Impact Week 6

Before wrapping up 2022, we met for our Impact Week 6, hosted in De Baak, in Driebergen. Our fellow Yari started this session by presenting his case to the other fellows. While familiarising us with his progress in business development, customer discovery and early stages of branding, Yari warmed up the group for what’s next on the agenda – venture deals. The topic of venture deals was unpacked with Benvalor’s lawyers, Maarten van der Voort and Romana Kooiman. As always, the first day concluded with dinner.

The ever-popular topic of patents and IP finally got its spot on our agenda. Katja Apelt and Twan Uijttewaal, advisers from Netherlands Patent Office (part of RVO), spent the entire morning of the second day explaining in-depth how start-ups can ensure their patents and how RVO can help them to tackle all related struggles. After lunch, an entrepreneur, start-up and scale-up coach Chretien Herben (and also the founder of Lifesciences @ Work) continued with IP licensing by demonstrating various cases and examples.

The last day we worked on branding and marketing. Fellows made another step developing their brand strategy and creating their branding materials. Our own Wouter Chömpff walked them through the visual side of the storytelling, so fellows were creating colour palettes while considering the psychology behind every colour they wanted to associate their brand with. After choosing a representative palette, and other visual content, Wouter showed them accessible online tools that could assist them in building a brand.

That’s it for now, and for this year. In January, we will have another Progress Report Day, where, for the first time, a group project will have a spotlight. We will keep you posted!