November review…
Wow! When I sat down to plan writing this, and reflected on the month I couldn’t believe how many exciting things we have packed into the last 4 weeks! To kick it all off, at the start of the month we ran CS73 with a group of students from Slovenians. They were with us for just two weeks but they blew us away with their attitude and energy. Perhaps my proudest moment came from the pitch day feedback from local business woman Sarah Maddison who said to the group… ‘When I look at you guys I see the future and after watching those presentations, I feel that the future is in safe hands.’ There’s not much more I can add really. Thank you CS73 for being pleasure to coach!
Next on the CS calendar was a visit from our COO Andreu who is based out in Barcelona. The main purpose of his visit was for the team to review the last 12 months and also plan out our 2018 strategy. Over the last year, the CS vision has remained constant however our programs have seen a number of revisions and so it was great to take time to talk through impact of those changes. We also went over our program forecast for 2018 and we already have 19 programs booked in for next year with an expected 230 new members being added to the CS Community!
Although a tad early, while Andreu was over we also took the opportunity to have our CS Christmas party! It was a rare treat for all of us to be in the same place and so we celebrated in the best way….with rum tasting boards! [Don’t worry, we have already made a note to work on our team pose]
You may have seen on our social media that over the last 6 months we have been busy working with Province Media and Tom Law Says [far left and kneeling] to put all of our training materials into video format. We’re now at a super exciting stage where we have a number of the modules finished and will be launching them in January 2018! We can not wait to share the final result with you all very soon!
Amongst all of this, we were also graced in the middle of the month by a visit from CS Alumni, Luke and his cofounder Daniel. The guys have just secured £100,000 in crowdfunding for their company Homefans. Luke and Daniel were in town to meet with CrowdCube with whom they ran the campaign and popped into the office for a catch up with Neil. It was great to see them and also a proud moment for us to see an idea that originated from a CS Experienceship come to life in such a prosperous and exciting way! Wishing the guys all the best of luck over the coming months!
We are also currently running an Innovation Experienceship in Exeter with a group of 16 students from the IHM Business School. From previous experience of Swedish students, we had high expectations from this group and so far they are not only meeting them but exceeding! We are trialling some new materials with the group and they are providing us with great feedback and ideas! The best thing is that we are only in week 2 with them! We still have another 2 weeks to go and we can’t wait to see what amazing business ideas they develop in that time. We will keep you posted!
We received some exciting news in November…we have had two proposals accepted for the 2018 USASBE conference which means that we are heading to Hollywood in January!! We are super excited as not only will we be speaking about the concept and value of Experienceships, we will also be running a live session of our ‘Eureka Game’ aka ‘Idea Sex’; bringing two things together to create one new amazing idea!
December Preview
This month we will be focusing on the final two weeks of the CS74 program. Having selected their favourite business ideas, the group will now spend the next two weeks developing their ideas further and preparing for the Bear Pit next Thursday. We will be filming the pitches so you can see how they do!
This Thursday we will also be shooting the next of our training videos; how you can compete with your competitors! Despite the cold weather, we will be heading out to the Bear Trail for a fun/ mud filled day! Keep your eyes peeled on Instagram for some behind the scenes shots!
And of course there’s the main event of this month…Christmas! The CS team will be taking a well earned break over Christmas to recharge batteries before hitting the ground running in January with programs in Exeter, Barcelona as well as the trip to LA for USASBE!
We hope you have enjoyed reading the first in our Review/ Preview series! We would love to know if you have any comments or questions.
Take care!
Team CS
