Why we love: Founders’ Friday

Founders Friday

Our monthly Founders’ Friday events have now been taking place for just over a year! Every month, nearly 80 entrepreneurs sign up to our events to learn more about business growth and startups. We particularly love the stories of the impact our events are making on attendees. In this blog, we share four key structures of our Founders’ Friday events and how they can benefit you and your business.

1. Different key takeaways for you, every month.

Founders’ Friday features a variety of different speakers every month to ensure insights are provided for founders at any business stage and to avoid repetition. Speakers are selected by the Founders’ Friday team and are asked to cover insights that add value to audience members. To ensure variety, Founders’ Friday is structured in three themes: insights, start-up show and tell pitches, and masterclasses.

‘Insights’ sessions focus on new opportunities in the region. These include new grants, accelerator programmes, business support initiatives, funds, and more.
‘Startup Show and Tell’ sessions give startups a platform to share their journey and present ‘key asks’ to the audience to facilitate collaboration and mutual support.
‘Masterclasses’ sessions focus on sharing expert advice with the audience. Common topics involve legal advice (Sintons Law), accountancy support (FreeAgent) and more.

Explore our blog to learn more about our Founders’ Friday events. For example, you can read our key learnings from the Founders’ Friday July edition here.

2. Be part of a diverse & supportive community.

Starting a business can be lonely and getting feedback and advice from others can be useful to validating your ideas. Founders’ Friday is known for attracting a diverse community of entrepreneurs from different stages and sectors. In the past, delegates have come from freelancing backgrounds, non-profits, tech companies, media companies, and more. What all delegates have in common is a desire to connect and support other entrepreneurs. This makes Founders’ Friday a great platform to share ideas, ask for feedback and gain new inspiration.

3. Flexibility to balance your meetings with talks and networking.

Founders’ Friday is designed to work around business meetings and calls. Delegates can nip in and out of talks or schedule calls in during breaks. Founders’ Friday is deliberately based at co-working space TusPark Newcastle Barclays Eagle Labs and features free Wi-Fi, work spaces and meeting rooms (if not fully booked). This makes it a great space for entrepreneurs to both do work, attend talks and network. This means that delegates won’t have to make the decision between either working on their business or spending a day attending an event.

4. Opportunity to get to know the ecosystem & find a workspace.

Founders’ Friday is based at TusPark Newcastle Barclays Eagle Labs, a regional innovation space which features a prototype lab and co-working spaces. Barclays Eagle Labs spaces are based all over the UK, including Scotland, while TusPark has a strong presence in China. This provides entrepreneurs with a unique opportunity to connect to other spaces within the UK and abroad. Staff from the space are usually on-site during Founders’ Friday, making it a great opportunity for delegates to learn more about what’s going on and what opportunities are available. For founders working from home, TusPark Newcastle Barclays Eagle Labs may also become a space to work from when in need of a change in scenery.


Attend one of our Founders’ Friday events!

Interested in attending one of our Founders’ Friday events? The next one is taking place Friday 30 August 2019 and tickets are available online.

For a full list of our Founders’ Friday events throughout 2019, visit our Eventbrite page. Founders’ Friday takes place every last Friday of the month.

To stay up to date with the latest Newcastle Startup Week and Founders’ Friday news, follows us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, or engage with us on Instagram.


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