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The Big Experiment

Ever wondered how technology start-ups, well, start-up? For most founder entrepreneurs, it is the biggest experiment they'll ever run. Like most experiments, the result isn't known beforehand and it often doesn't work first time. On a bigger scale, how do big tech companies turn innovative science into profit?

Mark Davison interviews founder scientists, executives, investors, communicators, and others in the technology start-up and corporate science ecosystems.

Learn how great ideas turned into thriving businesses (or not) from those who made it happen (or didn't). Get business tips, lessons learned, and life lessons straight from the people who know.

Inspiring, disastrous, funny: hear what life in a science-driven company is really like.

Straight-talking, no nonsense, but conversational style. All technical content is explained for the non-specialist - you don't need a PhD or fluency in jargon and technobabble.

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The Big Experiment

The Ignite Program at the University of Cambridge Judge Business School

July 11, 2024 • Mark Davison • Episode 10

This edition of The Big Experiment is a little bit different to the usual format.

I'm on the road visiting the famous University of Cambridge Judge Business School to talk to people at the Ignite program.

It’s an intensive weeklong boot camp for early-stage founders, generally in tech and sometimes in biotech, but can be all sorts of different tech themes.

Ignite is about business and risk, which are the core themes of the podcast. But it's a slightly different flavour to usual. Science is all about predicting the future. As a scientist, you already know something, but usually not everything about your area of study. And from that fuzzy picture, you try to predict what else might be true. Well, this hunch or hypothesis drives your next experiments. If you fail, you adjust your prediction and you test again. Entrepreneurs take the same leap.

In this episode I interview volunteers, delegates and course leaders to find out more about how the Ignite program supports early-stage founders in science and in business.

“Ignite gives entrepreneurs a safe but challenging space to develop their ideas.” – Anne Davidson

You’ll hear about:

01:33 Science, business, and risk

03:00 Early-stage founders and their ideas at Ignite

06:10 Intrapreneurship: Supporting entrepreneurial initiatives

09:46 Delegates' impressions and takeaways from the Ignite program

15:24 Pitching competition and the value of Ignite

19:42 Approaching innovation and sustainability

23:27 The role of mentors and volunteers in supporting delegates

23:56 Creating a safe and challenging space for entrepreneurs

27:37 Attracting a diverse range of delegates

30:36 Effective communication and customer perspective

33:18 Discovering roles within a startup

37:38 Networking and knowledge exchange

40:54 Anyone can learn and start a business