The Entrepreneur’s Journey Global Entrepreneurship Week UK

The Kent Foundation and The Business Terrace in Maidstone kick started Global Entrepreneurship Week UK by playing host to almost 50 local business people who joined them on The Entrepreneur’s Journey to The Entrepreneur's Journey - Global Entrepreneurship Weekget involved with the world’s biggest celebration of entrepreneurship.

The idea behind the inspirational event ‘The Entrepreneur’s Journey ’ tied in with this year’s GEW theme ‘Compass Points’ which identifies the various stages of business. Paul Barron, Director of The Kent Foundation, a charity providing free support to young business owners across Kent tells us more:

“The event was designed to project real, personal, factual stories of entrepreneurs who are at various stages in business. We achieved this by inviting four Kent businesses along to speak Paul Barron Director of The Kent Foundationand inspire others with their journey in business. Interestingly, collaboration was a common topic amongst all the speakers and this was confirmed as a vital link to running a business.”

“Collaboration in Business is the Way Forward”

The event featured speakers; Josh Bates from Cove Videos, Jo Hage and Sarah MacDonald from Rise Communications and Roger Williams from Intelligent Linking. Freya Briley, aged 23 and owner of Jest 4 Entertainment a recently established Maidstone based events company presented ‘Starting the Journey’:

left-to-right-jo-hage-and-sarah-macdonald-rise-communications-josh-bates-cove-videos-freya-briley-jest-4-entertainment-and-roger-williams-intellegent-linking“I’ve just started this journey which is interesting and really exciting. The idea for starting Jest 4 Entertainment came from my personal experiences through my drama degree and working for various private event companies. It became clear to me that I could build something for myself and add significant value to schools and businesses by boosting their interpersonal skills using drama based approaches. It is scary but there’s so much support, I am learning so much about myself and I’m loving it.”

Business support charity The Kent Foundation is dedicated to supporting young business owners such as Freya to reach their business goals. Paul Barron, Director reflected:

“This has been inspiring and portrayed a perfect example of a variety of entrepreneurial journeys from all backgrounds, business lifecycles and ages. The thing here is that at some point every one of them all recognised a gap and had to take that step to start their own business.”

The event was perfectly timed to celebrate the one year anniversary of The Business Terrace which provides a collaborative working environment for businesses to build a network, work with others and access free business support every day of the week.

Also a special mention to Ibi’s Kitchen who kindly sponsored the event by providing the catering – Absolutely amazing grub, do check them out!