INSIGHTS / Blog

I started at Pinweld in a business development role in March 2020, and one of the first things I did was to enrol on SETsquared’s Innovation Workshop.

Pinweld is, in many ways, the classic story of a great idea, patented and ready to go, but in need of investment and commercial focus, and so the programme, which is designed to help entrepreneurs explore their current business model and accelerate growth, was an ideal opportunity at this stage for both myself and for the business.

The business was founded by Keven Chappell, who, like many entrepreneurs, worked out his own solution to a problem that he encountered. In Keven’s case, he became frustrated with the existing welding techniques whilst repairing a motorbike. The resulting technology – Pinweld – enables you to weld together plastic components as thin as a credit card without compromising strength or flexibility. It’s potentially a game-changer, delivering a genuine ‘repair rather than replace’ option for high-value plastics, with all of the cost, efficiency and environmental benefits that this implies across industries as diverse as utilities, automotive, aerospace and medical.

The next few months are critical for us as we apply for funding and investment. And so the workshop was incredibly useful, enabling me to really focus on defining our value proposition and the potential markets for Pinweld. The Business Model Canvas that we used in the Innovation Workshop to map our commercial environment, to prototype numbers for our business model and to score our project readiness was incredibly helpful for us. The course is very hands-on, very visual and flexible. That has really changed the way we approach grant applications. Rather than ticking boxes, we are using much more visual methods. And we’re also changing our approach to business presentations – looking to tell much more of a story and to demonstrate that we understand their challenges, rather than over-focusing on technical details.

For me, coming into the business with the brief of attracting funding, developing sales and new markets, it was a really accelerated way of identifying potential partners, channels and segments, and developing a strategy to reach them.

I would certainly recommend the course to other enterprises who are at the stage where they need to look objectively at their business model. Attending the course (online), cemented our relationship with the SETsquared team and we’re looking forward to tapping into that resource as we move forward, because what we’re doing is changing almost on a weekly basis.

The stated outcome for the course was ‘a developed business model with a greater potential for investment and growth’. We have a huge amount of confidence in the potential of the Pinweld product and proposition – but of course, these are very competitive times for funding and investment, and so it’s absolutely essential to have a very clear business strategy, and the Innovation Workshop has certainly helped to focus my thinking.

If you are currently growing a digital business, the Innovation Workshop will put you on the path to success.

Find out more and register