DEADLINE EXTENDED to 09:00 BST Thursday 16 September

FastStart Innovator provides the tools, knowledge, and capability to participants to enhance their entrepreneurial journey and grow their ideas into successful and sustainable businesses. Successful businesses are started by people with the commitment to solve a problem.  Skills can be learned along the way and gained by building a strong founding team.  FastStart Innovators will help you build those skills.

Check out FastStart Changemakers if your idea is aimed at societal or environmental benefit as a social enterprise.

Before you start your application, please take time to carefully consider the programme and the commitment required.  Do you have the time and focus to attend the required elements and work on an idea in between, perhaps with a team of other participants?

We are looking for individuals who are committed to the programme in the short term and to putting in serious work on an idea, with potential to become a successful business in the longer term. During the programme, we anticipate you will need to invest approximately 4-6 hours per week outside of workshops.

We anticipate it will take 30 minutes to an hour to think through and prepare your answers to the application questions.

Overview

Over 8 weeks during the semester, FastStart Innovator aims to enable participants to assess and test an idea, by identifying an unmet need or problem, with enough customers, users or beneficiaries to suggest it could be viable. 

Individuals will be expected to attend weekly workshops, listen to entrepreneurial speakers, pitch regularly and engage with alumni mentors.  Throughout FastStart, individuals will need to demonstrate commitment and making progress with their idea. It is anticipated not all ideas will prove viable, however participants will continue to learn through the process and be supported to form teams around viable ideas where relevant. 

By the end of the FastStart Innovators programme, you will be able to:​

• Assess the desirability of an entrepreneurial idea​
• Develop a value proposition hypothesis​
• Apply practical tools to customer discovery​
• Explain how a team contributes to business start-up​
• Develop a lean canvas for an idea​
• Pitch an idea to an identified audience

Programme details

There will be 8 weeks of weekly sessions, commencing in Week 2 of the academic calendar.  Four sessions prior to Independent Learning Week and four sessions after. Sessions commence in Week 2 with final sessions during Week 10.

• Workshops - Tuesdays 18:00-19:30 GMT (Commencing on Tuesday 21 September, with a break on 19 October for Independent Learning Week. Final session 16 November.)
• Entrepreneurial Speaker Series - Thursdays 18:00-19:30 GMT (Commencing on Thursday 23 September, with a break on 21 October for Independent Learning Week. Final session 18 November.)
• Pitch with pizza - Fridays 13:00-14:00 GMT (Commencing on Friday 24 September, with a break on 22 October for Independent Learning Week. Final session 19 November.)

Commitment required

• Attend weekly workshops, ideally in person​
• Spend time between workshops carrying out activities and tasks​
• Submit weekly log of what you have done and the progress you are making
• Attend pitch with pizza events, in person as often as you can
• Attend entrepreneurial speaker events, online or in person

Please note, the weekly workshops are in person in the Entrepreneurship Centre, Eden Campus, Guardbridge. Free bus travel will be provided. There is a frequent bus service between St Andrews Bus Station and Guardbridge. For students who are not studying in St Andrews, a live online option will be available.