The Oxford entrepreneurship ecosystem is expansive and as Dr. Susan Graham from Dendra Systems noted in the opening Building a Business session, 'one of the biggest challenges at Oxford is breaking down the silos in order to build connections.'
I'm not a total novice when it comes to the world of entrepreneurship and startups. I've worked with startup companies and their investors for the last seven years, built intrapreneurial ventures in the organisations that I've worked, and before that, focused some of my studies at the University of Southern California in Entrepreneurship, and Social Entrepreneurship specifically. Coming into Oxford with a desire to 'build my own business', what I lacked was understanding of this specific ecosystem and the connections here to help bring that venture to fruition.
Academic knowledge and even experience doesn't solve for the fact that one of the earliest killers of a new venture is simply inertia. In the second session, Sally Charles noted that 'ideas are just ideas until you act on them.' A point that really resonated with me as I sat in the sessions week-to-week. Knowing how and where to begin can be intimidating in a new place - for me, a new university in a new country. Oxford Saïd Entrepreneurship Centre's Building a Business helped break this down by explaining and introducing me to the various players here at Oxford.
In Session five, Lucy Mullins led us through a coaching exercise which asked us to reflect on one of our goals (for me, the obvious was starting something) and dig into the hard questions of what's stopping us from achieving them. She provided time to just start listing those next steps one could take to 'just start.' In a matter of minutes, I had an action plan of eight things I could begin doing today to keep moving forward. What's more, I found inspiration for those activities came easily from the discussions held in the prior sessions around problem testing, values, and co-founder identification. With each week's check-in, I gained motivation to work on my concept in the off-days and hold myself accountable to showing progress to myself before the next session. In the final session, I heard from Lily Elsner (Jack Fertility, MBA'21) and Yusuf Ben-Tarifite (The Aspiring Medics) on the ways that they have since moved forward their ideas using the same resources that now sit available to me. I find it's easier to imagine yourself doing it when you see others successfully showing the way. Take that, silo.
Over the last six weeks, the Building a Business workshop provided not only a valuable roadmap and case studies around how to navigate and leverage Oxford's vast entrepreneurship ecosystem, but also a consistent time and place for reflection. Regardless of where someone may sit in their entrepreneurial journey, the best first step here to break down those silos, build those connections and just start at Oxford, is by attending Building a Business.
