World IP Day 2018 – Suzanne Campbell

Suzanne Campbell co-founder – vennu Pty Ltd

Could you please describe your business and which problems it solves?

Our vision is to build resilient communities by monetising underutilised community facilities. There are over 100,000 community facilities in Australia owned by government, councils, schools, churches, not-for-profits and others.

Community facilities today are abundant, underutilised, and not easy to discover. Manual processes and complex access arrangements dominate, and often facility owners and managers have limited budgets, resources or space.

Working through these complexities, we have commenced the design and development of vennu – an easy to use, highly visually appealing, reliable and trusted, mobile-first platform delivered with a focus on efficiently connecting market participants.

vennu makes it easy for community facilities owners and operators to:

• Reimagine community facilities to reflect how we live, work and play today
• Increase utilisation and revenue
• Improve communications and engagement
• Foster a vibrant ecosystem supporting small business

This significant innovation opportunity will create value for community facility owners and managers and consumer, community, business, corporate and government customer segments by making it easier to discover, access and use community facilities.

We see a future where community organisations are sustainable and unencumbered by manual and inconsistent methods of resolving venues for activities, allowing them to focus their resources on higher priority activities that directly relate to their purpose.

What kind of innovation and creativity challenges did you face, and how did you overcome them?

A key innovation and creativity challenge relates to the application of peer-to-peer principles as demonstrated by businesses from Airtasker, Uber and Airbnb to more complex organisations.

To overcome this challenge, we have undertaken wide research and adopted a thorough process to design a platform and roadmap that delivers a simple solution.

In support of this outcome, we have moved through concept plan, strategy confirmation, and the development of mental models, personas, jobs-to-be-done, operator and user journeys and feature prioritisation,

We recognise that getting the technology right is only a part of the marketplace and have also invested in building deep relationships and understanding.

Did your business need to protect certain IP?

For the outset we have set out to protect our IP with:

• Applications for trade mark registration to protect our brand name
• Confidentiality agreements
• Care in conversations with potential partners, suppliers, funding parties about our business concept and its market potential.

What steps did you take to protect your IP?

Engaged the services of experts experienced in both law and supportive of start-ups.

Has your IP ever been stolen/misappropriated by a competitor?

Not yet!

Are there any key lessons you would like to share with other female entrepreneurs?

At all times in your life and career, dare to be courageous and do not accept no for an answer!