Hot off the press, as of today Thursday 6th August, we're officially a Manchester business! There are so many reasons for this (and far too many to put into a single paragraph) but ultimately, where you choose your commercial home has to involve so many more considerations than where you actually live.
Manchester is thriving, exciting and full of opportunity. As a city it mirrors who we are – international, multicultural, supportive – but also where we want to go. And we've got so many exciting things lined up in this amazing city.
Read more about our exciting move here:
Richard Harrison
Are you coming to meet us next week in London?
Building on this, just to let you know (again!) we are back at 1 Triton Square on Thursday 13th August from 6pm, alongside Venture Café London, Tech Nation and Irwin Mitchell's immigration team. If you have not grabbed a ticket yet, now is the time - over 200 tickets have already gone, and it's filling up fast.
Innovator International
Investment - have you had any?
If you are an Innovator International member who has received investment to develop your business idea, we would like to know about your journey for something we are researching. In the coming days you may receive an email from our team asking about this – it would really help us if you could complete the short questionnaire. It really won't take you long and will help us immensely!
Thank you.
Another successful open Q&A session
Earlier this week, we hosted our monthly Open Q&A yesterday morning, and it turned into one of the most wide ranging sessions we have run in a while. A lot of the conversation kept circling back to the same four words. Viability. Scalability. Credibility. Innovation. Not as separate boxes to tick, but as things that need to work together.
One theme came up again and again. The gap between having a good idea and actually turning it into something real. Several people admitted that they had been sitting on an idea for months without quite committing to it. Uncertainty is normal. What holds applications back is not the uncertainty itself, it is not putting enough conviction behind the idea once you have decided to pursue it. Endorsing bodies and investors alike can tell the difference between a founder who believes in what they are building and one who is still hedging.
That led naturally into a longer conversation about evidence. What actually proves a business is viable, beyond a well written paragraph in a business plan. Letters of intent, video content, early customer proof, anything that shows real world demand rather than just a confident claim. It is one of the areas we get asked about most, and yesterday was no exception.
We also had a steady stream of questions about the application process itself, and it was clear a lot of people want more clarity here. That is exactly why we built out the resources on our main website and keep expanding what is available through Pulse. If you want to go deeper on anything we touched on yesterday, these are worth a read.
On why viability is about more than the numbers on a page:
Richard Harrison
Our recap covering exactly the evidence question that came up so much yesterday:
Innovator International
For a clearer picture of what actually counts as innovation under the route:
Innovator International
Missed the session? These sessions run monthly, so there will be another chance to bring your questions next time, sign up for September's session below:
Innovator International
Introducing our Guide to Building a British Life
Getting endorsed, getting the paperwork right, getting through the Home Office process. That is the part everyone focuses on, and understandably so. It is the gate you have to get through.
But once you are through it, a different set of challenges show up. Where do you live? How do you register with a GP? How do you build a credit history from nothing? How do your kids settle into school? These are not questions that show up in a business plan template, but they are the questions that shape whether the first year in a new country feels manageable or overwhelming. Which is exactly why we put together our new guide.
Our guide to building a British life brings together the practical, sometimes unglamorous questions we hear from founders again and again. Banking, credit scores, renting, mortgages, the NHS, schools. All of it in one place.
Innovator International
