Calendar An icon of a desk calendar. Cancel An icon of a circle with a diagonal line across. Caret An icon of a block arrow pointing to the right. Email An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of the Facebook "f" mark. Google An icon of the Google "G" mark. Linked In An icon of the Linked In "in" mark. Logout An icon representing logout. Profile An icon that resembles human head and shoulders. Telephone An icon of a traditional telephone receiver. Tick An icon of a tick mark. Is Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes. Is Not Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes with a diagonal line through it. Pause Icon A two-lined pause icon for stopping interactions. Quote Mark A opening quote mark. Quote Mark A closing quote mark. Arrow An icon of an arrow. Folder An icon of a paper folder. Breaking An icon of an exclamation mark on a circular background. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Caret An icon of a caret arrow. Clock An icon of a clock face. Close An icon of the an X shape. Close Icon An icon used to represent where to interact to collapse or dismiss a component Comment An icon of a speech bubble. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Ellipsis An icon of 3 horizontal dots. Envelope An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Home An icon of a house. Instagram An icon of the Instagram logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. Magnifying Glass An icon of a magnifying glass. Search Icon A magnifying glass icon that is used to represent the function of searching. Menu An icon of 3 horizontal lines. Hamburger Menu Icon An icon used to represent a collapsed menu. Next An icon of an arrow pointing to the right. Notice An explanation mark centred inside a circle. Previous An icon of an arrow pointing to the left. Rating An icon of a star. Tag An icon of a tag. Twitter An icon of the Twitter logo. Video Camera An icon of a video camera shape. Speech Bubble Icon A icon displaying a speech bubble WhatsApp An icon of the WhatsApp logo. Information An icon of an information logo. Plus A mathematical 'plus' symbol. Duration An icon indicating Time. Success Tick An icon of a green tick. Success Tick Timeout An icon of a greyed out success tick. Loading Spinner An icon of a loading spinner. Facebook Messenger An icon of the facebook messenger app logo. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Facebook Messenger An icon of the Twitter app logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. WhatsApp Messenger An icon of the Whatsapp messenger app logo. Email An icon of an mail envelope. Copy link A decentered black square over a white square.

Stonehaven entrepreneur gets backing for women’s start-up academy

Female Founder Squad's Zoe Evans is gearing up for the first cohort of a women's start-up academy.
Female Founder Squad's Zoe Evans is gearing up for the first cohort of a women's start-up academy.

A five-figure sum of funding has been granted to the north-east Female Founder Squad to deliver the first cohort of its Startup Academy.

The 10-week programme is aimed at women in technology looking to create a digital product or service start-up.

Squad founder Zoe Evans secured the money from the Scottish Government’s Ecosystem Fund, and it will provide 10 fully funded place for Scottish entrepreneurs.

“The hope is it gives them a full understanding of how to make a robust business model.”

Ms Evans’ start-up support group is building a community of peers to offer help and mentorship, as well as a “pay as you feel” commerce platform that allows new or growing businesses to test or develop products and services.

Startup Academy, due to commence later this month, will be run virtually and feature a number of international partners.

Biggest challenges

Ms Evans, who went full-time with her venture in March last year, said: “The three biggest challenges female founders have across the globe, not just in Scotland, are finding the right community, finding the right support through community and the knowledge base.

“The academy will give them a real insight and knowledge into the methodology frameworks and strategies that we use in tech in order to create a start-up, grow it and then scale it.

“The hope is it gives them a full understanding of how to make a robust business model.

“There’s too many people who think a start-up is the branding and the marketing.

“You can have a really great product and service, but if you don’t have a robust business model that sits behind that and you don’t know how to continue to improve in order to scale, it will fail.”

“There’s too many people who think a start-up is the branding and the marketing,”

She added: “The majority of start-ups do fail and that’s really because there’s not enough knowledge in the back end.

“The academy will give them (participants) a really robust understanding of what’s required.

“And when they are investor ready I would hope the programme will be a feeder into the Female Founders’ investor tool, which matches them with investors.”

Partners on board

Ms Evans has managed to get a number of partners on board to help deliver the programme in a move which she described as “very exciting”.

These include Jennifer Iannolo, founder of women’s leadership group Imperia Global, Barbara Jamieson of Greenock-based legal services firm Jamieson Law and Evelyn Simpson, managing director of women-led angel investment syndicate Investing Women.

Ms Evans said: “Part of the Ecosystem Fund was to invite international speakers to  Scotland to help with the educational side and inspire.

“I’m really excited about the partnerships.

“I also reached out to Evelyn McDonald, chief executive of Scottish Edge (entrepreneurs’ competition), to ask her to share information about the academy and within an hour I was inundated.

“There was enough interest to fill two or three cohorts.”

International ambitions

Ms Evans intends to apply for further funding that could attract women founders from around the world.

She said: “I’ve had founders from Kenya, Canada and United States get in touch.

“I would hope in another cohort we might receive funding from other organisations that might fund international spaces as well.

“That would be a really great opportunity.

“These challenges are faced by women across the globe – not just in Scotland.”

New technology events in Aberdeen

Meanwhile, Ms Evans said she was looking forward to Women in Tech meet-ups starting at Neospace, Aberdeen, next month.

She said: “There’s various meet ups in Aberdeen, including things like coding and tech.

“But there are not specific meet-ups for women in tech that I’m aware of.

“That’s one thing we’ve been lacking. There’s appetite for it.

“The aim of the whole Ecosystem Fund is to provide that community and a place to come together with commonality.

“It gives us the chance to find like-minded women and create something that’s not already there.”