Written by A free peer network to help businesses solve problems and accelerate innovation.
We talked to the team behind our new digital platform, and chatted with a few entrepreneurs about how we can help your business grow.
Watch the video interview below:
Who are we?
My Innovation Collective is a not for profit digital community funded by the Warwick Innovation District, and supported by the Innovation Alliance for the West Midlands, that helps growing businesses connect with established professionals to get support, solve practical problems and accelerate innovation.
Read the interview here:
Emma Ward: My Innovation Collective is a community of pioneers, mentors, entrepreneurs, small businesses, start-ups, people who’ve just got a business idea who have come together to create a free to use knowledge exchange platform.
So it’s a community of people who’ve got vast amounts of experience in the business world, and also people who need to access that experience, who are able to exchange those ideas for free.
So it’s a really good opportunity to take your expertise and some of the things that you’ve learned, either through years in business, or working in a specialist area and help another organisation, or another individual who’s looking for those skills and experience, and again it helps to widen your network as a mentor, so it’s a lovely philanthropic gesture, apart from anything else, but you’ll also be able to meet other people who are working in a similar organisation, or a similar sector and be able to share ideas, and you never know, you might find somebody who can help innovate in your organisation.
Abbi Head: I have gained so much from The Innovation Collective in respect of the fact that I have not only received information from others, and also experience and connections from others, I’ve also offered as well my own experience, once I got the confidence to do so, and I think the meetings that I’ve had, I’ve covered things such as: my value proposition, I’ve talked to people about intellectual property, I’ve talked about so many different things, marketing, I’ve talked about my business model canvas, I’ve got things coming up with presentations.
Every step of the way when I’m starting my business, there’s been somebody there who can help me to go to the next level, which is great.
Gaynor Matthews: In the start-up world you need certain skills at certain times, but not all together, so for me I saw this as an opportunity to access those things that I needed, when I needed them. So that’s what I’m hoping to gain, it’s not just all about me giving, but me taking something back as well.
Abbi Head: I think it would be really important for anybody to join who really enjoys having some kind of Think Tank, that’s basically how I see the Innovation Collective. As it develops, and as it grows, and people keep joining it – you have a pool of knowledge that you can take at any given time.
Emma Ward: I think it’s a really good opportunity to be able to be part of a community who are on the same page, in terms of innovating in your business, finding new ideas to help your start-up. It’s a wider opportunity to create a network of people.
More about our community here: https://myinnovationcollective.online/