ADAPT: Liverpool City Region businesses need to keep asking what’s next

There is a lot of conversation about supporting start-ups.

There should be.

But innovation cannot stop once a company has customers, employees, turnover and an established way of doing things.

In many ways, that is when innovation becomes even more important.

Markets change. Customer expectations move. New competitors appear. AI and emerging technology change what is possible. Costs increase. Supply chains shift. Products that worked five years ago might not be the products that create growth over the next five.

The challenge for an established business is often not a lack of ideas.

It is finding the time, headspace, expertise and money to properly explore them.

That is why we think LYVA Labs' ADAPT programme is an important opportunity for Liverpool City Region businesses.

And why GoodShip* is pleased to be supporting it as one of the programme's expert partners.

Start with the opportunity.

ADAPT is designed for established Liverpool City Region businesses that are thinking seriously about what comes next.

It is open across sectors to businesses with turnover of at least £500,000, a minimum of three employees, and the ability to commit two senior people, including someone from the C-suite, to the programme's two-day bootcamp.

The programme combines structured innovation support with something particularly useful: the ability to actually test an idea.

Participating businesses receive a two-day expert-led bootcamp, followed by a project setup period with external specialists and access to a £15,000 feasibility grant to validate the opportunity over the following six months.

That could mean investigating a new digital product.

Testing whether AI could improve an existing service.

Exploring a new market.

Prototyping something customers have been asking for.

Looking at a different business model.

Understanding whether an internal process could become a product.

Or discovering that the idea you thought you should build is not actually the opportunity at all.

That last one matters too.

Good innovation is not simply about building more things. It is about reducing uncertainty before making bigger decisions.

Why this matters for Liverpool City Region.

We have ambitious businesses across Liverpool City Region.

We also have universities, investors, technology companies, researchers, creative talent, specialist expertise and an increasingly connected innovation ecosystem.

The opportunity is joining more of those things together.

LYVA Labs points to an important challenge. Scaleups account for a relatively small proportion of UK SMEs while generating a significant share of SME turnover, yet Liverpool City Region's scaleup density remains around 15% below the UK average.

Closing that gap is not simply about creating more start-ups.

It is also about helping the businesses already here become more productive, develop new products, enter new markets, adopt technology intelligently and turn ideas sitting inside their organisations into commercial opportunities.

That requires investment.

But it also requires experimentation.

This is exactly the kind of work we like.

At GoodShip*, we often meet organisations before they have a neat brief.

They have a question.

An opportunity.

A problem.

Something they think technology might solve.

Something customers keep asking for.

Or an idea that has been sitting on the whiteboard for too long.

Our work combines strategy, innovation, research, product thinking, AI, digital technology, prototyping and commercialisation to help organisations work out what is worth pursuing and then make it tangible.

Our approach is deliberately problem-first.

We do not start with:

"You need an app."

Or:

"You need AI."

We start with:

What are you trying to make better?

Then we question it.

Explore it.

Test the assumptions.

Talk about the users.

Look at the technology.

Consider the commercial model.

Prototype where appropriate.

And create a clearer route towards what happens next.

That is why the thinking behind ADAPT feels so aligned with GoodShip*.

£15,000 should buy learning, not just stuff.

One of the most valuable aspects of ADAPT is the feasibility grant.

But the important word there is feasibility.

The objective is not simply to spend £15,000 building something.

It is to use that investment to answer important questions.

Does somebody actually need this?

Can it work technically?

Can we build it at a sensible cost?

Could AI meaningfully improve it?

What would the user experience need to be?

Is there a commercial opportunity?

What should an MVP contain?

What should we deliberately leave out?

What evidence would we need before investing further?

A strong feasibility project should leave a business with more certainty and less risk.

By the end of ADAPT, LYVA Labs intends participating businesses to have a substantially de-risked product or service opportunity, greater clarity around technical and commercial feasibility, a roadmap towards market and stronger relationships with expert partners.

That is much more valuable than simply emerging with another piece of technology.

Build. Learn. Decide.

We talk a lot at GoodShip* about making ideas tangible.

There is a reason for that.

You can debate an idea around a boardroom table for six months.

Or you can research it, sketch it, prototype it, put it in front of people and learn something.

That does not mean rushing.

Quite the opposite.

It means creating enough evidence to make a better decision.

Sometimes that decision will be go.

Sometimes change direction.

Sometimes not yet.

And sometimes the most valuable result of a feasibility project is finding out what not to build before spending considerably more money discovering the same thing.

LCR businesses: use the support that exists around you.

Liverpool City Region has a growing support infrastructure around innovation, skills, finance, technology and business growth.

We need more businesses engaging with it.

ADAPT is one of those opportunities.

Applications close at 5pm on 30th September 2026, with the two-day bootcamp taking place on 21st and 22nd October 2026. The feasibility work then runs through to May 2027.

If you are running an established Liverpool City Region business and there is an idea, challenge or opportunity inside the organisation that keeps coming back into the conversation, this could be the moment to explore it properly.

Not innovation theatre.

Not technology for technology's sake.

A question.

An opportunity.

Some expert challenge.

£15,000 to investigate it.

And potentially the beginning of your business's next product, service or market.

That feels worth exploring.

GoodShip* is proud to be part of the expert partner network supporting ADAPT and Liverpool City Region businesses looking at what comes next.

Question. Imagine. Make. Test. Learn.

Then decide where to go next.

Explore the LYVA Labs ADAPT programme

Apply for ADAPT

I’d keep the £15,000 should buy learning, not just stuff section. It gives the article a distinctive GoodShip* point of view rather than making it read like a repost of the LYVA Labs programme page.