Global Entrepreneurship Week: Expert support was vital to getting enterprise up and running

Jake Spanswick explains how specialist help has been the key to turning an idea into a successful new business.

‘If it hadn’t been for the support offered by the Startup Stiwdio at the University of South Wales (USW), I’m not sure if our business would have got off the ground.’

The words of 25-year-old Jake Spanswick, a Games Design graduate of the University of South Wales (USW) who, along with fellow Games Design alumni Quinn Byron-Dyer, has established a specialist business called Blank Pixel Games.

Having graduated in May 2020, the co-founders of Blank Pixel Games started their enterprise that November, using the skills they had gained during their degree studies to develop a specialist game-style learning resource.

“It’s an online virtual environment which support workers in specific industries – neuroscience, chemical sciences, biological sciences, mechanical engineering, anything to do with STEM – and students, such as those doing a Masters or PhD, to learn the practical parts of what they do, but without the need to go to a specific places, such as a lab, to do it,” Jake said.

“Obviously, during the pandemic there was restricted scope for on-site learning, and there can also be a lack of capacity, so the aim of the products we are developing gives them the ability to do the learning virtually.

“We're currently in the production period of building a virtual lab where people can learn about equipment and how to take recordings. It's essentially a puzzle-solving kind of video game with a computer, mouse, and keyboard, but, at the same time, the users are learning about the theory behind things they need to learn.”

As part of the business’s development, earlier this year Blank Pixel Games received £2,000 from USW’s Springboard+ Programme, which supports graduate enterprise and employability, which enabled an upgrade of outdated equipment to help speed up the design processes.

The financial support was just one of the ways the University has helped Jake and Quinn, who are based at USW’s Cardiff Campus-based Startup Stiwdio, the first dedicated graduate incubator in Wales

“To be honest, I don’t think we’d have been where we are without being there,” Jake said. “The benefits to the business have been huge.

“We’re both very product driven, so didn’t have the business knowledge and contacts that are vital to make this a success.

“The weekly ‘bootcamps’ were brilliant and helped massively with the business side of things. We were able to learn about how to legally protect our services and IP, to develop our networking skills, and just generally get advice from people who knew what was needed to take the business to the next step.

“We wouldn't have had a clue about the business side of things if we hadn’t done this. Now we have those skills, we can look towards ways of expanding our clientele, and making sure the efforts we have put in, and the backing we’ve had from USW, really pay off.”