StartUp Workshops and Events

Our workshops equip you with the essential enterprise skills for joining the workforce or starting your own business. Whether you're starting, growing or scaling your project, we can provide advice and guidance on the next steps you could take.

UPSkill Workshops

Our UPSkill workshops are designed to equip you with essential enterprise skills to start your own business or join the workforce. The skills learned in these 2-hour sessions are versatile and can be applied across various industries and roles, empowering you to succeed in your chosen career paths.

Learn more about the objectives of each workshop below.

In the journey towards personal and professional growth, understanding yourself and your thought processes is essential. Through a series of activities and discussions, you will learn how to critically assess your thinking, become more self-aware, understand the concept of self-efficacy, and appreciate the value of others' perspectives.

Key Learning Objectives:

Self-Awareness: Enhance your understanding of your strengths, weaknesses, values, and motivations. Discover how self-awareness can guide your choices and actions towards achieving your goals.
Understanding Self-Efficacy: Self-efficacy is a person’s belief in their ability to succeed in a particular situation. Learn more about this concept and its impact on your confidence and performance.
Valuing the Opinions of Others: Recognise the importance of diverse perspectives in decision-making. Develop skills to effectively listen to, respect, and integrate the opinions of others into your thinking process.

This workshop will equip you with the essential enterprise skills needed to thrive in your academic and future professional endeavours. Embrace the opportunity to grow, reflect, and connect with like-minded individuals committed to personal and collective excellence.

Takeaways:

Improve skills by recognising what you do well and what you need to improve
Raise happiness levels by aligning your ideal with you actions
Strengthen work and personal relationships by understanding how others perceive your behaviour.

Why Attend?

Have you ever wondered why some people are ‘luckier’ than others? Perhaps it is down to sheer luck or perhaps it is down to their mindset; why not find out how changing your mindset could change your ‘luck’. By attending ‘Knowing Your Why’ you'll develop a deeper understanding of yourself and your thinking processes. These skills are vital for personal development and success in any career path. Whether you're aiming to become a leader, an entrepreneur, or simply a more effective team member, this workshop will provide you with the tools and confidence to achieve your goals.

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In today's fast-paced and ever-changing world, having a clear sense of purpose and direction is crucial for success. Through engaging activities and practical insights, students will learn how to spot opportunities, take initiative, and adopt ethical and sustainable thinking in their personal and professional lives.

Key Learning Objectives:

Opportunity Spotting: Develop the ability to identify, evaluate and act upon potential opportunities. Gain skills to assess market needs, customer pain points, and innovative solutions that align with your goals and values.
Taking the Initiative: Cultivate a proactive mindset. Discover strategies for stepping out of your comfort zone, taking calculated risks, and leading projects with confidence.
Ethical and Sustainable Thinking: Learn how to assess the consequences and impact of ideas, opportunities and actions. Ethical and sustainable thinking is a matter of attitudes, behaviours, values and mindset.

Takeaways:

Improve skills by seeing solutions rather than problems
Feel more empowered to take the initiative
Learn how to balance decision-making with ethics and sustainable thinking

Why Attend?

By attending ‘Making Things Happen’, you'll gain valuable skills that are essential for navigating the complexities of the modern world. Whether you're aspiring to launch your own venture or seeking to enhance your employability, this workshop will equip you with the knowledge and confidence to succeed.

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10 Steps to Starting Up

So you have an idea but how do you turn that into a reality?

One of the most asked questions we hear from students is ‘How do I get started? What do I need to think about first?’ It can be overwhelming to take that first step.

This practical workshop aims to take you through the essential steps you need to consider when starting your own venture. That could be starting your own business, freelancing, developing a product or building a social enterprise or charity. It will equip you with the foundational knowledge to start your business and begin your entrepreneurial journey. This step-by-step programme enables participants to develop their idea into a real venture and have the chance to apply for seed funding later in the year.

Additional resources and access to further support will be provided following the workshop.

Takeaways and why to attend?

Expert Guidance: Gain insights from experienced advisers
Practical Advice: Receive actionable tips and strategies that you can apply immediately.
Networking Opportunities: Connect with like-minded students and potential mentors.
Interactive Sessions: Engage in hands-on activities
Resource Access: Access valuable resources and templates to kickstart your entrepreneurial journey.

Book your place:

Preparing to Scale

Ready to leap from startup to scaleup?

This workshop is for registered businesses (sole traders, limited companies etc) who are looking to grow their current enterprise and is supported by Barclays Eagle Labs.

If you are ready to take your startup or business idea to the next level, this session will equip you with the essential skills and knowledge to successfully scale your venture, ensuring you're prepared for growth and new challenges.

You'll learn:

How to scale your marketing and sales
Preparing for funding rounds
Building your team

Takeaways and why to attend?

Expert Guidance: Gain insights from experienced advisers
Practical Advice: Receive actionable tips and strategies that you can apply immediately.
Networking Opportunities: Connect with like-minded students and potential mentors.
Interactive Sessions: Engage in hands-on activities
Resource Access: Access valuable resources and templates to kickstart your entrepreneurial journey.

Book your place

Thursday 27 March

Inspire Me

These online sessions aim to ignite motivation, positivity and personal growth by showcasing our entrepreneur's startup journeys and experiences. Not all startup journeys are easy, and during the series, our speakers will talk about the highs and lows, overcoming challenges and offer their top tips from what they have learnt so far. There will be time at the end of each session for your questions.

From student to entrepreneur - Friday 22 November
Lessons learnt - Thursday 23 January

StartUp Mini Masterclasses

These are short, impactful workshops providing the opportunity to gain tangible knowledge and key takeaways on specific topics.

The mini masterclasses aim to equip participants with actionable insights, tools, or techniques they can implement in their startups or daily lives.

The next Startup Mini-Masterclasses are on:

Creating a meaningful brand - Thursday 5 December
Finding and keeping clients/customers - Wednesday 19 February 2025
Early stage investment and raising funds - Tuesday 18 March 2025
How to pitch my idea - Tuesday 8 April 2025

StartUp Clinics

Speak 1-1 with our team in our accountancy and intellectual property clinics. To book a space, email StudentStartup@port.ac.uk.

Intellectual Property Clinic

Are you a freelancer, running your own business, or developing a product or service? Having the right type of intellectual property protection helps you to stop people from stealing or copying the names of your products or brands, your inventions, the design or look of your products and the things you write,
make or produce.

If you have a question relating to patents or copyright for your startup come along and have your questions answered by the experts at Maucher Jenkins via a video appointment.

For anything else e.g. trademark etc, please email StudentStartup@port.ac.uk.

Explore more in Student StartUp

Self-Employed Placement Year

Replace the traditional placement year in industry with starting and running a business of your own - all with the support of the Student StartUp Team.