Starter Pack

Templates 

Problem Identification


The Emerge Team is committed to supporting students, staff and recent graduates who are passionate about solving challenge-led problems. 

If you are curious about starting a business or are actively developing an idea, the Emerge Team strongly encourages you to identify the root causes of the problem.  This in turn will strengthen the product-market fit of future solutions.

Start with this simple matrix to help prioritise which problems are best to solve.  The goal is to identify problems that are big and frequently encountered i.e problems that people care about, that they care enough to change their behaviour and enough of them care to make it worthwhile. 

A MVP (Minimum Viable Product) is:

'The version of a product with just enough features to be usable by early customers who can then provide feedback for future product development'

A MVP is important for:

A canvas to support enterprising individuals to explore problems and ideas further in a structured way.  During 1-1 Support Meetings, the Emerge Team use this canvas to direct conversations and identify actions for further work.

An attached notes page provides insight as to what to include within each section. 

Please download and make edits so that you can personalise to your own idea using either Google slides or PowerPoint

Emerge Support

Face-to-face support meetings with the Emerge Team to gain feedback and insight into your business idea and current development.  

Focus within the meeting is usually aligned to the sections on the Ideas Canvas with action points provided at the end of the meeting for ongoing work.

The Emerge Team strongly encourages the Ideas Canvas to be completed by the founder, after the initial meeting and before follow-up meetings are held.  The Emerge Team is always on-hand though to answer any questions that founders may have.

Equity free grant funding, the Emerge Future Founders Fund is open to all current students*, recent graduates (in the last 3 years) or staff that have engaged with the Emerge: Be enterprising offer.   

Three rounds of funding of increasing value are available to support problem exploration, idea development and launching a business. 

*subject to a suitable application as assessed by the Emerge Team.  Funding may not be available for those students on certain visa types 

Six award categories each with financial prizes supported by Santander Universities*.

The categories are:

*Categories 1-4 only

Newsletters 

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