Pathways: A new approach for women in entrepreneurship

Appendix C: Glossary of terms

Concept Fund

A grant fund available within the Pre-starts network providing micro-grants (of up to £1000) to very early-stage entrepreneurs to help them test start-up concepts.

Ecosystem Builders

Organisations that provide services to Scotland's entrepreneurial ecosystem. Examples include accelerator and incubation programmes, founder development programmes, scale-up programmes, business networks.

Journey Fund

A grant fund supporting start-ups "graduating" from the Pre-starts network, providing follow-on bridge funding. Applies where at least one founder in the start-up is a woman or from an under-represented demographic.

Pop-up (see Pop-up Pre-starts)

Pre-starts centres

A network of fixed-location incubators located in local communities providing space for very early-stage start-ups and those considering starting a business to locate themselves. Provides access to mentoring, web design expertise, access to facilities such as computers, printing and 3D-printing resources. Acts as a centre for group learning activities etc. Closely relationship with the Scalers/Tech-Scalers network. This report proposes renaming the Pre-Scaler concept (first proposed in NSET) to Pre-starts, and extending the model in various ways. See text for details. The "network" refers to the fact that each Pre-Scaler forms part of a wider network.

Pop-up Pre-starts (PUPS)

A "pop-up" version of the Pre-Start concept, which moves around suburban and rural areas providing similar services to a Pre-Start centre but on a temporary, recurring basis. For example, a Pop-Up Pre-Scaler may be located for one week per month in a shopping centre, in a disused retail facility, etc.

Pre-starts network.

The collective term for all Pre-starts centres and Pop-up Pre-starts.

Proximate Causes

A proximate cause of an issue is the nearest adjacent factor directly acting to cause it. There are usually deeper issues underlying the proximate cause, which must also be addressed if we are to remove the proximate cause. For example. Contrast with Root Cause.

Root Cause

An underlying cause of an issue, resulting in various symptomatic issues. To effectively address those issues (see Proximate Cause), we must also address the root cause.

Scaler/Tech-Scaler (network)

First proposed in STER, a Tech-Scaler is an incubation environment providing long-term, curated incubation, intensive, continuous founder-team education, a space for tech-meet-ups and events, integrated grant-funding and other services designed to give start-ups world-class support in the journey to scale. The "network" refers to the fact that each Tech-Scaler forms part of a wider network. The "Scaler" (sometimes referred to as a Start-up Scaler) reflects the proposal in NSET to generalise Tech-Scalers to also support start-ups that are not considered "tech start-ups".

STEM

An acronym for Science, Technology Engineering and Mathematics. A term used to refer to these subjects collectively, most usually in an educational context.