Gaining the Skills to Make Your Ideas Work

After many years many years of tossing and turning, Bo Svoronos decided to take a leap of faith and started his own business. He enrolled in the Box Hill Institute NEIS program and launched 3kps, a creative industry project management, business-to-business, content creation-producing agent.

Bo said, “Having the goal of applying to the NEIS program assisted me to shape my ideas into something that might be possible with enough enthusiasm and effort.  

“I have a lot of praise for the program and its benefits for small business support,” he said.

NEIS prepared Bo to successfully run his own business by equipping him with the right skills and giving him access to business resources, which helped him hone his ideas and position 3kps within its sector. He said, “NEIS helped me to bring together all the random ideas, abstract thoughts and concepts I had into a plan that prioritized what would potentially work in the real world marketplace.”

NEIS also emphasised the importance of placing a monetary value on time, a concept he found challenging in a creative industry, which is heavily reliant on intangible qualities.

3kps stands for three hundred thousand kilometres per second; the speed of light and imagination brought to life. A large proportion of the business is project based, ranging from urgent short-term bookings through to longer-term contracts.

Bo made a conscious and strategic choice not to grow the business too fast for the first few years. He said it takes hundreds of thousands of years for the sun to produce a photon of light and then roughly eight minutes for that photon of light to reach earth. He said this is similar to the delivery of an event or activation, which can take weeks or months of planning to result in a few hours entertainment.

NEIS has provided Bo with the confidence to approach challenging or difficult projects or bookings, and to value his own time and insights. He said, “My practical skills in planning and adapting are key strategic qualities I improved for retaining a successful business, which have positively translated over from the NEIS program in building the foundation of my small business plan.”

For others considering starting their own business, Bo said, “If it’s something you like doing, then do it, get in there and give it a go, you’ll be surprised what you can achieve.”

He said, try to be as organised as you can before starting. Do research on your idea, business planning, marketing and budgeting. Importantly, he said, “Listen to the lecturers and don’t be too attached to everything around your first idea. Business is about making what works better, and cutting out what doesn’t consistently work.”