Startup, spin-out & business growth programmes

More startups, stronger outcomes, smaller budgets.

I design and deliver enterprise programmes, workshops and mentoring for universities, local authorities and combined authorities that need results they can evidence. You can bring me in for the whole programme or just the parts your team can't stretch to.

Book a discovery call See how I can help

Steve Dougan seated beside a flip chart showing a Value Proposition Canvas workshop

650+startups supported across creative, tech, gaming and engineering

£109mturnover of graduate and student startup businesses 2023/24, from 33rd to 1st in HE rankings

£2.8mcapital project to build a university innovation factory

19 yrsdesigning startup support in higher education and the region, since 2007

Startup success in the toughest of places.

The Tees Valley: Darlington, Hartlepool, Middlesbrough, Redcar & Cleveland and Stockton-on-Tees.

I've spent most of my working life helping people start businesses in Middlesbrough and the Tees Valley. The area has lost thousands of jobs in steel, chemicals and heavy industry. Half of Middlesbrough's neighbourhoods are among the most deprived 10% in England. Many of the founders I've worked with had no savings to fall back on and nobody in the family who had run a business.

For 17 years I ran enterprise support at Teesside University. When the ERDF money stopped, I rebuilt graduate enterprise so new startups kept coming through. Through Digital City and Launchpad, I played a key role in creating one of the UK's fastest-growing tech clusters outside London, seeding the region with 650 tech and creative startups. By 2023/24 our graduate and student startups were turning over £109m, top of the national rankings.

I've started, grown and sold businesses of my own too, so I know what it's like when cash is tight and the plan isn't working.

If you need more startups from a smaller budget, I can help. I start with the results you have to report and build the programme back from there.

In the news, 2013 to today

A decade of headlines from the Tees Valley

Who I help

Whatever you're measured on, I'll help you hit it.

Each faces a different pressure. Here is how I work with each of them.

Universities

High-impact student, graduate and academic startup and spin-out, with fewer resources.

Outsource the parts of programme design and delivery your team doesn't have capacity for, without losing control of quality or results.

Pre-incubation and accelerator design for students and graduates
Academic spin-out readiness and founder development
Venture creation pipelines that feed incubators and investment funds
Workshop series, hackathons and bootcamps, delivered for you
Case-making for institutional investment and venture funds

Outcomes tracked

Problem interviews completed
Customer validation
MVP deployed
Test trading started
Company incorporated
Spin-out licence or formation
First investment raised

Local authorities

Outcome-focused support for a diverse range of founders.

Help residents explore an idea, launch it properly and grow it, including people who don't see themselves as entrepreneurs yet.

Start-up programmes for under-represented and "hidden" founders
Community and place-based enterprise support
Workshops and one-to-one mentoring across the founder journey
Delivery designed to report against your funder's outputs
Pathways for specific groups, such as armed forces veterans

Outcomes tracked

Idea tested with real customers
Customer validation
First paid sale
Test trading
Business registered
Trading at 12 months
First hire made

Combined & mayoral authorities

Frameworks of business support that drive business density and growth.

Join up what universities, councils and partners already offer into one regional system, with clear routes from first idea to investment.

Startup and scale-up ecosystem mapping and gap analysis
Regional support frameworks and founder journey design
Pipelines of investment-ready founders for regional and private funds
Commissioning advice, programme specification and evaluation
Partnership building across government, HE and industry

Outcomes tracked

Investment-ready founders in pipeline
Follow-on investment secured
Revenue growth
Scale-ups at 20%+ growth
Jobs created
Business density per 10,000 adults

Inspire. Explore. Execute. Grow.

Most people who come to my sessions have never thought of themselves as founders. So my programmes start early, with what's possible, and stay with people while they test an idea, start trading and grow.

Stage 1

Inspire

Showing people that starting something is a real option for them. They meet local founders, try things out in hands-on sessions and see the resources they already have.

School, college and community sessions · founder talks · taster workshops

Stage 2

Explore

Finding the idea. Founders look at what they have, who they know and what they could start with, then test it cheaply with real customers.

Ideation sprints · Resource Canvas sessions · customer discovery

Stage 3

Execute

Turning a tested idea into a trading business: lean experiments, business model design, first sales and the practical steps of getting started.

Pre-incubation · accelerators · mentoring · pitch preparation

Stage 4

Grow

Scaling with a plan: growth strategy, building a team and getting investment-ready, with introductions to funders and regional partners.

Scale-up programmes · investor readiness · founder coaching

Services

Take the whole programme, or just the part you need.

Programme design

Accelerators, incubation and pre-start programmes designed from your target outcomes, with a delivery model, KPIs and evaluation built in from day one.

Programme delivery

I run the programme, or the parts of it your team can't staff: recruitment of founders, cohort management, partner coordination and reporting.

Workshops and masterclasses

Practical, hands-on sessions on lean startup, effectuation, business model innovation and growth strategy, for founders, students, academics or staff.

Founder mentoring

One-to-one and cohort mentoring as coach, connector and critical friend, from first idea through to growth and investment.

Ecosystem strategy

Mapping what exists, finding the gaps and designing a joined-up framework of support across a region or institution.

Funding bids and evaluation

Writing the case for funding and new investment models, and measuring impact in a way funders, boards and policymakers trust.

Ways to work together Design only Design and deliver Deliver your programme Review and evaluate Retained advisor

Track record

I've built this from the ground up before.

Most of my career has been spent turning regional strategy into startups, jobs and investment in Middlesbrough and the Tees Valley, one of the hardest places in England to do it.

1stMiddlesbrough ranks 1st in England for the concentration of highly deprived neighbourhoods. 50% of its LSOAs (Lower-layer Super Output Areas) fall within the most deprived 10% nationally.

Building a startup pipeline here means reaching people who have never pictured themselves as founders, and still delivering results that stand up to scrutiny. That is the experience I bring to every programme.

Head of Venture Support, Alt Labs
Designing innovative and authentic regional startup and scale-up ecosystems for local government, delivering an 18.9:1 benefit-cost ratio and £18.4m GVA.

Head of Enterprise, Teesside University
Led the enterprise strand of the University's strategic plan and its Enterprise team, 2018 to 2024, taking Teesside from 33rd to 1st for graduate and student startup turnover, at £109m in 2023/24.

Advisory Board, Centre for Entrepreneurs
Championed UK incubators and accelerators, lobbying policymakers, 2017 to 2020.

Board member, Power of Women
Power of Women builds confidence, creates opportunities and broadens horizons for girls living in Tees Valley. Inaugural Male Ally of the Year, 2025.

£109m
Turnover of graduate and student startup businesses in 2023/24, taking Teesside from 33rd to 1st in the HE rankings.
£2.8m
Led the transformation of Teesside University's incubator into an innovation factory with co-working, micro-factories, games studios, starter offices and a social bakery.
£1m
Raised and designed the FUEL and PowerUP accelerators, which produce award-winning startups every year.
£100k per year
Made the case for a university venture fund for proof-of-concept and seed investment in graduate startups.
Post-ERDF
Secured continued funding for graduate enterprise when ERDF ended, relaunching it as Launchpad, protecting the regional startup pipeline.
650+
Startups supported across creative, tech, gaming and engineering, helping seed the Tees Valley digital technology cluster through the Digital City fellowship model.

New book · launching winter 2026

The Resource Canvas

A framework for activating hidden founders and building startup pipelines in schools, colleges, universities and communities. It starts with what people already have, rather than asking them to arrive with a business plan.

The book, How to start anything…, launches in winter 2026. It’s a hands-on toolkit built around the canvas and co-created with 650 founders, and it comes with access to the Resource Canvas online workshop series.

I use it in workshops and programme design, and it is available for licensing by institutions and regions.

Visit theresourcecanvas.com

The Resource Canvas: six boxes for People, Places, Assets, Know How, Opportunities and a Scratch pad for how to start creating value — People · Places · Assets · Know How → Opportunities → Start

Cover of How to start anything... by Steve Dougan, showing a completed Resource Canvas covered in sticky notes — People · Places · Assets · Know How → Opportunities → Start

About Steve

Practitioner first.

Earlier in my career, I designed award-winning training and customer experience programmes for Orange and Vodafone. I founded a boutique consultancy and delivered projects across the UK, Europe and Africa. My clients included PwC, BT and Royal Mail, as well as the Department for Work and Pensions, the Fire Service and the NHS.

I've founded businesses of my own, riding the highs and lows of foundership. That experience shapes how I design and deliver support: practical, authentic and focused on what founders actually need, delivered with energy so every session is an experience people remember and act on.

I was a founding member of the Centre for Entrepreneurs’ advisory board and now sit on the board of Power of Women CIC. As a mentor and non-executive director, I draw on lean startup, effectuation and business model innovation to help founders make the most of the resources they have, test ideas with customers and decide how their businesses can grow.

Discovery call

Let's talk about what you need to deliver.

A free 30-minute conversation. No pitch, just a practical look at your goals and where outside support could help.

What you're expected to deliver, and for whom
Where your current programme is stretched
Options, from a single workshop to full delivery

Prefer email? steve@stevedougan.com

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