H&BAI – Sam Davey The Kent Foundation likes nothing more than when a young person following in the footsteps of their Family. Sam Davey is one of them! Growing up in a family of business people it was inevitable he was going to take his own step into business at some point. Sam Davey – From a very young age I have been surrounded by ironmongery and its many topics! Growing up the only boy in my family with a Granddad, 3 Uncles and a Dad that are all involved in the family business, Hinges & Brackets ironmongery stores. I…
Construction Trader – Jake Body I started working on the business in January 2019 when a family member passed the domain name constructiontrader.com onto me. Since then, I was focused on launching it as quickly as possible. I put countless hours into building the website – all self taught! – to make it look right, and be as simple as possible for users to navigate. Construction Trader officially launched and started trading in August 2019, on my 18th Birthday! It is an online marketplace for buying and selling machinery, from diggers to dumper trucks, and anything else related to the…
On the 2nd of October we hosted a networking event in collaboration with Sun Pier House, Chatham, to raise awareness of The Kent Foundation in Medway. Young entrepreneurs Dayzee Potter (Dream Academy PA and Moondance Bar) and Anthony Bliss (Brave Little Tank) gave inspirational talks about the highs and lows of running a business and how the support of their mentors has helped them to succeed. This was followed by a Q&A session as well as a brief introduction to the support offered from Medway Council and the benefits of co-working from Roland at Dragon Co-working. We had a great turnout…
Pro Spray uPVC – James Wildish I started Pro Spray UPVC 2 years ago, during a very tough period as an entrepreneur. I was already founding Director of what had been, up till that point, a successful commercial painting and decorating contractor business. We specialised in spray finishing, so had a far better quality of finish than many competitors and could complete works faster. I had 18 members of staff including sub-contractors, and was working on some fantastic projects in very prestigious locations. The business had grown faster than I’d ever imagined, and as a young and somewhat naive business…
Support Local – Hope Marshall I started Support Local two and a half years ago when my son was six months old. I worked in the legal department of a finance company before having my first child. After he was born, I realised how wonderful life could be and I wasn’t prepared to settle for anything else or go back to a job I didn’t love. I really wanted to give small businesses a platform and I couldn’t see that anyone else was doing this at a price they could afford. Support Local is all about connecting small businesses with…
We asked Katie Anderson at Paddlesworth Produce to give us her top tips for anyone starting their own business.1. Don’t be afraid to fail. As long as you learn something from it, it is not a failure but a lesson! Starting your own business means you have to learn so many new things – accounting, marketing, manufacturing, delivering – the list goes on! So you are bound to make mistakes. It is easy to give up or get down when things don’t go to plan but it has really helped me to write down the lessons I have learnt from…
