reach America. I found myself to be the least progressed out of all the Fellows, which puts me in an incredible position to learn from everyone.

America is filled with opportunities for making contacts, learning from the most prestigious institutes and developing the business closer to reality. The time in America is broken down as follows:

• 5 weeks in Kansas City, Missouri, intensive course in business at the Kauffman Foundation.
• 1 week in Silicon Valley, learning at Stanford University and speaking to people throughout the valley
• 2 weeks in Boston, learning at the Harvard Business School.
• 12 weeeks placement with a company in the field of my business idea.
• 1 week reunion in Kansas City where Fellows share their experiences then go back to the UK.

This is the first time a program like this has been run by the Kauffman Foundation (not even students in America have had this opportunity). The Kauffman Foundation plan to run the same scheme for many different countries and because of this have decided to call it the 'Kauffman Global Scholars Program'.

What an opportunity! My only aim is to make the most of it.