Henley Summer Start-Up Boot Camp

Many students have ideas for a business that they would someday love to run, but it can feel overwhelming to know how to start a business from scratch. The Boot Camp, co-ordinated by HCfE and led by the Rebel Business School, helps attendees learn about setting up a business from the ground up over the course of a week. Each day of the Boot Camp focuses on a different key skill for any aspiring entrepreneur, from building a website to outlining how to make sales, which gives participants the confidence and tools to start a business.

The Boot Camp is completely free to join and is open for applications from all current students and alumni of Henley Business School and the University of Reading. Local residents in or around Reading are also welcome to apply for a place on the course.

The 2022 Summer Start-Up Boot Camp will be held from 20-24 June 2022, 10:00am to 3:00pm in room G10 of the Henley Business School building, Whiteknights campus. Applications to be part of the Boot Camp will open on 14 February 2022 and close on 17 June 2022. Places are limited, so please visit this page again once applications have opened to complete your expression of interest and you will then be informed within one week whether your application to participate on the Boot Camp was successful.

The 2021 Summer Start-Up Boot Camp was held online between 21-25 June 2021 and was a big success, with over 80 participants joining in and getting hands-on to create their businesses. You can read about the 2021 Boot Camp here.

After the 2021 Summer Start-Up Boot Camp concluded the Rebel Business School prepared a report, highlighting how participants that attended the event have gained the confidence and skills needed to start their own business from scratch. More than 90% of participants said that their confidence in starting a business had risen since the start of the Boot Camp and a total of 40% were ready to start trading by the end of the event, with 11% even taking the first big step of making a sale within their first week. For more statistics, examples of the business created and 'lightbulb moments' from participants, read the report here.

This is what attendees of the 2021 Summer Start-Up Boot Camp said about their experience of participating:

"It's been a fun-filled and enlightening week! I really loved the entire course. It showed us that there are so many ways to start your business and scale it up! I honestly thought that the Boot Camp would be like any other start your business kind of webinar, with less interaction and more saying stuff, but the interaction and the knowledge I gained in this week was more than what I had gained before now. Bootstrapping and marketing were my biggest takeaways from the entire course." Shlok Maheshwari, BA Business and Management student

"This has been an incredible experience. I've been on many entrepreneurial workshops and boot camps and this was by far the best." William Haresceugh, BA Entrepreneurship and Management student

"I really enjoyed this course very much. I did not expect it to be as applied or as practical as it was and it was all the more valuable for this. I am impressed that Henley Business School linked to such a down to earth approach. I have been developing a small business more or less on a shoestring and there was part of me that wondered if this was unprofessional. My single biggest take away was that this common sense approach was valid." Nicholas Edwards, local resident