New Level 3 M2M projects for MBB students

I am delighted to announce that there will be an opportunity for FCP201 students from MBB to sign up for a new project option starting in October 2017. Building on the platform of FCP201, there will be an opportunity to develop a viable business plan in the broad Biotech area as one of the level 3 project pathways. The project will typically involve 4-6 students working as a group to develop a robust business plan, with the support of academic and business mentors. The further possibility exists within this project, to seek external funding, to create your own intellectual property where appropriate and to spin out your own business. You will be guided and encouraged by your mentors, but you will be the ones who will be responsible for the successful commercialisation of your idea, should you choose to do so. The structure of the project and the assessment criteria are described below. It follows a similar pattern to FCP201, but each element of the business development project will require a greater level of depth and will be subject to more rigorous scrutiny.

Brainstorming. The first part of the project will involve the development of a number of ideas. Since the project forms a considerable part of your level 3 academic credits in MBB, it must be based on one or more of your taught modules. However, there will be some latitude given, in order to reconcile both scientific and commercial objectives. As with FCP201, you will draw on your knowledge of the course together with your own scientific and business awareness to develop a small number of business proposals. You will document (by minuting) your student-led brainstorming sessions, from which a 1 page summary of each idea will be used to select the most suitable proposal through discussion with the mentoring team.

Articles of Incorporation The roles and responsibilities of "board" members will be defined, and each member will be responsible for preparing their section of the initial business plan. It is our intention that the company should provide you with a real world business opportunity, the allocation of roles and responsibilities will therefore be critical. You will need a minimum of four key roles: strategic leadership (CEO), scientific and technical leadership (CSO), a financial lead (CFO) and a sales/marketing/communication person(s). Having established which area you wish to run with, you will provide the mentoring team with a draft business plan. It is important to note that business plans should never be "set in stone". The first draft is likely to be updated, expanded, contracted etc as the project develops and you begin to incorporate "intelligence" from your competitor analysis.

Scoping the business When you have satisfied yourselves that your plan is sound in theory, you will need to test it out against the competition and the market (in some preliminary way). You may have settled on a software idea, or a new approach to reducing spread of infectious diseases. You may wish to produce a hair restorer or alternatively a hair remover! Whatever your idea, you will need to survey your potential customers (whoever they may be). It may be that your idea is sound, but by discussing it with a group of "experts", you may find some fundamental flaws, that you hadn't anticipated (it does happen!).

Pitching the Business You will need to persuade someone that your idea is interesting, attractive and most of all, a way to make someone more money than they already have! This is the point where level 3 and 2 differ. The opportunity to pitch to a "live" group will be an option if you and the mentoring team feel that this is a viable opportunity. You will need to think very carefully about commitment, personal investment of time at least and ways in which you might obtain seed funding in order to persuade any potential investors of your idea.


Full business plan All businesses are based on a set of ideas, an assessment of the opportunity in terms of the market and the prospects for positive revenue growth at the earliest opportunity. As anyone in business will tell you, business plans are "working documents" (or "live documents"). However, this doesn't mean that they lack rigour. Quite the opposite! A business plan should be robust and thorough, but should also incorporate room for adaptation and modification, should the environment change (Darwinian principles apply!). You will be given resources, advice and examples of best practice in preparing a business plan, and we will try and find an appropriate match with an existing company in order to inform your planning. Each member of the team will make an identifiable contribution to the final business plan.
 

Proof of concept If your idea would benefit from experimental data, perhaps to produce information to persuade investors, or possibly just to satisfy yourselves that the idea is robust, you may wish to carry out a strategic set of experiments. This is entirely possible and would be for you to  decide. Unlike other student lab work, you will be expected to cost the work and justify the expense. There will be a limited, small budget: if you need further support, you will have to fund-raise yourselves. You will also have access to a 3D printer if design of components or "printing" demonstration items would add value. (You may be interested in this post describing the value of 3D printing).

Competitor analysis Your idea may or may not infringe somebody else's  patent, or you may need a license for access to a piece of IP that's essential for your idea to be deliverable. Alternatively you may have a large corporate operating in the same commercial space, who are unlikely to take your arrival on the scene lying down! You will therefore need to carry out a full analysis of the market for your product and decide on your business strategy. Will your idea form part of an IP portfolio, which will require one type of fund raising strategy and a rigorous . Alternatively, you may want to proceed by keeping your idea an "in-house secret", which has been Coca Cola's (very successful) strategy 

Appraisal/staff review/performance management Is everyone pulling their weight in the team? How do you judge whether you are working hard enough? Are you prioritizing the right things? All organisations recruit staff on some form of probationary terms. You may have been recruited to carry out experimental work in a specialised area that is critical for the development of a new drug. Alternatively you may have been recruited for your coding skills, or your team leadership potential. These are just a few examples and all could be "mission critical". So how do employers, and increasingly your colleagues, make sure that the "business" remains on track and that you are performing to expectations. This usually takes some form of "carrot and stick" scenario. There are of course divided views on how much carrot and how much stick is used, and you don't need me to tell you this; you can all read the News! The 360 degree idea is something that will be incorporated into "project surveillance". Each member of the team will be assessed at the start, in the middle and after the preparation of the business plan. There will be a simple self assessment form that you will complete every two weeks, and then there will be two group sessions led by the mentor team in order to gauge how each member of the team is contributing to the project. The first session will be carried out after the first four weeks and the final one after eight weeks. There will also be some individual assignments" throughout the project, including contributions to the business plan and production of an individual diary as well as an individual case study of a company of your choice.

Executive Summary Level 3 Molecules to Market offers a limited number of MBB students the opportunity to gain first hand experience of creating a "spin out" business in the Biotech sector. In keeping with the overall aims of level 3 lecture and project modules there will be an expectation of commitment in terms of time and effort: students will be assessed on the basis of both individual pieces of work as well as that of the team as a whole. Formal instructions will be made available via MOLE, and all assessed work will be submitted via this route. In addition to academic supervision, you will benefit from the expertise and resources available at the University of Sheffield Enterprise zone and from external business mentors. Finally, the opportunity exists for you to develop your ideas  into a real business, should you choose to do so. I look forward to getting started!