Our Process

Business Support

For early-stage ventures, securing financial investment is only a small part of what is needed to become a successful enterprise.

Early-stage ventures are driven by one or a small team of passionate entrepreneurs. In making an investment decision, any fund is putting their faith in the ability of these entrepreneurs to execute their vision. However, even the most accomplished entrepreneur will not possess all the requisite skills and will need support in a number of different areas over the course of their journey.

Venture Capitalists have long understood that the business development support and networks they bring can be as valuable as the money. In the social sector where the entrepreneurs are often front-line staff such as nurses and teachers with little or no commercial experience this is truer than ever.

At Health Launchpad we meet social entrepreneurs at the earliest stages of their journey, often when all they have is an idea borne out of the experiences/frustrations of their day job. We offer a tailor-made package of funding and support designed to take the entrepreneur from idea to launch of their venture, and ultimately to sustainability. We work most intensively at the earliest stages with the nature of our support changing as the venture matures.

At the outset much of our work centres on coaching the entrepreneur to articulate their concept. What is it? What problem does it solve? How big is the problem? Who will pay? We help conduct market research so that both parties can get comfortable with the assumptions underlying the concept. Once we are happy with the concept it needs to be tested and we will advise on the design and implementation of a pre-pilot / proof-of-concept study, providing introductions to partners where possible.

Once a concept has been successfully proven, the next step is to start preparing for the launch of a new venture. We will often get very hands on with business planning, providing help with everything from business modelling and budgeting to branding and marketing. We are also able to use our networks to make introductions to test customers (in many cases public sector such as NHS Primary Care Trusts). At this stage we will also look to start building the team and via our networks can help recruit both experienced Non-Executive Directors and key Executive Team members.

As the venture grows, starts earning its own revenues and moves towards sustainability, our involvement becomes less hands on and more strategic. We tend to take a seat on the board of our investees and advise on strategic issues at monthly board meetings in addition to helping make introductions to new customers or sources of funding as and where necessary.