Artbox Armenia Mentoring for Startups

David has been appointed by Artbox Armenia to be a mentor for 29 startups in the cultural and creative industries in Armenia.

Artbox is an incubator providing comprehensive support to creative projects and businesses with potential for commercial success.

Inspired by innovative models in business and tech, Artbox is a reinvention of the incubator model for the art world — a dynamic entrepreneurial system that supports artists in developing their ideas into commercially viable and investable creative products.

David kickstarted the 12 week Artbox incubation project with a workshop on how to combine an artistic sense with a business vision to launch a successful venture with his session on “Art of Business, Business of Art”.

He shared his vast experience in helping creative enterprises and organizations worldwide build profitable products and services while staying true to their values and vision. The workshop was designed to help participants to develop their artistic statements, define success metrics, and determine their unique business formula.

“As we launched our creative incubator Artbox, David Parrish proved to be a powerful ally – working closely with us over several weeks and ultimately bringing his great insights and experience to a very important first session that set the tone for the rest of the incubator. Our 29 creative teams found him to be continuously inspiring, informative, and sensitive to the various needs and concerns of everyone involved.”
Creative Armenia
www.creativearmenia.org


Three essential free resources used in David’s online workshop with Artbox participants are:

T-Shirts and Suits: A Guide to the Business of Creativity (Free eBook in English)
The free eBook version in English is available here. Also for sale as a paperback and audiobook.

Create Your Own Business Formula (article)
Free article about devising a winning business strategy in the creative industries. In English and several other languages available here.

Toolkit: Designing Your Creative Business
This toolkit can be downloaded in PDF format from here.


In addition, the following free resources will be useful as additional resources for Artbox participants:

Competitive Advantage
A video, article, diagram and book extract about competitive advantage. Essential to devise an effective Business Formula (link).

1,000 True Fans
How an artist can make a living by choosing the right customers who will buy everything they produce (link)

How Superfans can transform your creative business
Some are more important than others. In fact the most important few are potentially worth more than all the rest put together (link)

The Curve – from Free to Superfans (link)

Video based online course/toolkit: RE-Designing Your Creative Business (link)

Free Online Courses for Creative and Cultural Entrepreneurs – Strategic Planning and Marketing.

The ‘Golden Circle’ and its message for Creative Enterprises
“People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it”. (link)

Masterclass videos and slides: “How to be a Successful Creative Entrepreneur”
Free videos plus presentation slides and links to associated resources are all on this page.

Free extracts from book ‘Chase One Rabbit: Strategic Marketing for Business Success. 63 Tips, Techniques and Tales for Creative Entrepreneurs’
Several sections of the book are published free of charge, plus videos about the book. This marketing book was written especially for businesses in the creative industries. Also for sale as a paperback, eBook and audiobook.

David’s videos on creative entrepreneurship, created to support a course in creative entrepreneurship at Monash University in Australia (link)

Creative, Cultural and Digital Industries Guide
Free guide with case studies and information about marketing, intellectual property, financial management etc in the creative industries. Download here.

Example of licensing as a business model featuring a commercial illustrator in Brazil. ‘Ideas in Action’ article. (link)

Example of ‘Co-opetition’ as a business model. ‘Ideas in Action’ article. (link)

Porter’s Five Forces of Competition
Competition isn’t just about your immediate rivals; it’s much wider than that (link)

Example of scaling up digitally as a business model in the creative industries. ‘Ideas in Action’ article. (link)

‘Ideas in Action’ articles
Various articles illustrating cool business techniques from creative entrepreneurs around the world, available here. Some have been translated into other languages. These can be downloaded, printed and shared online.

Two kinds of Creativity: a-Creativity and i-Creativity
David explains this in his keynote speech at TEDx Napoli (video and article)

Videos
Various videos are available and can be embedded from the T-Shirts and Suits pages of YouTube and Vimeo.

More free Resources about Creativity and Business
– free eBook, videos, blogs, examples, guides and more (link)


Artbox has been developed by Creative Armenia and launched in partnership with the European Union and GIZ’s EU4Business “Innovative Tourism and Technology Development for Armenia” (ITTD) project.

Artbox Armenia mentoring for startups


David Parrish has extensive experience of business support programmes and has developed a range of training resources in creative entrepreneurship. Working internationally, he has delivered interactive training workshops and university lectures as well as providing one-to-one business advice. His work supporting future creative entrepreneurs is often undertaken in partnership with creative industries support agencies worldwide.

David is a keynote speaker on creative industries, the creative economy, marketing, the digital economy and international business. David’s keynote speeches are in demand worldwide. His books are popular with conference delegates and can be supplied on request. Also, he has helped businesses and individuals to develop through his training workshops and management consultancy projects.

He has spoken about the Creative Economy and Creative Entrepreneurship Worldwide at the United Nations in Geneva and at the European Commission in Brussels. He works worldwide as a creative industries speaker, specialising in the Creative Industries, the Creative Economy, the Orange Economy and the Digital Economy.

David has previously worked in Armenia with Leadership School Armenia.

David has worked in more than 60 countries worldwide, from Azerbaijan to Zimbabwe.


Supporting Future Creative Entrepreneurs