Launchpad, London Met’s flagship startup business programme gives students and graduates the knowledge, tools, support and momentum needed to fast track a business idea into a viable startup venture. 

Run by the Student Enterprise team based at Accelerator every summer, Launchpad supports a cohort of around 10 new startup businesses through idea development, customer discovery and validation. Launchpad offers entrepreneurs specialist business advice and mentoring, through supportive collaboration with industry specialists, consultants and business founders. 

Due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, the 2020 Launchpad programme has so far been running remotely and began with an intensive 2-day Bootcamp led by Adam Davies. The introductory Bootcamp days gave the cohort a deep dive into the key aspects of the programme which focuses on problems and solutions, the potential outcomes of Launchpad and what they should expect from the programme.

It has been great to see that although the sessions and conducting most of their initial customer discovery have moved online, through using surveys and social media this has not stopped participants from gaining valuable customer insights.

Halfway through the programme

The Launchpad cohort have been making great progress on their startup journeys so far and its been fantastic to see them all embracing the new concepts that have been introduced. As they continue to try and validate their businesses the cohort have started created landing pages, to test their assumptions and what they have learnt through the customer discovery stage of the programme.

Meet the cohort

As Launchpad is open to London Met students and graduates from all areas of the university, our cohort each year is made up of a real mix of businesses. Selected from hundreds of applications, this years diverse cohort is no different as we have 13 entrepreneurs taking part and working on their business ideas.

Their startups range from sustainable food businesses, female focused support services, platforms that make art accessible and an app to support students study.

Learning from the experts 

The beginning of the programme focused the entrepreneurs on exploring their business ideas and getting to know their markets with an intensive two-day bootcamp led by Adam Davies.