Business Immersion — Advanced
A pre-university intensive for serious 16–18 year-olds. Three weeks of finance, strategy, founder seminars and a real pitch to a real investor panel.
St Felix campus
Pitch day
Pre-university calibre. Real founders. A real pitch.
Three weeks designed for the 16–18 year-old who has outgrown the workbook-and-quiz business camp. Mornings are seminars on finance, strategy, operations and product, led by London-based founders and senior operators. Afternoons are project work on a founding team of three or four students. The whole programme builds to a final-day pitch to an investor panel.
The teaching team includes a Series B founder, a corporate strategy partner, a CFO who has taken two companies public, and a venture-capital associate. They are not summer-school teachers; they are professionals giving three weeks to a programme they wish had existed when they were 17.
Why this programme matters
Most undergraduate business courses do not pair their first-year students with practising founders and investors. We deliberately do, three years early. Students leave with the rare combination of technical fundamentals (a cash-flow model they built, a competitor analysis they wrote, a pitch they delivered) and the soft skills no textbook teaches — how to disagree in a meeting, how to give feedback, how to ask a senior person a useful question.
Programme structure
- Day01
Arrival & orientation
Heathrow pick-up, coach to St Felix, welcome dinner. Founding teams formed over supper based on industry interests.
- Day02–05
Week 1 — foundations
Daily seminars: business model canvas, unit economics, financial statements, market sizing, competitor analysis. Evening case-study work.
- Day06–07
Weekend — London study trip
Two nights in central London. Visits to a venture-capital firm and a Series B start-up. Walking tour of the financial city.
- Day08–12
Week 2 — building
Founding teams develop their venture: customer interviews (real ones, conducted live), product wireframes, go-to-market plan, financial model.
- Day13
Mid-programme review
Each team presents to a panel of mentors for honest feedback. The week ends with a guest dinner hosted by a founder-CEO.
- Day14–17
Week 3 — sharpening
Pitch deck construction. Practice pitches with peer critique. One-to-one coaching with assigned mentors. Cambridge day-trip on the Wednesday.
- Day18
Demo day — investor panel
10-minute pitch + Q&A to a panel of three real investors. Awards for best venture, best pitch, best founding team. Family showcase via livestream.
- Day19–20
Founders’ closing day & return
Closing reflective day, reference letters issued, founders’ supper, packing. Sunday coach back to Heathrow with our chaperones.
Why ambitious 16–18 year-olds choose this.
A programme built for the student who will go on to study business, economics or computer science — and who wants to skip a couple of years of theory-only learning.
Real founder-led seminars
Tutors are London-based founders, operators and investors — not summer-school staff with case-study slides.
A real venture, not a workbook
You build a working business on a founding team of three or four. Customer interviews, model, pitch.
Demo day pitch
You pitch to a real investor panel on the final day — in a real conference room, with real Q&A.
One-to-one mentor
Each founding team gets a named, experienced mentor for the full three weeks — weekly calls continue after the programme.
London study trip
Two nights in the capital with visits to a VC firm, a Series B start-up and a corporate boardroom.
Signed reference
A written reference from your mentor, naming specific competencies demonstrated — useful for UCAS and US college applications.
What you take home.
Hard outputs you can show, soft outputs you can use, and a small network of senior people who already know your name.
- A complete pitch deck, 12–15 slides, peer- and mentor-reviewed.
- A working financial model in Google Sheets, including a 3-year P&L and cap table.
- A customer-interview log from real conversations conducted during the programme.
- A 10-minute pitch video, professionally recorded on demo day.
- A signed mentor reference naming specific skills demonstrated.
- Working command of unit economics, market sizing, business model canvas and competitor analysis.
- Comfort in senior rooms — investor Q&A, mentor reviews, boardroom visits.
- Tri-credential certificate co-issued by St Felix and Aspirational Editech.
For pre-university 16–18 year-olds with ambition.
Built for the student aiming at a business, economics, finance or computer science degree — or considering a start-up gap year. Maturity matters more than prior business knowledge.
- Ages 16–18, in Year 11 / Class 11 or above.
- Strong English — you will read, write and present in it daily.
- Numerically comfortable — we will teach financial modelling from scratch but you should not fear a spreadsheet.
- Considering business, economics or computer science at a competitive university.
- Ready for three intense weeks — this is not a holiday with seminars.
Life on the programme
A look inside the campus, the classrooms and the moments in between.
Transparent, all-in pricing.
One fee covers the full three-week programme — St Felix, London weekend, Cambridge day, mentor pairing and investor demo day.
Programme fee
Covers every element of the programme — from arrival at Heathrow to your final farewell.
- Three weeks’ full board at St Felix
- Two nights in central London (curated student residence)
- All seminars by London-based founders and operators
- Named one-to-one mentor for full programme
- London visits to a VC firm and a Series B start-up
- Cambridge day-trip with college tour
- Demo day investor panel and recorded pitch
- All meals, on campus and in London
- UK Standard Visitor visa support and submission
- Comprehensive student travel insurance
- Two our chaperones throughout, 24/7 parent support line
- Signed mentor reference, certificate, pitch deck and video posted home
Optional extras
Items we don’t bundle in — either because they vary or because families prefer to choose.
- International flights (add-on from BLR, BOM or DEL)
- Personal pocket money (£300–£400 recommended)
- Optional sixth-form-college visit add-on (+£250)
- Personal laptop — you must bring your own
Easy payments
Three-instalment plan at no extra cost. Pay in INR or GBP.
Sibling discount
5% off the second sibling on the same trip. School group rates available.
Refundable deposit
A £500 deposit secures your seat; balance due eight weeks before departure.
What sets this programme apart.
Practising founders as tutors
A Series B founder, a Big-4 strategy partner and a venture-capital associate — not summer-school faculty.
A real investor panel
Three external investors sit on demo day. They give honest, in-the-room feedback — not the polite kind.
Mentor continuity
Your mentor offers two follow-up calls after the programme — a relationship that often runs into the university year.
Your journey, step by step.
From the first enquiry to the warm hug back at the airport — we walk every metre with you.
Enquire & speak
A 30-minute interview-style call. We talk academic profile, prior projects and what you would build given three weeks.
Apply & pay deposit
Short written application (300 words) plus a £750 refundable deposit. Visa file begins.
Onboarding pack
Eight weeks out: pre-reading (Eric Ries, Peter Thiel chapters), mentor introduction call, parent WhatsApp group, named contacts.
Programme & investor pitch
Three weeks. Weekly parent calls. Demo day pitch. Reference, certificate and pitch recording posted home.
Looked after, every step of the way.
Academic guidance, pastoral care and emotional wellbeing aren’t separate departments — they’re woven through every day of the programme.
Academic
Daily one-to-one office hours with a senior tutor. Mentor pairing for full-programme coaching.
Pastoral
Two our chaperones throughout. House parent on site at St Felix. Long-trip wellbeing protocols in place.
Emotional
Pre-university stress is real. Weekly confidential check-ins with our counsellor for any student who wants one.
Pathways this programme opens.
A short programme that quietly compounds — the conversations, the projects and the references open doors years later.
Business & economics degrees
A serious, named portfolio piece for LSE, Warwick, Wharton, NUS and similar applications.
Investment banking & consulting
Material to draw on in spring-week and internship interviews from year-one onwards.
Founding a start-up
A real first attempt — with a mentor who keeps in touch — is the best preparation for a serious gap-year venture.
International careers
A signed UK mentor reference signals seriousness to admissions and graduate recruiters worldwide.
What students and parents tell us.
I went in wanting to study economics. I came out with a business plan, an investor introduction and an offer to come back as a summer associate. Worth every hour.
My son does not give compliments to programmes. He came back from this one and said it was the most useful three weeks of his school life.
The mentor pairing is the magic. She still has calls with him a year later. That alone justifies the fee.
Questions, answered.
Twenty seats. Three weeks. One pitch.
Places are limited and tend to fill 6–8 weeks before departure. Speak to our team to walk through dates, paperwork and everything we handle on your behalf.
