Entrepreneurship 101: Writing skills for scientists
Last week’s Entrepreneurship 101 lecture talked about the key communications tools that every start-up business needs — things like an executive summary, a pitch deck and a business plan. What was not discussed was the writing skills required to put these documents together effectively.
Question of the Week
As scientists and engineers, we receive little training in writing, be it for a grant proposal or a business plan. Do you think that this is a gap that MaRS could address?
Downloads and Resources
- Webcast
- Class information
- ENT101 Facebook Group
- Presentation: “Planning and Communicating Your Business Concept” (PDF)
As a Venture Group Advisor at MaRS, Tony advises entrepreneurs and high growth companies, particularly in environmental, advanced materials and manufacturing markets, with a special emphasis on mentoring and development of entrepreneurs.
The University of Toronto does offer workshops in grant writing tailored to the requirements of NSERC and CIHR as well as general grant writing guidelines for graduate students several times during the year. Some of these skills are transferable to writing up a business proposal for example, but grad students are not exposed to the “templates” for these kinds of proposals and tips on what to include and exclude. I think MaRS could definitely bridge the knowledge gap in this respect, with workshops in business writing.
Posted by: Girish Sardana on February 28th, 2008 at 12:12 am