About the Programme

Kickstart is designed to equip spinout, startup and scaleup founders and leadership teams with the infrastructure, confidence, skills, and strategies to:

• Successfully launch (whether for the first time or into new markets), build brand awareness, drive sales traction, scale operations and pursue ambitious international growth.

• Attract critical investment, which not only fuels their growth but also positions them to navigate competitive markets more effectively.

Our methodology

Programme Outcomes

Grand Scale Kickstart bridges the commercialisation talent and skills gap of ambitious spinout, startup and scaleup leadership teams by:

Sharing expertise on validating and achieving product-market fit.

Grand Scale Kickstart April 2025 Programme Overview

Who is it for

Ideal candidates are founders and leadership teams whose top business priorities for 2025 include developing a clear road map for launch and accelerated growth and/or raising investment to fuel your business journey.

You are preparing for launch for the first time to secure your first customers within the next 12 months.
You have a viable prototype/product with a defined use case for a specific target market segment.
You may also plan to secure investment.

You have secured sales and are now seeking to grow your customer base rapidly in the next 12 months.
You may also plan to expand into new markets (industries/geographies), launch new products and/or secure investment.

Meet the Team

With over 45 years of combined experience, our team has worked with hundreds of tech entrepreneurs across the UK and Ireland, providing the skills, strategies, and support needed to launch, grow, and achieve international success.

We've led marketing efforts for innovative tech startups from early stages to scaling, growth, and exit, as well as for global brands. Ro and Leanne have distilled their extensive knowledge into proven, actionable programmes like Kickstart, guiding entrepreneurs through each stage of their business journey.

Leanne Jennings

Grand Scale Co-founder and chartered marketer with 20 years of experience in international B2B tech sales and marketing including 10 years with Kainos, from SME to Unicorn. Currently, empowering over 100 spinout, startup and scaleup companies to commercialise, launch and accelerate growth.

Roisin Garland

Grand Scale Co-founder with 25 years of proven success in spearheading marketing for many tech companies, from early stage to growth, scaling and multi-million-pound acquisitions (Wombat and Neueda). Currently, empowering over 100 spinout, startup and scaleup companies to commercialise, launch and accelerate growth.

Jackie Devine

Jackie has over 30 years’ experience working in B2B tech, has closed multi-million-pound enterprise sales contracts, and previously worked in Kainos, a QUBIS spin out company, throughout its tremendous growth phase.

Les Gaw

Les Gaw, is a seasoned, serial tech entrepreneur who has successfully led a tech company from early-stage through to exit and understands the process and the challenges this brings to inexperienced founding teams. As a director of Gabriel Investment Syndicate, a Glasgow-based angel syndicate, Les has personally invested in over 20 early-stage Scottish companies, leveraging his expertise and network to strengthen the evolving Scottish tech ecosystem.

What our clients say

Join Kickstart if you are a tech company serious about initial growth and brand visibility. Marketing and sales can be daunting, especially for a tech startup or tech entrepreneur. We have tried various strategies but struggled to generate sales traction and brand awareness. We also attended short courses but most are very generic and top-level.

Ro and Leanne have a track record from their past roles and shared their expertise into an implementable framework and actionable plan for a resource-constrained startup. It's evident that they are incredibly experienced in this area and genuinely passionate about this programme to make it accessible to startups.

The key difference in the programme is a clear roadmap to supercharge our sales pipeline, sustainable sales and marketing funnel for continuous sales flow. We loved it because it helped us to build data-driven sales and marketing funnels to help our decision making.

Aqeel Shamsul

CEO, Frontier Space Technologies

This programme is a must for every founder when transitioning from academia into business. It gives you the necessary tools to understand the marketing mechanics, and how to succeed in commercializing your technology. I gained so much confidence after this programme that I attribute the successful engagement with new clients (and closing of deals) thanks to the learning gained during the programme.

Juan Pablo Echenique

CEO & Co-founder, Reoptimize Systems (closed £125K new sales during programme)

Kickstart has substantially improved Nami Surgical's approach to market engagement. Their expertise has enabled us to streamline our marketing efforts, focusing on strategic demographics with enhanced precision. The guidance provided by Kickstart has not only elevated our presence in the industry but also resulted in a noticeable uplift in lead generation. Their professional support have been vital to our mission of innovating surgical solutions globally.

Rebecca Cleary

Founder & CTO, Nami Surgical

Kickstart was specific, evidenced, methodical, and bound the participants in actions that delivered results. The application of the learnings made us investible, and the marketing strategy it has helped us construct is already delivering results.

Sterghios Moschos

CEO, PulmoBioMed (raised £1.4m investment round Feb 2024)

Grand Scale has played a pivotal role in the growth of ReproGo. Their strategic marketing leadership has provided valuable insights and guidance, helping us navigate the challenges of scaling our startup effectively. With their expertise, we've been able to implement targeted strategies that have contributed to our success. We're grateful for their support and partnership in our journey.

Sophia Kelaini

Co-founder & CEO, ReproGo

Grand Scale Kickstart has given me the skills to build a strategic sales and marketing plan that can be implemented immediately as well as having longevity as Evolutor starts to expand rapidly. It has enabled me to acquire our first trial customers and partners, and to hit the ground running with expansion of an automated lead generation and sales pipeline process.

Joe Price

Founder & CEO, Evolutor

KickStart training has been a game-changer for our start-up. We gained a deep understanding of our target customers, learnt how to built a robust sales pipeline, and implement effective marketing automation. Highly recommended for start-ups looking to excel in sales and marketing.

Magdalena Karlikowska

CEO, Cytecom

The programme is essential learning for those start-up companies without established commercialisation departments.

Jason Liu

Chief Technology Officer, Acuity Robotics

The Kickstart programme has greatly benefited our preclinical research company. It helped us refine our business model, connect with new market players, and also made us more aware in how we understand our customer needs. The strategic sales and marketing skills we acquired have allowed us to position our services effectively and build stronger relationships with potential clients. Overall, the programme has accelerated our growth and improved our ability to compete in the market.

Kevin Harkin

Senior Study Director, MediNect Ophtho

We are a strategic partner to the UK’s national innovation agency, Innovate UK

Innovate UK chose to partner with Grand Scale to support early-stage ventures, with the aim of improving their ability to launch, grow and scale. Following a pilot programme and evaluation, wherein Grand Scale designed a specific curriculum, Innovate UK established a three-year partnership with Grand Scale to deliver Kickstart for ICURe spinouts. The expert led programme enhanced the capability of commercially focused teams and aids Innovate UK in delivering through-life support of innovative companies.

Leanne and Ro are key members of the operational and steering groups for the ICURe and Scaling the Edge programmes at Innovate UK. They bring first-hand knowledge and experience of the challenges associated with being female founders in a devolved nation. This has shaped Innovate UK’s commercialisation portfolio, ensuring it is accessible to all.

I would not hesitate to recommend Ro and Leanne for the delivery of programmes associated with public funding and regional and national efforts.

Dr Emma Burke 

Innovation Lead - Commercialisation

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FAQ's

Kickstart is industry-agnostic and designed to support technical founders, entrepreneurs and innovation businesses from any B2B innovation sector. This includes ventures in net zero, medtech, fintech, agritech, bioscience, manufacturing, pharma, engineering and other industries.

Kickstart takes place in BST time, so it’s a great fit for anyone based in Europe.

Participants in the Kickstart programme may include a diverse group of technical founders, entrepreneurs and innovation businesses. It’s a small group environment providing ample opportunities for networking through our private LinkedIn group and interactive coaching calls, allowing you to connect with peers, share experiences, and build valuable professional relationships.

Participants have 12 months of continued access to all modules, resources, and materials to review and reinforce their learning.

Kickstart offers ongoing support throughout the 9-week programme via our private LinkedIn group. This platform enables direct interaction with our experts, providing opportunities to ask questions, receive guidance, and enhance your learning experience.