NESTA Award £7,000 Grant to Red Button Design!

Following on from my post of 13/06/08 I am happy to announce that we have been offered £7,000 in grant funding from NESTA.

We have been told that the funding decisions were made on a very competitive basis and having spent 4 months on a training course getting to know the other participants and their businesses I can only imagine how difficult the decision making process was for the panel members involved.

Through a four page Executive Summary and a 30 minute pitch, each business was assessed in terms of the innovation, market opportunity and proposed use of funds. NESTA's tagline "making innovation flourish" underpins this grant and a major aspect of the grant process was demonstrating the innovative aspects of the business. Well, here at RBD-HQ we like to think that we not only have innovation in the design of our product but also in the design of our business plan, route to market and in our ambitious media and brand strategy, so we are extremely pleased to have this innovation formally recognised by NESTA.

Alongside the grant we will receive appropriate follow-on business support to ensure we spend the money on the more 'novel' aspects of our business rather than on the general administration and day to day 'busywork'. The business advisers will also send written updates back to NESTA charting our progress. We are embracing this opportunity with open arms and anticipate having a lot to report back to NESTA and your good selves!

See all 2008's grant recipients here

NESTA S46 Finale

Tuesday saw the culmination of the NESTA Starter for 6 Cultural Enterprise training programme. This year 223 businesses applied, 149 people were selected for interview and 80 individuals were accepted onto the course. This course consisted of 4 days training, 2 networking sessions and 3 one on one sessions with a business coach. The 67 businesses that successfully completed the course were given the opportunity to pitch for a grant of up to £10,000, pitching to panels in five cities over the period 27th May through to 10th June. NESTA has a fund of £180,000 this year to distribute as it pleases between these 67 bids.

James and I were one of the last Companies to pitch and stated our case for the cash on the final interview day, Tuesday.

We were pleased with the way our pitch went. Of course you never can tell with these things and it remains to be seen if our bid for finance was successful. However I do get a sense that regardless of which businesses do receive their share of the £180K everyone who was lucky enough to be accepted on this course (which is not only free to those who get through the application process but actually subsidised so all participants receive a payment into their personal bank account to help with travel costs to and from the various training and events) has found the training and networking both useful and enjoyable. I think I can speak for many of the participants when I say that there is a great deal of enthusiasm for keeping in touch and continuing to share helpful information and advice. Whilst everyone wants their share of the money there is a wider realisation that the quality of entrepreneurs on the course was astounding and this extinguishes any rivalry which may otherwise existed between our businesses.

So to anyone who completed the course I sincerely and whole heatedly wish you all the luck in the world getting this funding and to anyone who is thinking of starting or in the early stages of running a business do get in touch with NESTA to see what courses run in your area. NESTA

I will post again when we find out if we have been successful.

Red Button Design's Starter for 6.

Following my interview for the NESTA "Starter for 6" Programme I am very excited to hear I have been offered a place. To find out more about this brilliant scheme and what it will do for me and Red Button Design have a look at their website.

NESTA Starter for 6