Mentoring - British Design Fund

MORE THAN MONEY

We know from experience that ambitious early stage product businesses need more than just cash to succeed. That’s why we provide a range of expert coaching, mentoring and hands-on commercial, manufacturing, business development and support to all of our investee companies.

POST INVESTMENT SUPPORT

Market entry; Gaining initial traction in the marketplace is one of the biggest challenges early stage product businesses face. BDF Advisors Ltd helps you avoid the pitfalls that new brands often fall into when launching products and assist with realistic marketing support plans.
Sales strategy and execution; A hands-on approach to crafting sales strategies and helping to enable those sales plans will ensure that businesses remain focused on achieving profitable sales throughout their early years. Each sales channel requires specific approaches and has unique requirements. As a start-up you often only get one chance to pitch to a buying team, so it’s essential to understand the margin they require, the marketing support they expect and the minimum viable range that will ensure a win-win relationship moving forward.
Design; Design is at the heart of every great product brand. By taking design seriously and making design a part of your DNA you’ll see benefits not only in terms of greater brand equity and higher company valuations, but also in terms of greater staff engagement, higher performing teams, and a stronger bottom line.
IP protection; We work closely with our teams to ensure that they are making commercially sensible decisions when it comes to protecting their IP. The probability of a successful exit for each the business is closely linked to the strength of the IP behind the product and how defensible it is.
Manufacturing and product development; All new businesses will need to address the challenges associated with scaling manufacturing at some point. This applies not only in terms of scaling production capacity to meet growing demand, but also in terms of continuing to feed new product innovation into the business and how to do this successfully.
Brand development; Nurturing and growing the inherent value of your brand is vital to achieving a strong valuation at the point of exit. We have a huge amount of expertise in how to successfully build and defend a product brand in competitive markets.
Finance and stock control; As your business grows so do your financing needs, as does the level of financial reporting required to successfully manage your growth. Robust stock control and sales forecasting are vital for a growing product business, and making sure the cash flows remain positive throughout the growth phase is equally important.

MEET THE MENTORS

Gillian Kerr

Brand Creation

Gillian Kerr

Brand Creation

A global CMO, and Founder, Gillian has 30 years’ experience of helping create long-term value through brand creation and development, working with both MNCs and start-ups.

Adam Sutcliffe

Head of Mentoring

Adam Sutcliffe

Head of Mentoring

18+ years’ experience supporting start-ups along with lecturing on Design and Engineering at RCA and Queen Mary University London. Adam has also invented and launched several products into market.

Iain Ellwood

Growth Strategist

Iain Ellwood

Growth Strategist

Iain is a seasoned management consultant, author of several best-selling business books and a member of the McKinsey Research Panel and Harvard Business Review Advisory Council.

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