Lunch + Learn: Slough
Lunch+Learn is a monthly series at Plus X Innovation designed to support the growth of entrepreneurs, founders, and scaling businesses.
Each session brings practical learning, expert advice, and real-world examples across various topics relevant to the challenges of today’s businesses.
Whether you're looking to scale, improve leadership skills, or understand key funding routes, these sessions are tailored to provide actionable insights you can apply right away.
Sessions include a mix of presentations and Q&A, along with lunch to keep you energised while networking with like-minded individuals.
Lunch + Learn: From Prototype to Pilot
📅 27th October 2026, 12:00 - 1:30 PM
This session will explore the process of moving from early prototype, to the units you need for testing, user trials and pilot deployments. We will explore what needs to be representative, what can be simplified, and how to approach making the required quantity.
Choices about materials, manufacturing methods and prototype detail all affect what the results can tell you. Understanding how these choices influence performance helps you interpret the findings and anticipate changes when you move to production, or plan around process limitations to deliver the experience you intend.
What you'll learn
In this one-hour Lunch + Learn, Jim Reeves will use real product-development examples to explore:
- The benefits of designing for exactly what you need to learn, prove, or show
- Identifying what must be representative, and what can be simplified
- Planning and executing a trial: rehearsal, onboarding and data gathering
- Pre-testing outside the development team
Who should attend
- Founders of hardware businesses.
- Designers and technical teams developing physical products.
- Anybody planning user trials, engineering validation or a first pilot batch.
Lunch + Learn Experts
Jim Reeves is a Product Development Director, bringing over 15 years of design consultancy experience. Partnering closely with founders to provide insights and guidance on design, prototyping, and scaling products for manufacture.
Having built and sold her own marketing agency, Rosie Reynolds now works with senior leadership teams across household name brands. Rosie uses her more than 15 years of experience to translate business goals into marketing strategies that grow revenue and market share.
A brand and communications professional with over a decade’s experience shaping clear, compelling narratives for mission-led companies.As Head of Brand & Marketing at climate-tech start-up Entocycle, Jude secured tier one media coverage across major outlets including BBC, The Guardian, The New York Times, Sifted and Sky News. Across over 10 years at eatbigfish, Jude helped challenger brands challenge the status quo to achieve outsized impact.
Bill is a brand strategy consultant and creative director – the founder of Brandad in Brighton.
He specialises in helping businesses to create, grow and build authentic and impactful brands.
With over 25 years of international agency experience, he now guides start-ups, SMEs and entrepreneurs through brand purpose, positioning, storytelling, and identity development. Bill’s experience and insights help businesses align their values with their goals, creating meaningful connections with their audiences.
Justin Megawarne helps founders and SME leaders make technology work for humans, eliminating complexity and unlocking real business value. Justin has advised organisations of all sizes and stages, with his work frequently delivering 5x–30x valuation growth. Known for his integrity, technical and strategic clarity, and “skin in the game” approach, he treats every client’s business as if it were his own.
Why attend
For more infomation visit Mayor of London and GOV.
The people I have met here make it a dream coming in a few times a week! I don't see myself being able to go back to working from home the same way I did before coming to Plus X Innovation, I don't think I could leave the sense of community behind. It really is something everyone who is working from home should try!
Central Research Laboratory has contributed to our journey in many ways: access to a network, manufacturing, procurement services, and workshop facilities. CRL enables us to feel like a slightly bigger company than we would otherwise be if left to our own devices. Being here at CRL as a cohort member, makes it feel a lot more real and plugged in into the ecosystem.
Besides the workshop facilities, the best thing about working in the Brighton hub has got to be being able to collaborate with people in the same building as you. The variety of expertise and experience in the building is awesome.
We could not be in a better place to grow as a company. We get amazing support from the Plus X Innovation staff, plus collaboration opportunities with the other inspiring residents and companies. We feel like we’re living in the future of workplaces in the present and that is pretty damn cool.
Through my time at Plus X Innovation my business has turned from a student project into a registered R&D company. My favourite thing about being at Plus X Brighton is having a mini family in the office and a beautiful space to be the best you and make the best connections.
The Lunch + Learn experience
What to expect on the day:
- Monthly, bite-sized learning sessions designed to fit into a lunch break.
- Engaging mix of presentations and live Q&A with industry experts.
- Complimentary lunch included to keep you energised and support relaxed networking.
- Hands-on discussion segments or peer exchange moments — share your challenges and learn from real examples.
