1. What experience have you gained in recent years as a mentor for university spin-offs?
Working as a mentor has shown me that we need to look at disruptive innovation through the positive lens of potential. By profession, we are trained to be critical and scrutinize every little detail of a hypothesis to ensure that it does not contradict physical principles. When working with innovations and young entrepreneurs, we need to focus on the potential and consider what we can do to overcome the weaknesses in order to create a successful product or service.
2. What factors do you think are promising in terms of success for start-ups, especially in a university context?
There are many factors that lead to a successful startup. Either the product or service must address a specific problem or challenge facing the industry or consumers and offer a significant improvement over the current solution, or the new product or service must turn the state of the art on its head by offering a completely different solution. Usually a good idea is simple, physically realizable, scalable and launched at the right time.
3. What three tips and tricks can you give teams who are interested in setting up a business?
There is no recipe for guaranteed success. You need a broad network that you can tap into to make your idea a reality, so always be nice to people and learn how to start a conversation with strangers. Don't be afraid of failures, failures are more valuable lessons than successes and success is built on a pile of failures. Don't forget modesty and humility, success can be exhilarating, never overestimate your own contribution to success and underestimate the importance of luck and chance.
Contact

Hanna Dewes
Research Associate