Developing a robust business case
This case study – which is based on an independent evaluation of the Creative Local Growth Fund by Nordicity and Saffery Champness LLP – showcases how the Network for Creative Enterprise supported up and coming creative technology company Babinko.
Babinko is a new independent children’s publisher based in Bristol which combines printed books with voice technology. Babinko has a research-based and child-centred ethos, which seeks to bring together the visual and the verbal, digital and physical, concept and action – all in an effort to enrich children’s and parents’ experience.
Jenny Grinsted, the co-founder of Babinko, is also a children’s content developer and illustrated book editor, having previously worked for over 15 years in both licensed and generic children’s publishing at the BBC, Penguin Books and Parragon Books.
Through Babinko, Jenny has brought together her previous children’s publishing experience, her current experience as content developer for cutting edge tech company Ultraleap, her experience as director of Educate Together UK and as an education campaigner.
Babinko is a resident of Watershed’s Pervasive Media Studio in Bristol, which hosts a community of over 100 artists, creative companies, technologists and academics exploring experience design and creative technology – an environment well-suited to the interface of tech with literature and education. The studio was also one of the four creative hubs that participated in the Network for Creative Enterprise (NfCE), supported by the Creative Local Growth Fund.
Working with The Guild (Coworking Bath), Knowle West Media Centre, Spike Island and UWE Bristol, the Network for Creative Enterprise supports creatives across the West of England to make a sustainable living from their ideas.
Babinko was able to take advantage of the business support and events offered, helping to stabilise and develop the newly established company. They participated in the Artful Innovation Programme, a five-day intensive course from the NfCE for small creative technology companies to examine their practice and to develop their business case into a stronger and more robust proposition.
The course took participants on a task-based journey of learning, sharing, building and self-evaluation. It provided participants with the tools to take their ideas from prototype to marketplace reality, without sacrificing their values. The programme was instrumental in helping Babinko advance their innovative concept and in developing the idea into something that was both creatively unique and had an innovative business model.
