Hello, I’m Pavel, and I am a year 11 student currently studying at Gungahlin College. This school holidays I felt that it was a good time to expand on my knowledge of start-ups and learn a bit about innovation. I’m about to share with you some key lessons I learnt throughout my time at the Canberra Innovation Network (CBRIN).

It was an amazing opportunity to be able to work with the CBRIN team. I gained some valuable insights from working within the startup community which have inspired me for my future endeavours. CBRIN is an extremely friendly team and I enjoyed every moment of being part of it.

Two weeks of work experience may seem like a short period of time, but I was able to meet new entrepreneurs and sit in on their intro meetings, meet post-graduate researchers, talk to people about CBRIN and the key innovation programs and even attend an investor workshop.

One of the key things I practiced was interacting with business people. In one instance my team members and I visited the NECTAR Forum 2019 to talk to some post-graduates from ANU about what CBRIN does. I have found that it is challenging to bring research out into the broader community and to use that research to create an impactful business.

Here are the 3 key lessons I learned:

• Most businesses understand the value and importance of the work that researchers do, however, the challenge is developing that research into a viable commercial enterprise.
• To get a better chance at obtaining government grants, entrepreneurs should research past successful participants of the programs they target and have conversations with those recipients.
• While taking minutes in intro meetings, I found that most people did not speak to potential customers first before developing their idea. So, to save time and money, people with an idea should speak to potential customers to find out more about their needs before developing their idea further.

It may seem like a difficult process for one to come forward with a solid idea and to develop this idea further into, hopefully, a successful business. However, the team at CBRIN are dedicated to helping you make your idea a reality. They have the connections, programs, workshops and friendly attitude that can make a difference to your journey as an entrepreneur. So, if you have an idea come into the Canberra Innovation Network and have a chat with the team!

I thank CBRIN for allowing me to get some awesome experience with what they do day to day. If anyone would like to gain insight into business culture and the startup community, be sure to contact me through LinkedIn.