How To Create a PopUp

What is a popup event?

So you want to bring a PopUp event to your city?

This is the page for you. There should be everything you need here to help persuade funders, deal with pricing and frequently asked questions and bring a PopUp to your city or country.

For our version of what is PopUp Business School to the right.

What are the outcomes of a PopUp event?

After every event we run a survey of participants to determine the outcomes and what might happen. For a sample report see the one to the right from our Croydon (South London) event.

croydon-report.pdf
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File Type:	pdf

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We capture data from participants at three points:

When they sign up for a ticket using Eventbrite
When they arrive at the event using a registration form: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/popup-example
After the workshop has finished: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/popup-example2

This gives us the data that we use to compile the above reports.

The outcomes from an average PopUp Business School would be as follows:

100 - 200 people register for the event through eventbrite
60 - 100 people attend the event
Between 30 - 40% of participants will make their first sale before the workshop has ended (if we run the event in a retail location)
On average 40% of participants will start a business within the 2 week course
6 months after the event this number rises to 50% of participants trading in some way
According to the DWP 6 months after our Reading 1 event 1 in 3 ESA Claimants had stopped claiming benefits

What makes a PopUp different?

The PopUp Business School is the complete opposite of the traditional approach to starting a business. Instead of using debt to build the businesses we help start we use sales, creative approaches and modern technology to get people going quickly. We have run events in the top business schools, universities, companies and hardest to reach communities around the world and our methods help people to get going quickly no matter their economic situation. Below are the three main things that make us different

Sales versus Debt

The traditional model for starting a business is to create a business plan, workout what you need to spend to launch your business, borrow the money and go into debt before you even launch.

This doesn't work for most people and in most cases is unnecessary. We focus on helping people to start with sales to prove their business model works, get customers and start from a position of income rather than debt

sales opportunities

One of the biggest innovations at the PopUp Business School was when we partnered with Hammerson which owns some of the most prestigious shopping centres in the UK.

By running the events in retail units we give people the opportunity to start trading immediately. They can come up with the idea at the back of the room and then walk to the front window to start test trading. This is what allows us to get 30-40% of people achieving their first sale before the workshop has even ended

Intensive workshops

We run 2 week intensive workshops which run from 10 - 4 week days. The reason we do this is that in the early days of the business we ran the traditional model of start-up support with a workshop for half a day once a month. This was our least successful event ever.

By running 2 week events people have the time, space and get the motivation to launch quickly. They won't just get taught how to sell or build a website we will do it next to them and help them in live tests and trials.

Who would fund a PopUp Business School?

There are many different organisations that have funded PopUp Business School's for a variety of reasons. The PopUp Business School events have always been free to the participants and are funded by other organisations. We call this our Robin Hood Business Model where we find people who can afford to fund the events and then give it away to the people who need it the most. This will give you an idea of previous funders/sponsors and who you might approach in your area:

Councils - Economic Teams at Councils have been sponsoring us and helping us to find sponsors for our events in their cities. They do this for a variety of reasons including building businesses in their local area, increasing employment and to fill holes left by failing traditional industries
Housing Associations - These are social landlords in the UK that provide below market rent housing to low income families and key workers. They sponsors us to increase community cohesion, to help their residents increase their income and to reduce the impact of benefit changes in the UK such as the bedroom tax.
Corporate Sponsors - companies such as Bluehost, Microsoft, Betterment and more have sponsored us for a variety of reasons including positive PR, corporate social responsibility, social reach, brand awareness and access to our Shopping Center/Mall partners spaces
Shopping Center/Mall Owners - sponsor us in the UK to improve their image with councils, increase footfall to their shops (at one event in the UK all shops in the Centre saw a 7.9% increase in sales whilst we were running the event) and to receive positive PR for their destinations

"You can have anything you want in life... As long a you are prepared to get uncomfortable to get it.”

How to bring a Popup to your city