Building LaunchPad – Making Investment Readiness Accessible for Everyone
We built LaunchPad to offer social entrepreneurs a supportive space to learn, grow, and access investment-readiness guidance in a way that works for them.
When we published the Access Report, we knew we needed to do more than just acknowledge the barriers that ethnic minority social entrepreneurs in Scotland face. We needed to do something about them.
That’s where LaunchPad comes into its own – our digital learning platform that’s making investment readiness support available to social entrepreneurs across Scotland, whenever and wherever they need it.
Starting from Real Needs
The Access Report highlighted something we already suspected: not everyone can attend workshops in person. Caring responsibilities, work commitments, disabilities, geographical isolation, and lack of confidence can all make traditional in-person programmes difficult or impossible to access.
But we also knew that learning doesn’t happen best when you’re just passively absorbing information. People need different formats, different paces, and the ability to revisit content when it makes sense for their business journey.
So, we set out to build something different.
Co-Production at Its Heart
From the start, LaunchPad has been co-designed with social enterprises across Scotland. We haven’t built something and then asked for feedback – we’ve involved social entrepreneurs in shaping what we build, how it works, and what resources it includes.
The platform features content from partner organisations and experts across the sector – organisations that are social enterprises themselves, that understand the reality of running a social enterprise. Our partners have contributed videos, workshops, and resources.
Lived experience and sector knowledge runs through everything on the platform. It’s not generic business advice – it’s support shaped by people who understand the specific challenges and opportunities of running a social enterprise.
How LaunchPad Works
The platform is organised into “rooms” – themed spaces covering different aspects of running a social enterprise. Current rooms include:
- Governance
- Finance
- Social Investment
- Storytelling and Pitching
- Marketing
- Social Impact
- Operations
- Diversity and Inclusion
- Business Planning
Each room contains:
- Recorded workshops by expert partners
- Written guidance (available as PDFs)
- Infographics
- Podcasts
- Links throughout to free services and additional resources
Entrepreneurs can work through each room at their own pace, choosing the format that works best for them. There are quizzes at the end of each room to help consolidate learning.
We encourage founders to invite their team to join the platform, so that the whole team is learning and upskilling, enabling the enterprise to progress faster.
One of the features we’re most excited about is the AI-driven business plan builder. As an organisation works through the platform, the responses provided to quizzes in each room feed through to a business plan template. Multiple team members can work on this individually, and the lead contact approves the final content. This means the whole team can contribute to building a comprehensive business plan that reflects what they do day-to-day and what they inspire to achieve in the future.
Our aim is for the platform to be able to pull out key messages from the business plan into an investment pitch. This capability is coming soon! In the meantime, the LaunchMe team is on hand to help you create a compelling pitch and to practise your pitch on.
Beyond LaunchMe
Whilst LaunchPad was developed initially for the LaunchMe programme, we’re now using it for another investment readiness programme, Boost Invest, and we are exploring its potential to support more social entrepreneurs. The flexible design means organisations can access the content that’s relevant to them, when they need it.
We’re also exploring how the platform might be valuable to other organisations supporting social entrepreneurs. The learning resources and progressive structure could benefit the wider sector, and we’re open to conversations about how that might work in practice.
What This Means for Accessibility
LaunchPad is part of our wider commitment to making social enterprise support genuinely accessible. That means:
- Content available 24/7, not just at specific workshop times
- Multiple formats (video, audio, text, visual) for different learning styles and accessibility needs
- The ability to revisit content as many times as needed
- No requirement to travel or be in a specific place
- Information that’s jargon-free and practical
- Flexible support that fits around other commitments
Expert partners participate in live sessions with participants, but the sessions are participant-led Q&A sessions to ensure that the espert time is spent on issues that are relevant to the people in the room.
LaunchPad does not replace any element of the LaunchMe programme; 1-1 support from the LaunchMe team, live sessions on core learning topics, peer social sessions and 1-1 tailored expert advice remain the main pillars of the programme. However, LaunchPad is an essential addition that removes barriers to learning and creates opportunities for people who might otherwise struggle to access investment readiness support.
Looking Forward
As we continue to develop LaunchPad, we’re thinking about what else the sector needs. Adding net zero resources will help social enterprises understand their environmental impact and think about how they can play their part in tackling the climate emergency. This awareness is increasingly important to funders and investors.
Running a social enterprise is physically and mentally demanding, and founder wellbeing matters. We’re partnering with organisations including Proud Futures to create resources to provide mental health support, that are genuinely thoughtful, practical and effective.
Procurement, tendering and social prescribing are topics that our participants are asking for support with. We are working to create resources that provide the knowledge and practical know how to enable social enterprises to get onto these frameworks and compete effectively alongside private companies in this space.
The Bigger Picture
LaunchPad isn’t just a learning platform – it’s a statement about what we believe social enterprise support should look like. It should be accessible. It should be practical. It should be co-designed with the people it’s designed to support. And it should recognise that there are many different ways to learn and many different circumstances in which people are trying to grow their organisations.
We’re proud of what we’ve built with partners from across the sector, and excited about where it’s going next. If you’d like to learn more about LaunchPad or explore how it might support your organisation, please get in touch launchme@firstport.org.uk
If you’re a social enterprise interested in joining LaunchMe, applications for our next cohort open in early 2026. For more information about the Investment Readiness Programme, visit LaunchMe – Firstport or get in touch with the team at launchme@firstport.org.uk