We don’t network. We Frankenstart

On a suspiciously warm October First Thursday morning at the SETsquared Bath Innovation Centre, a room full of innovators, entrepreneurs, and probably-caffeinated creatives gathered not to network - but to do something weirder. We hosted our very first Frankenstart-up session: a playful mash-up of ideation, improv pitching, and utter chaos (the good kind).

The brief? There wasn’t really one.

Born from a frustrated Google Doc and a few too many conversations with ChatGPT (who, by the way, is partly to blame), Frankenstart-up is our semi-serious answer to those awkward networking breakfasts we all secretly dread. Instead of business cards and LinkedIn scans, we handed participants cards with problems, people, products, and pitch constraints - and asked them to invent a start-up in under 30 minutes.

The Rules Were Simple-ish:

• Teams drew a problem (e.g. “Job interviews are biased”), a person (e.g. “A non-verbal teenager”), a product (e.g. “Scent-based notification system”), and a pitch constraint (e.g. “Your pitch must rhyme”).

• They had 20 minutes to build a concept.

• Then we threw in a twist. Because life pivots. Literally. One team had to rebrand. Another? Their product had to work underwater. Sorry.

And what happened next was sort of brilliant.

The Outcomes:

• “Scentification” – A scent-based alert system to help non-verbal teenagers navigate an overwhelming world of notifications. Think: perfume meets smart tech. It even had a rhyme. (“Send the scent of roses, or some stinky toes-es…”)

• “Shut App” – A wearable assistant that flags and helps cancel unnecessary subscriptions - even underwater. Because obviously your smartwatch should help you unsubscribe from Prime while scuba diving.

• “Spot Bias” – A smart desk toy (acquired by a gaming company, naturally) that flags biased questions in job interviews and helps reframe them in real time. It’s basically a Babel fish crossed with an HR manager.

The brilliance? These weren’t just clever or funny - some were actually kind of… fundable?

But more importantly: we got people talking. Not networking. Talking. Collaborating. Making stuff. Making mistakes. Making each other laugh. And in the process, sparking conversations you don't usually get before 10am.

Why We’ll Be Doing It Again:

Because the real unicorn isn't the next billion-pound valuation - it's the collision of ideas between strangers who wouldn’t normally speak. Frankenstart-up gave people permission to play, and that’s how real innovation begins.

We’ll be back next month with AI as our focus – more details here.

Stay curious. Stay caffeinated. And please, bring your own whiteboard marker.