A car park pitch and Dragons' Den add an extra challenge to the Business Innovation minor

“I'm very entrepreneurial and I applied for this minor because I wanted to find out if entrepreneurship would suit me. I really enjoyed working out my own business idea. My concept is about positioning companies and graphic design. Many companies don’t use the right communication tools to reach their target audience. Sometimes they are not even clear about who their target audience is. I want to help them position themselves correctly in the market, for example by determining what their identity is and what distinguishes them from their competitors. The Dragons' Den was really a highlight. Presentations generally don’t bother me too much and so it was mostly really fun to do and educational as well. I even ended up by making some contacts for the future. I will now carry on developing my concept during my individual professional assignment for my graduation.”

“This minor appealed to me because my specialisation in Design within the Food Innovation study programme focuses on developing innovative and creative concepts, not on how to translate them to the market. This was something I wanted to know more about. For me, the biggest challenge within the minor was the car park pitch. I have a tendency to explain far too much. It was a good lesson in clear and concise wording because you have so little time. My business concept is about desserts. It occurred to me that children’s desserts in the supermarket are usually not part of the Dutch ‘Wheel of Five’ food guidelines. I developed a concept for this and created a new dessert. I would love to continue developing the concept, but because I am currently an intern, I don’t have much time to spend on it. However, I am currently in talks with a partner who could put it on the market under their label. I hope to be able to come back to this in the future.”

“For a long time, I have been walking around with an idea related to crop protection that would help improve food safety, reduce emissions during crop protection and contributes to circular agriculture. During this minor, I finally had the opportunity of working on this idea for the first time. This was really fantastic. I learned a lot, discovered my unique selling points and found out who my idea would have an impact on. The 10 minutes at the Dragons' Den was a bit short for me to explain my idea which is quite complex and difficult to explain in such a short time. However, it was a fun experience and I was given positive feedback. I will definitely take my idea further. In fact, I'm currently doing a module on business and finance focusing on the financial side of my concept.”