Venture to help bring new products to market

The primary founders of the community interest company are Leeds-based Malcolm Bell and Norfolk-based Colin Spooner, who are both retired after having held senior positions in the engineering sector.

Brand New Tricks, which is initially targeting the Yorkshire area, is currently seeking sponsorship and grants, but the idea is that ultimately it will be financed by royalties from the products it brings to market.

Mr Bell said: “The intention is to bring together experienced and skilled people with innovators trying to bring new concepts to market.

“We are not doing this for profit but because we genuinely believe that only by manufacturing and exporting can the UK recover its financial stability and we want to create jobs, hope and opportunity for our communities.”

Margin earned by Brand New Tricks will not be distributed, beyond fair wages, but will be retained to support new projects and in the medium term to employ young people and graduates to train them in the world of product design and manufacture, said Mr Bell.

“Part of our focus is to try and help create products which will lead to export. One of the major problems we have in the United Kingdom is our balance of trade. We spend more money abroad, bringing stuff in, than we sell abroad, and in order to do that we have to borrow money and that’s the fundamental problem that we have with the economy.”

Mr Bell explained: “What we are doing is a totally new model for helping people to bring new products into market. It is in complete contrast to the normal consultancy and mentoring tools so often offered to new start-ups and inventors.

“We are free at ‘point of use’ because we, retired engineers and designers, have pensions and other modest income and we will only get paid if and when we manage to get a product into the market.”

This model means that if Brand New Tricks chooses to support a project, then it is “fully implicated to the end”, he said.

Mr Bell said that the company will make “real hands-on physical contributions” such as computer aided design and prototype building using methods such as 3D printing. Those involved in Brand New Tricks have international experience and have mostly worked at board level.

Mr Bell said: “We already have a portfolio of good projects and ideas that we believe have potential and are making patent applications. We also have a number of other senior engineers who want to join the project.”

But he added: “What we need right now is some modest grant funding to support the projects we are already working on. We are able to obtain large loans but that is completely what we do not want or need; we just need a few small grants to help pay for the work we are already engaged in and to finance the next steps to put prototypes that look and work ‘like bought ones’ in front of investors and manufacturers.”

He said that Brand New Tricks is looking for two or three grants of around £10,000 each.

Interested parties can email [email protected] or [email protected].

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