Written by There are many opportunities open to University of Warwick Graduates such as the Start-up Scheme and our Graduate Accelerator Programme.
We talked to Alexander McCleod, Graduate Enterprise Officer at Warwick Enterprise, Luciana Gaspar Zamora – founder of Perubien, and Asim Yakub – founder of Visoculi, to find out what support is available, and how you can apply.
Watch the interview below.
For more about the programme, and to apply visit: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/enterprise/incubation/graduates/
Read the interview here:
Hi my name is Alexander McCleod. I’m the Graduate Enterprise Officer at Warwick Enterprise. If you’re a graduate of the University of Warwick and you’re looking for support to start your own business in the UK, apply now! Applications are open for our Start-up Scheme and our Graduate Accelerator Program. Good luck, we hope to receive something from you.
Submitting an application to either the Start-up Scheme or the Graduate Accelerator Program will give you all the necessary support for you to test your idea and launch your business in the UK.
Hi my name is Luciana Gaspar Zamora and I am founder of Perubien.
Luciana: Well I learned that my initial idea was good but not good enough, so after some conversations and reflecting, I believe I made something even better.
Hi my name is Asim Yakub and my business enterprise is called Visoculi.
Asim: My main needs were I needed a lot of guidance, advice, mentoring regarding creating and setting up an enterprise here. Of course I needed the Rights to do business, and I needed guidance for that as well. I needed endorsement of my business plan.
Asim: I had done some homework before coming to the UK but it did need a lot of refining and fine tuning and the Graduate Enterprise Officer of the GAP Program really provided that through the process.
Luciana: I really enjoy coming to the campus, visiting the office in Junction building, and also sometimes I am able to go to the office in Creative Futures in One Mill Street in Leamington, so I can also have discussions with other people with different backgrounds about businesses, and maybe to get some better ideas, add additional values to myself as a business woman, and also the whole environment, it’s amazing, to open my mind and discuss more with other people.
Asim: So the experience thus far has been, first of all, an extension of the mentoring support, which is really incredible. In addition to that, it comes with access to a whole talent community, with interaction with potential future partners. There could be interaction with like-minded people that one can learn from, because there can be similar challenges that other people face, even if the business venture is of a different kind.
Also potential collaboration, so it’s a very rich, it’s a very talent rich community that way. Also access to office space on campus, on this beautiful University of Warwick campus, which is a big plus as well.
Luciana: Being part of this program allowed me to do something for myself, but also based on what I learn here – so I think it’s a great opportunity, if you have that idea that it’s maybe, oh can this be a business? Maybe just try!
Asim: Clarity of thought, clarity of aims is very important, being an entrepreneur is about risk-taking, it’s about embracing challenges, but it’s also about unlocking hidden opportunities in those challenges, go beyond any preconceived boundaries and at the other end the rewards could be disproportionately large, and that’s a big motivator for me.