A warm summer welcome to our headline eventcelebrating young business owners in Kent.
Coachworks in Ashford was once again turned into a celebration for young entrepreneurs and business owners in Kent. The Kent Foundation hosted KentBizFest for the second time, and wanting to follow the huge success of the first back in October last year, and it didn’t disappoint.
The evening was compared by Kent Foundation Business Mentors Liz Jenkins and Julie Flower on the main stage welcoming some of The Kent Foundation’s inspirational young business owners and their mentors to speak on how they get through the challenges of starting a business and their own insights to business growth. Included in the line-up was Molly Wright – Molly Moodle Media, Piperis Filippaios – digitalbeans and Sophie Shepherd – Devoted Homecare all sharing their own incredible business journey’s.
The evening was a great opportunity to network, meet more of the businesses The Kent Foundation supports, and enjoying one of the free Mocktails on what was a beautiful warm summers evening.
Please enjoy the videos on this page and get a taste of how the event went, and if you would like to get involved, support or sponsor the next one, or any other part of The Kent Foundations work please get in touch, we would love to hear from you.
Finally, Thank you to The Frank Brake Charitable Trust for your support in putting this event on, it simply wouldn’t of happened without you.
In Person Networking is Back and Greener than ever!
People. Planet. Profit.
The three pillars of sustainability, all of which were celebrated at the
recent Kent Foundations showcase event KentBizFest! Over one hundred established
business owners and young entrepreneurs descended on the Coachworks in Ashford on
the 12th October for a night of inspiration, opportunity, and good old-fashioned
face to face networking!
“…an insightful event offering
inspiring advice and business opportunities for young entrepreneurs…”
The evening was compared by young entrepreneurs Carleigh-Ann
Portelli and Claire Louise Portelli founders of Naked Frank Theatre and the
main stage welcomed some of Kent Foundation’s inspirational
young business owners and their mentors, as they shared how they got through
the challenges of the last 18 months. Frazer Thompson from Chapel Down closed
the event by sharing his very own career journey and words of wisdom for business
owners new and old, but not before teaching us all in the art of sabrage – look
it up!
“…thanks for putting on a super
cool event and allowing young entrepreneurs to access a wide range of
opportunities…”
Working with Reward Events, every action was taken to make
the event as sustainable as possible – the branding was made from recycled
ocean plastic, the name badges were printed on seeded paper and hung on
lanyards made from recycled plastic bottles and together with Coachworks, a
zero single use and zero waste to landfill policy was implemented.
Not only that, but in line with the UN’s Sustainable
Development Goals the event also showcased the true diversity at the heart of
the Kent Foundation with Tawanda Chikurunhe of Nice and Easy Cleaning Ltd,
Sophie Shepherd of Devoted Homecare Ltd and their Kent Foundation mentor
Annabelle Webster joining the entrepreneurs discussion panel as well as Yofi
Yvorra of Yo! Street Zone sharing his personal business journey. Gender equality was also honoured with an
even male to female speaker ratio – something which is also further endorsed with
51% of the businesses supported by the Kent Foundation being female owned.
For many it was their first face to face live event since the pandemic and people were excited to meet new people and reconnect with old friends and colleagues in the marketplace, by the firepit – or at the bar where the KentBizFizz mocktails were flowing!
“Congratulations to the team who hosted a fantastic evening – my first
in-person large scale event post-pandemic”
A fantastic evening celebrating young people in business in Kent – and all done sustainably!
“…it was great to see lots of new businesses
and meet up with some familiar faces too…”
Want to know more about making your next event sustainable, or driving sustainability into your business? Speak to Danielle at Reward Events – danielle@rewardevents.co.uk
Finally, Thank you to The Frank Brake Charitable Trust for your support in putting this event on, it simply wouldn’t of happened without you.
Right now the market is seeing a huge decrease in value with many businesses already going under due to COVID-19. There are many businesses who have concerns as to whether they can keep their staff through no fault of their own, and therefore many employees will have concerns for their jobs, perhaps just hoping it will all blow over and we will get back to where we were before lockdown.
So is now a good time to start a business?
Times are tough for everyone right now without the added pressure of not being able to do our usual daily activities, but this is when entrepreneurs flourish. Having a problem to solve, finding opportunities that might have obstacles right now in front of them, or create opportunities when they are none.
We have seen and supported incredible entrepreneurs that have had to pivot and adapt to the current climate, we’ve also watched people who have been furloughed explore hobbies and turned them into a business.
We saw a young woman who was furloughed by an airline company very early on into lockdown, and with uncertainty if her job would remain, so she began doing something to fill her time. She began baking, she used to do it in her spare time off if she had time off work, she found it a good way to stay busy and also give gifts to loved ones. Once she started sharing photos people wanted to buy them, and just like that she had customers.
This has been common for a lot of young people who have been furloughed and we have been absolutely blown away by their talent. We also saw another young woman who was furloughed by an estate agent and then found a love for making beautiful candles and she has now successfully started her own candle making business.
One of the best things about starting a business in Kent is there is support for you, and we love nothing more than seeing young people’s business thrive and grow. Having a mentor could be one of the most valuable assets in your business. The Kent Foundations Volunteer Business Mentoring Service is something we very proud to of.
This leads us on to tell you how the following businesses that started in the recession between 2008-2010 have gone on to have multi billion pound companies.
Uber – Founded in 2009 Revenue (2018) $11.27 Billion Garrett Camp wanted to find a way to have a personal chauffeur without the high cost, therefore the idea of sharing the cost with others formed Uber. He didn’t require any overheads and worked primarily on the tech side before he launched properly in 2011. Uber now has 22 types of hire service across the world including Helicopter.
Airbnb – Founded in 2008 Revenue (2017) $2.6 Billion Shortly after moving to San Francisco in October 2007, roommates and former schoolmates Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia came up with the idea of putting an air mattress in their living room and turning it into a bed and breakfast. They now offer three services within Airbnb with some properties even offering wedding venues.
Groupon – Founded in 2008 Revenue (2017) $2.84 Billion Founder Andrew Mason wanted a way to connect business and customers on a large scale to offer products and services in a difficult time, it started off as a way of mass marketing for these businesses, and is now a hugely successful company.
Pinterest – Founded in 2010 Revenue (2019) $1 Billion. Entrepreneurs Ben Silbermann, Evan Sharp and Paul Sciarra came together in 2010 to create Pinterest, a website and app that resembles a digital scrapbook. More than 300 million people use the platform every month, according to Pinterest’s About page.
Now whilst these businesses are household names and all billion dollar companies they all have one thing in common, starting a business in a time others wouldn’t. They pushed the fear away and used their skills to adapt and create opportunity. So whilst right now it seems scary to think about starting a business, but if you get it right there is always an opportunity for success.
If you have a bit more time than before? this could be a great time to start planning and putting the groundwork in for a future in business.
If you would like to talk through a business idea or support with something you have just started get in touch using our enquiry page HERE
As part of our series of specialist workshops during lock-down Hope Marshall joined us to talk about SEO to support local businesses improve their digital presence.
No 1 Top Tip…..Name your images. Depending on your website provider this can be done via the alt tag or on your desktop before you upload to your website by renaming the image name. It normally defaults to something like JPEG-0099. This is the bit you need to change.
James Burgess, Kent based business owner of City Health Solutions has produced a free guide to help everyone working from home during this period of lock-down. With many of us all now working from the kitchen table, or a make shift office in the spare room, have we really thought about our health and the impact this way of working could have on us.
JK Online, Clockwork Moggy and Dragon Co-Working, all based in Medway, set up Together Self Isolated Business Networking on Facebook.
In just under three weeks, the community has gathered more than 1,000 followers.
One of those behind the network, Karl Cowell, set up his business JK Online, which offers digital marketing solutions, with best friend Joe Bennett two years ago….. Read more about what they have been doing HERE…..
