WORTH Project Milan Design Week Workshop
Facilitated a two-day workshop focused on investment readiness for the WORTH Project’s incubator cohort of European creative industry startups at Milan Design Week.
WORTH Project
The WORTH Partnership Project, is a European Union funded program that provides investment and an incubator program to pan-European ventures working within the creative industry. Its aim is to facilitate project partnerships and economic output across Europe.
What They Needed
-
The WORTH Partnership Project was running its incubation program for it’s cohort of pan-European creative industry innovation startups. The culminating showcase took place at Milan Design Week, and in parallel they wanted to run workshops to help the entrepreneurs with various needs. A key objective of the program is to support and facilitate the development of the projects throughout the program.
-
An area that these creative industry startups needed more assistance with was the topic of Investment Readiness. WORTH approached me for a collaboration consisting of an on-site Investment Readiness workshop, as well as a webinar on the topic of Pitching that would occur prior to the workshop. In addition, they requested a Final Report as a summary of the investment readiness of the cohort, key insights and takeaways, and well as recommendations for the future.
How We Collaborated
-
We developed the content and structure, according to WORTH’s objectives. This translated to a 2-Day on-site workshop in Milan, including two presentations, and the development and facilitation of two unique exercises: The Investment Readiness Assessment and The Investment Fit Canvas. As a preparation to the workshop, I implemented a webinar entitled “The Art & Science of Pitching”, and this entire collaboration concluded with a 10-page final report outlining key takeaways from the cohort.
-
Through the Investment Readiness Assessment the projects could objectively identify their investment readiness, according to industry and investment standards and criteria. This subsequently helped the entrepreneurs formulate a more realistic roadmap for investment, through the Investment Fit Canvas, resulting on greater clarity and practical deliverables to perform to achieve their investment goals. For WORTH, the development of these projects towards better investment readiness, and the data and insights to go with it, were of high value.
The Results
-
The feedback was very well received from the startup participants, and from WORTH directly. The startups had a tangible, pragmatic roadmap to move forward with beyond the program, which aligns with WORTH’s objectives to incubate successful projects across Europe. In addition, the data and insights received through the workshop, and then inputted into Final Report was helpful to WORTH to measure their impact and make improvements for future programs.
-
All of the startups that participated in the workshop communicated a greater sense of clarity and understanding on their investment readiness, investment fit, and their personal roadmap to move forward with their projects. WORTH also fulfilled their objectives through providing this much needed support to their incubator projects, and having the data and insights to provide to their partners at European Commission.