MADE Festival by We Are UMi

MADE

The Entrepreneur Festival: Sheffield SUCCESS IN STAGES The entrepreneurial journey in three easy steps

LIVE DEBATE

Plotting a course for the future economy

LOOKING ahead Anticipating the return of a major Yorkshire conference

in association with:

WINTER 13

The future MADE

THREE STEPS

TO ENTREPRENEURIAL SUCCESS

SPECIAL FEATURE | WINTER 13

Whoever could bottle the elixir of entrepreneurial achievement, as the cliché goes, would be very rich indeed. Unfortunately science has not yet caught up with such cravings and wouldbe Bransons and Sugars must apply only drive, passion and patience in their quest for success. One powerful tool at their disposal if they can find it, however, is the cautionary and inspirational tales of others. This valuable commodity was present in abundance at the Future MADE event - a precursor to the return of the MADE Festival 2014 - which brought together entrepreneurs at every stage of the journey to share insights and advice on going it alone. This focused event joined budding entrepreneurs with successful business owners and ran as a pre-cursor to MADE:The Entrepreneur Festival 2014 taking place in Sheffield. With the BBC’s Steph McGovern firing the questions, global giants right down to tiny start-ups were represented, with discussions staged for each key stage in the life of an enterprise. BQ’s Andrew Mernin was there at Sheffield’s Showroom Cinema and in the following pages reports from those who are starting to make it, are in the process of making it and who are now in the ‘made it’ camp.You’re sure to find something that will inspire you in business, no matter where you are in your own quest for success.

MADE FESTIVAL

SPECIAL FEATURE | WINTER 13

THE FUTURE MADE

WINTER 13

STARTING OUT

meet people in the same industry as you that can help you in some way.”

Problem solving, ignoring the word ‘no’ and help from high places are among the key ingredients to a successful start in enterprise, say five of Yorkshire’s rising business stars The beginning stages of entrepreneurial endeavour usually involves a story – that spark when circumstance and opportunity collide to formulate an idea. As entrepreneurs become battle hardened over time, often that story is embellished and polished to suit PR or investment pitching purposes. But for the five young budding entrepreneurs who took to the stage in the ‘pre-start or student businesses’ panel debate, their story was still fresh in their minds and unabridged. And a common thread across the panel was being able to turn a negative on its head. Young Brandon Park was castigated for selling sweets to classmates so cleverly told disgruntled teachers he’d donate a portion of his earnings to charity. Through his business Bon Bon Brandon, he is now the leading supplier of confectionery at Sheffield College and is planning to create his own brand of chocolate as his enterprise expands. Chikumo Fiseko’s “strict parents” told her once she could only go to the cinema if she had money to do so. She called their bluff by baking a batch of muffins, selling them to friends before trotting off to her local picture house. Now a first year student at Sheffield Hallam University, her business Mostly Muffins has been trading for three years and recently won the shining star award and was a runner up at the Big Challenge awards for students across Sheffield. During her time as a swimming pool attendant, Sarah Livesey spent years watching Muslim women, and others who chose to cover up in public, struggling to swim in garments not designed for the water. The graduate and keen swimmer then created Freestyle Swimwear, providing swimming costumes designed specifically for women who want to cover up. Film and media production graduate Divya Shankar steered clear of the tough job market when she finished her degree and instead

SPECIAL FEATURE | WINTER 13

THE FUTURE MADE

Once you’ve got your idea and started trading, how do you then build up your reputation in the early days? Chikumo Fiseko: “When I first started I had given my products to friends and family to try before they started buying them, so they knew what they were buying into. I wasn’t willing to spend money on advertising, so instead I gave products away and then those people would spread the word about them. Even if I meet people at networking events, I’ll take along some products next time I meet them. They’ll have other contacts who might want to make an order, so it’s about word of mouth. Everyone loves food and it’s even better if it’s free.”

How does that work for a business with a specialist product that’s not really in a position to hand out freebies in that way?

“Network, make new contacts, accept free advice and learn how to delegate - words of wisdom from young entrepreneurs” formed Outradius Media, which creates photography and video content. Completing the panel was Laurie Lewis who, after discovering there were limited materials for parents like her who want to home educate their children, set up Brain Whizz – an educational website providing teaching materials.

“You’re not allowed to be afraid. I’ve been branded with various things all my life, like dyslexia, and when people give you a brand, you get pushed to one side and told you can’t do anything. So I tried to develop skills to the best of my ability to do what I could, so that’s why I’m not scared to go to the top to get what I want.”

So what challenges were faced in getting started and how were they overcome?

Is it then important to be a people person in getting a business off the ground?

Brandon Park says: “Nobody knew who I was when I started selling sweets – they just thought I was some random kid. But gradually they got used to seeing me and it got easier as I went along. I wanted a vending machine in the college and normally that would involve layers of hierarchy to go through, but I just went straight to the top and got it straight away.

Laurie Lewis: “It is important and one thing for me is networking. I’ve always been really scared of it but you just have to do it. I tend to just go over to a group, listen to the conversation and look for a time to jump in and introduce myself and just say ‘here’s my thoughts’. So just start conversations with people. It’s extremely important. You don’t know who you’re going to meet and you might

MADE FESTIVAL

Sarah Livesey: “Winning an [enterprise] competition resulted in a lot of people contacting me but one of the most important things for me has been the help I have been able to get from the contacts I’ve made.” And in Sarah’s case, university contacts have been a rich source of assistance, with Sheffield Hallam supporting her in creating the foundations of her business. “It’s about taking all the help you can get,” she says.

through the college and the Peter Jones Academy (at which Brandon is a pupil) I learned how to set it up as a social enterprise. So I got £500 from the Unlimited Fund [set up to support social enterprises, www.unltd.org.uk) to trial it.”

word. More and more people started asking us for our services.” Sarah Livesey: “Definitely go out there and talk to people and find out what they want – not everyone wants what you think they might want. Find out if there is demand there.”

Have mentors played an import role in these fledgling successes?

How important is teamwork at this stage in business?

What other advice can be offered to would-be entrepreneurs?

Divya Shankar: “The university gave me business advisors and, not being from this country, that really helped me connect with the people here and changed my mindset towards work in this country and in business in general.” Brandon Park: “You need a lot of help in business. My mentor is loyal and likes to give things back, so he’s helped me learn about ethics in business as well.”

Divya Shankar: “It’s very important to have a really good team around you. You can’t do everything yourself, even though you want to control every aspect of your business. You have to learn to delegate your work otherwise you’ll go crazy. You have to have trust in your team and know that they can deliver the quality of product that you’ve promised.”

What about gaining funding for such businesses?

Divya Shankar: “We talk to as many people as we come into contact with. When we started we did a lot of things for free, to show them what we could do and then they spread the

Sarah Livesey: “If you’ve got the idea, go and find help to do it as there’s a lot more help than you might realise. I would recommend universities as a good starting point for that support.” Laurie Lewis: “Grab every opportunity you can. It might not seem relevant – you might be invited to an event and think it has nothing to do with you – but go because you might meet someone who can help you.” Brandon Park: “When I talked about vending machines, a lot of people told me it was a terrible idea and wouldn’t work. I did have a few problems, but you have to overcome them.

Brandon Park: “When I first set up the vending machines, my cash flow was a bit tight but

MADE FESTIVAL

Should you talk to your potential customers before you launch?

SPECIAL FEATURE | WINTER 13

THE FUTURE MADE

WINTER 13

GROWING UP After the excitement of starting up, come the teething problems and growing pains. Here’s how five developing Yorkshire businesses from five very different sectors have overcome them to achieve burgeoning success The ability to overcome challenges in the early days of trading can make or break a business and much resilience is required to survive. Sophie Maxwell has that in spades, having battled back from two years of homelessness and numerous other personal challenges to create her successful venture. A degree in leisure events management at Sheffield Hallam put her life back on track and in 2011 she launched The Really NEET College to engage vulnerable young people who struggle in mainstream education. Joining her on the panel aimed at early startup and developing businesses was Alex Gunn, who won the University of Sheffield Business Start Up of the Year 2013 in the annual Santander Enterprising Ideas competition for his fast-growing bicycle service and repair firm Bike Rehab. Patrick Speedie, meanwhile, co-founded Sheffield-based IN-PART, an online platform promoting novel university projects and technologies seeking collaboration and corporate partnership. Alongside him on the panel was Paul Tomes, from Rotherham-based events consultancy The Expo People and Steve Rimmer, the Sheffield Business School graduate behind Creative Arts Development Space (CADS) – a multi-purpose art space that now has 69 studios in four locations.

What’s the most difficult thing you’ve all had to overcome and how have you done it? Alex Gunn: “Making that transition from doing everything yourself to knowing that you’re going to have to start delegating. I overcame that by bringing in someone I really trusted.” Patrick Speedie: “Being young and people not taking me seriously within companies in the research and development sector. Getting

SPECIAL FEATURE | WINTER 13

THE FUTURE MADE

hostel I was kind of the agony aunt to the other residents. And so I learned a lot about managing people. So I think you have a life qualification as well as an actual qualification. And that’s where a lot of my skills come from.”

As businesses grow often that control-freak nature of the entrepreneur has to change… Paul Tomes: “Absolutely. You can start to take things personally, but the reality is it’s not going to be plain sailing all the time. You’ve got to be able to take that on the chin and bounce back.

So with more delegation of tasks, how best to manage people at this stage in business? Sophie Maxwell: “Listen to them. Listen to what they’ve been through and where they’ve come from. Make them who they are. I think people can become unmade and remade into whoever they want to be and that’s what I tell my people; that they can be anything they want to be and don’t have to feel like they’re in a fixed state.” them to believe you’re going to do what you say you’re going to do was quite a difficult process. It tends to be the older generation who are set in their ways. There’s no real blueprint to overcome that. You just have to be confident in your ideas, do your research and have the answers to questions.” Sophie Maxwell: “For us it’s having a double customer. So we have our contactors and we also have our young people. We design everything we do based on the needs of the young people. But obviously we have to get paid for that so we have to work with people that believe in what we do and allow us to have the freedom to deliver those services. We’ve just not compromised and told contractors upfront, ‘this is the way it needs to be done’. That probably meant we lost some business but we’ve had to do that to prove what we do works.” Steve Rimmer: “Probably for me the biggest challenge has been going from being hands on when it was just me doing everything, to bringing in all the people we’ve needed. Also, learning about the benefits of investing at the start in the services of people who know

what they are doing in business. I didn’t know certain things at the beginning and have found out about mistakes further down the line.” Paul Tomes: “For me it was adapting from being in a busy office surrounded by people to suddenly managing your own workload and being on your own. But there’s lots of support and events out there which enable you to bounce off other people.”

It can be lonely in business. What else other than events day to day can you do to keep you motivated? Paul Tomes: “It’s about having a bit of structure to your day and not just drifting from day to day. Set targets with time scales so you know what you’re working towards and not just plodding along. And also just getting involved in the local business community. There’s so much going on. There’s lots of support and obviously goodwill too.”

Does drawing on experience of past challenges and hardships make you a better business leader? Sophie Maxwell: “When I was living in a

MADE FESTIVAL

As business progresses, is it important to be yourself and make sure you don’t lose who you are? Sophie Maxwell: “I think you do have to stay true to yourself and that’s why I talk openly about my life and what I’ve been through. I also don’t wear business suits, I dress in the same way as my people at the college because I want to reflect my business and for people to take me for me and I think that’s important.”

What methods have worked particularly well for you in achieving growth in your business? Alex Gunn: “We really listen to the customer and constantly ask them how they feel we can improve. There’s been a massive growth in bike shops in Sheffield but we are different and have tried to build a different model. So it’s getting that customer loyalty and they do all our marketing for us. Everything comes through recommendations. We’re on track for 100% growth on last year so it’s definitely working.”

MADE FESTIVAL

“be confident, accept you don’t know it all, and don’t take criticism personally” How far ahead are you thinking when planning your business? Alex Gunn: “I’m looking over the next five years for all my decisions.” Patrick Speedie: “We’ve got a three-year plan of where we want to expand and where we want to be internationally. However, it probably won’t all go to the plan we’ve set out in terms of cash flow and decisions to be made.”

How often do you deviate from your business plans? Paul Tomes: “On an almost daily basis actually. When you are in the start-up process, you are looking to really just get money and survive each week, then each month and each year. Then we got to a point where we actually had to put some strategy in place to set out what sort of business we want to build it into.”

Is growth the be all and end all? Is there a point where you decided to be happy with your lot? Paul Tomes: “We’re at that point now where we are making that decision and asking whether we are happy with the workload and just want to have a nice life. And that’s something that’s going to need serious thought over the next couple of months. So we will decide whether we really have a go at trying to grow it beyond where it is now. That requires a lot more risk and is a game-changer. Once you get other people involved, the reality is you are having to pay

people’s rent and mortages and that’s a big responsibility. So it’s something that you have to look at from all angles and minimise the risk.” Steve Rimmer, whose business has opted for growth rather than happily ticking over, added: “We’ve been lucky in that we’ve just been able to find more and more available space for what we do. But, for us, now it’s about trying to establish what we are about as an organisation.”

What one piece of advice would you have in terms of achieving business growth? Alex Gunn: “Keep on top of the cash flow Just keep an eye on where things are going. Also, don’t lose focus. It’s really easy to be distracted but if you know what you’re good at and where you’re going, just keep on track and keep using the contacts you’ve got.” Patrick Speedie: “Once you’ve got your idea, you’ve really got to get out there with it, pick up the phone, let your guard down, believe in your idea and go out and tell people how good it is.” Paul Tomes: “Take as many opinions as you can on board and try to form your own judgement when you have to make decisions. There’s a lot of good knowledge and goodwill out there.” Sophie Maxwell: “Think as big as you possibly can. Aim for the stars and you’ll reach the moon, as someone once said to me.” Steve Rimmer: “Take risks and don’t be afraid.”

SPECIAL FEATURE | WINTER 13

THE FUTURE MADE

WINTER 13

MADE IT!

A stellar cast of Yorkshire successes recount the measures that helped them to make the leap from start up to established national and international players If risk taking is the prerequisite for entrepreneurial success, it’s little wonder that Mike Maddock is making it big in business. For the engineering design company boss was, in a former life, both a bomb disposal operative in the Royal Navy and also represented Great Britain in the death-defying skeleton bobsleigh. The co-owner of Sheffield-based Performance Engineering Solutions was joined on the ‘made it’ panel at the Future MADE Festival by David Hanney, whose Yorkshire business X-Bikes supplies bikes and equipment around the world and has production centres in the UK, US and Ireland. Joining them were sisters Rebecca and Clare Hopkins of globally successful beauty brand Balance Me and Steven Kilby, who diversified his family farm from crop rotation and retail to cold pressed rapeseed oil brand, making Wharfe Valley Farms a nationallyrecognised brand.

Generally what is the secret to making the jump from start-up to successful, growing business? Steven Kilby: “I set myself daily, weekly, monthly and annual goals and I work really hard to achieve them. If I don’t I question myself about why I haven’t achieved them.” Rebecca Hopkins: “Every year we set ourselves 10 big things we want to get after and put them on the walls so everyone can see them. Also building a really good team around you and making it an environment that you’d want to work in yourself.” Mike Maddock: “We often use the analogy of edible elephants. You should always think big but if you think you’re going to eat a whole elephant in one sitting, you can think again. But if you break it down to small portions over a year then it is achievable. Also take a step back now and again and evaluate what

SPECIAL FEATURE | WINTER 13

THE FUTURE MADE

“So for us, for example, we started with events but realised that wasn’t scalable. In terms of opportunities internationally, you’ve got to network and get out there.”

being confident in it. If someone does turn you down for funding, that will make you maybe stand back and think, ‘OK, that bit’s good, but could that other bit work better’. “We’ve seen a lot of beauty brands where they’ve had a big investor behind them and have given them a big injection of £100,000 at the beginning. “And actually they make quite a lot of mistakes because you’ve got all that money. So because it’s been our own money we’ve had to be really clever. So we’ve had to look at how we grow and make money very quickly from the beginning and that’s quite a good test. “It makes you more creative as well. I’m not saying you shouldn’t go for funding if you really need it to achieve your goal, but there was something wonderful about growing organically. If we made a mistake it had to be small enough that we could manage it and didn’t just take the business down.”

How do you assess how commercially viable ideas are in business? David Hanney: “It really just comes down to trying stuff. If you understand the worst case scenario and if you can live with that then you just have a go and try it – you’ll soon find out if it is viable. As long as you know it won’t kill you, it’s worth having a go.” Rebecca Hopkins: “Looking at the numbers is important but you shouldn’t spend your whole time worrying about them. I think if you’ve got a commercial side and you’re using your own money, you’re going to find a way to make it work. The first thing you do might not work brilliantly but you’ll kind of evolve as you go along.”

At which point do you decide that you’re going to run with an idea then?

you are doing because business can be bit of a tumble dryer in the early days.” David Hanney: “I would say recruit the best, best people you can possibly afford because you just get things done so much quicker.”

What have been the biggest lessons you’ve learned on your route to the top? Mike Maddock: “Before I set up the business I worked for a blue-chip where I had a PA who did everything for me and I was very strategic and made decisions and took the credit for everyone else’s work. So that was a massive change once I had gone it alone.”

What particular challenges have you experienced in growing your family business? Rebecca Hopkins: “I’m a big advocate of having a business partner to share the decisions with and so because Rebecca and I grew up in a close family we know how each other ticks. We are very different in our backgrounds – mine’s a business background

and hers is PR and marketing so that complements well. What’s really good in business is having a partner who can help make decisions.”

Is it still important for leaders of larger businesses to have a mentor? David Hanney: “Oh yes, absolutely. You need to be able to see flaws in yourself, just as you can in other people. In business you might get blind spots in terms of what’s working well.”

How do you progress from the stage of getting a company established initially to reaching the national or international stage? Clare Hopkins: “I think you take your opportunities and you have to look at what’s making money. It’s really important to focus on how you are going to make money. I would say to early stage businesses, it’s great to do something that you love, but you have to make money from it. If you do keep looking back at the numbers you can see earlier when things aren’t working.

MADE FESTIVAL

As growing businesses how do you use social networking and how do you measure the impact of it?

Steven Kilby: “For me it’s feedback from customers and social media can help with that. With our rapeseed oil, for example, we asked customers what flavours they’d like to see and then we took those comments and responded.”

Fast growth and surging demand can put serious pressure on cash flow. Have many of you struggled to get funding you need to grow your business? Steven Kilby: “I’ve always had lots of support from the banks but equally we’ve had the land to back it up.” David Hanney: “I’ve actually found the banks to be supportive of us but I think as we’ve grown our business we’ve reinvested every penny we’ve made back into it. In terms of growth, what works for me really well is when you know what you stand for, you know what your focus is and you get your vision sorted then everything becomes a lot simpler.” Clare Hopkins: “I saw Alan Sugar speak and it’s quite funny that a lot of people were saying they were really frustrated with the banks becasue they weren’t lending. “But it was quite a good wake up call to

MADE FESTIVAL

“Social media is like having a child. Once you set it alive, you have to feed it” hear him say, actually, the bank has to be responsible, it has its own money and has to be responsible for it. If I was asking you for £10,000 you’d want to know what you were investing in was going to make money so I think it’s all about having a good idea but

Rebecca Hopkins: “Social media is really important. I come from a communications background and a business without a huge amount of funding and everything we have done we’ve had to do very carefully. Communication and getting your story out there is really key. What we’ve found in social media is that it’s really important to measure what messages are going out and also how you can commercialise it too. “Facebook is a great platform for engaging with our customers but ultimately we want to have conversations with them and also tell them what they can buy. So it’s a balance between using all the mediums as a communication tool but also working out that helps the business commercially.” Mike Maddock: “Social media is like having a child. Once you set it alive you have to feed it. In our first year of trading we got no business through the website and £35,000 through Twitter. Don’t go out there shouting and selling, put a bit of humour into it. Start a stream and a conversation. Keep a consistent message. It’s invaluable.” n

SPECIAL FEATURE | WINTER 13

LIVE DEBATE

WINTER 13

BREAKING DOWN THE BARRIERS THE ISSUE: How can we accelerate the growth potential of our high performing businesses so they can succeed in global markets? Grasping the opportunity to contribute to what could prove a pivotal chapter in Sheffield’s story, influential business figures gathered in the city for debate, barrier battering and action. BQ played host against the backdrop of The Crucible Theatre, with those around the table assigned a remit of plotting a course for a more prosperous Sheffield City Region. But this was no mere talking shop, with findings from the debate being submitted to help shape regional future policy and business support programmes, with the city region’s Growth Plan currently being constructed. Issues raised in the debate will also influence content at Sheffield’s MADE: The Entrepreneur Festival 2014, which promises to be a highlight of next year’s business events calendar in Yorkshire and nationally. Sheffield’s stakeholders have long recognised the need to accelerate and assert the city’s position as a knowledge centre at city region level, UK and globally. This, they say, requires continued investment in the city’s centre, infrastructure, skills and business base. It also requires smarter, stronger city region economic linkages. It is recognised that a prosperity gap of £1.6bn persists between Sheffield and the national average. Closing the gap requires faster growth than the rest – but how might that be achieved by businesses and their support mechanisms? This was the starting point for the debate, which sought a path to the heart of challenges and opportunities for growth-hungry businesses in Sheffield City Region. It also unearthed insights on high performance businesses which enterprises across Yorkshire can learn from.

SPECIAL FEATURE | WINTER 13

THE DEBATE Delegates began by sharing their dominant concerns and recommendations on the topic. Paul Firth, who serves as chairman of Creative Sheffield’s board, explained why it is essential Sheffield differentiates itself from other cities and regions and tackles areas which are underperforming. Edward Highfield, whose organisation is charged with attracting investment, driving growth, boosting trade and supporting SMEs, shared a comprehensive picture of Sheffield’s unique set of challenges and opportunities. He highlighted its status as an SME economy, with 99% of businesses having less than 250 employees. He also questioned the folly of grouping tiny enterprises and 150-workforce firms under the SME banner in terms of business support. Among other observations, he pointed to positives to be built upon – like Sheffield’s job market resilience and the fact that business births outstrip deaths. But he also cited the lack of dynamism and “churn” in terms of the numbers of new business start-ups when compared with a city like Manchester. On global competitiveness he said: “The national target set by government is to get an extra 100,000 new businesses exporting by 2020. If you extrapolate that down to Sheffield City Region, that will be an additional 2,100 businesses – so twice the current levels.” He went on to say: “We need to spend as much time talking about what support businesses need as opposed to how we need to deliver it.” Matt Smith, whose remit is to promote the economic and social role of entrepreneurs, said his one priority was “simplifying

brokering. How can intellectual assets that we have be better targeted at those companies that have the ability of exploiting them”. Paul Firth: Sheffield needs to adopt greater ambition. Sheffield has thought about itself as a second class city and it’s behaved like a second class city, so I think we need to be more ambitious. Rekha Mehr: “I feel quite passionately about incubators. Many people think they exist just for start-ups but not enough of them exist to take them into the next phase and into growth. I really see that as a strong solution to some of the problems around the table.” Nick Agarwal: “We need to make sure that

Taking part Andrea Cropley, head, Irwin Mitchell’s northern corporate team David Latimer, business development manager, Magnomatics David Walsh, editor, The Star newspaper’s Business Monthly magazine Edward Highfield, director, Creative Sheffield John Warner, managing partner, Barber Harrison & Platt (BHP) and Creative Sheffield board member Julie Byrne, principal, Sheffield City College and executive director of The Sheffield College Lloyd Snellgrove, director of research and innovation office, Sheffield Hallam University Martin McKervey, partner, Nabarro LLP’s construction and engineering group Matt Ainsworth, partner, Irwin Mitchell’s northern corporate team Neil Macdonald, Master Cutler for 2012/13 and now a NED/trustee on numerous commercial and charity boards Neill Birchenall, managing director, Birchenall Howden Ltd Nick Agarwal, director of corporate affairs, University of Sheffield Nick Butler, co-founder, Connect Yorkshire and creator of Connect Gazelles Nicki Clark, chief operating officer, BE Group Paul Firth, chairman of the Creative Sheffield board, pioneer of MADE Festival and national head of real estate and regional managing partner of Irwin Mitchell’s Sheffield office Paul Gower, investment director, Finance Yorkshire Dr Peter Harrison, assistant principal for strategic planning, Sheffield College Rekha Mehr, start-up entrepreneur in residence, BIS In the Chair, Caroline Theobald, Managing Director, Bridge Club

MADE FESTIVAL

LIVE DEBATE

business support initiatives and reaching the unconsciously ignorant.” Nicki Clark, representing business support group BE Group, which will deliver the MADE Festival next year, said: “My one thing would be how we can use the MADE Festival to practically introduce people into global supply chains.” Martin McKerney: “My theme is infrastructure and how are we going to create a platform for attracting the inward investment we need in the region to deliver projects that we need like wealth and jobs.” Julie Byrne championed the case for further education’s “huge role” in aiding business start-up and growth. Neil MacDonald, the immediate past Master Cutler, said: “Supporting manufacturing is very important.” Paul Gower highlighted the importance of encouraging cash-rich, debt-free firms to be ambitious and invest in their growth plans. Andrea Cropley: “Leadership skills are very important in the SME sector and there is a dearth of opportunities for people to exchange ideas and learn from each other within the small business community.” Entrepreneur David Latimer said: “Incubator environments are really good because you’ve got lots of people around you trying to do the same thing and you can exchange ideas. But once you’re out there in the big, bad world, you’re kind of on your own. So having people you can go and talk to and share experiences with is really useful and if we could encourage people sat there at home to go out into the

MADE FESTIVAL

“once you’re out there in the big, bad world, you are kind of on your own” business community, that would be a really good thing.” Peter Harrison: “Over half of SMEs don’t plan for growth. So it’s about getting SMEs to plan and create a strong vision and have a strong objective which will drive growth.” Nick Butler: “The answer is absolutely simple. Join the Connect Gazelles [an organisation set up to inspire ambitious entrepreneurs]. We have assembled over 40 of Yorkshire’s most successful entrepreneurs who have agreed to give free time to help Yorkshire’s growing companies. What more could you want than help, advice and talk from Yorkshire’s most successful entrepreneurs?” Neill Birchenall: “I’m convinced it needs to come down to the leaders, many of which are around the table now. Not to a role of mentoring but to actively finding people who have these new start-ups in the backs of their minds and actively getting involved by helping them to get started and invest in making it happen.” David Walsh: “We don’t shout about successes enough, we don’t get our message out there or change our image. Sheffield City Region needs a marketing department.” Matt Ainsworth questioned whether angel investment and venture capital investment was being fully utilised in the area. Lloyd Snellgrove: “My one thing is intelligent

our very distinctive SME and entrepreneurial proposition is highlighted.” John Warner: “We need to help our local businesses become more confident about taking on loans and equity finance to grow their business.” Having set out a wish list of actions from around the table, Caroline Theobald then opened up the debate by asking what role further education could play in accelerating growth among high performance businesses. Julie Byrne: “I’ve been on a mission for some time to raise the profile of vocational education with the spirit of enterprise. I do believe that enterprising behaviour just makes great people. And we’ve got go-getters who will set up a business which we can support. But we’ve also got go-givers – those with a social conscience. Those are the ones whose values and beliefs are held up as not just about making money but also contributing to the city region as a whole.” The next stage, she said, is that her institution will be assisting leadership and skills development for companies rather than just encouraging start up growth. “We haven’t got incubation but there is incubation in the city so it’s a joined up solution to get the business start-ups not to die so that you do have sustainable businesses that grow in the city.” Rekha Mehr: “Perception is everything. >>

SPECIAL FEATURE | WINTER 13

LIVE DEBATE You try to build your business, you have tough times, you’re working hard, you’re not sleeping and you feel like a fraud or a failure. I felt all of these things. And then you see your peers on social media, in the press, talking about successes, new launches, and it pushes you further down into a hole. It’s the nature of the journey. If you can create an environment where you can talk about those things safely knowing it’s not going to affect your brand, it really helps promote sanity. And insanity is far too rife in running your own business.” Matt Smith highlighted the importance of focusing on individuals behind businesses, rather than the businesses themselves, in fostering growth: “It is the individual entrepreneurs that run the businesses that we are seeking to engage and support. The more we can do to promote the initiatives, the support and the guidance, the better.” David Walsh: “As a lot of people are saying, we need to shout louder to help change the overall image of Sheffield City Region, just as Glasgow seems to have done and really turned itself around.” Another image-related issue raised by Andrea Cropley was the notion of failure and its impact on reputation. She said: “If you look at the success of entrepreneurship in America, you’re allowed to fail four or five times and you’re not seen as a failure. You can’t always be brilliant and you have to keep trying things. The statistics illustrate that we’re not having a go enough because we’re too frightened.” Edward Highfield: “That’s what I mean about general dynamism [in other cities]. People will say ‘look at Manchester’s survival rate - it’s worse than Sheffield’s’ but there’s just more people having a go there. Your likelihood of running a successful business is massively more likely if you’ve had an unsuccessful business previously.” David Latimer: “But also if you have a very dynamic environment with people almost fighting each other to spin things out of university, it can become a very positive spiral and it is possible to get that here.” “Companies with a mentor, board director and high intensity support are the ones that will succeed,” said John Warner, reflecting on his experiences with South Yorkshire Investment Fund.

SPECIAL FEATURE | WINTER 13

WINTER 13

Nick Butler: “The entrepreneurs in residence that we have do mentoring and they do it for free and they are all there to help grow companies and create jobs and wealth. All businesses ought to get the benefits of this.” Having witnessed the positive impact mentors have had on learners at Sheffield City College, Julie Byrne said: “Everyone involved in MADE next year should pledge to mentoring.” Lloyd Snellgrove: “A recurring theme is about inspiring people. It’s tremendously difficult to spin out intellectual property from university. There’s a huge expectation on it from government policymakers but actually very few make it. But if you’re going to make it you do need mentoring and business advice at a very early stage. I think it’s about how you get people into those forums and networks where those relationships can be established.

“In America, you can fail four or five times and you’re not seen as a failure. You can’t always be brilliant ” Because once you do that all sorts of things happen.” Neill Birchenall: “We talk about the number of SMEs in the region employing fewer than 50 people as being the ones where we will see the growth. But there are very few of those types of business at events like this. We need more people from those actual companies and to involve start-ups. They could incubate a business on their own premises. These types of owner-managed businesses can actually take someone on and start a business. For example, we’ve done that with a friend of mine. And actually we didn’t need a dotforge programme [a start-up support scheme in Sheffield] or investment other than a small amount of money. She took a few desks in our office. She’s just had her first 12 months trading, she’s VAT registered, she’s got three employees and it wasn’t difficult and didn’t take loads of my time. So it’s about communicating to some of those existing SMEs to just do it again and have a go.”

David Latimer: “There seems to be lots of different initiatives out there and there’s almost confusion around which one I’m supposed to go to. I don’t know if there’s some way of pulling them together better.” Edward Highfield: “That is one of the themes around the growth plan [which sets out the economic ambitions of Sheffield City Region and is being submitted by the LEP to government] and within it is the concept of a growth hub. My question back to that, though, is that there are lots of solicitors and accountants, yet you manage to find the right one for you. So why is business support so different and confusing from a business perspective?” Andrea Cropley, citing the experiences of an SME she has worked with, said: “The concern they’ve had in the past is that they’ve been totally confused by people that have effectively come to them like a honey pot, trying to extract a fee of £3,000 to help mentor them or provide this, that and the other, to the point of which they got very sceptical about anybody helping them. So it is quite difficult to get them to trust you because they’ve been let down so many times.” Edward Highfield: “With our Business Transformation Team [Creative Sheffield’s support programme for management teams as part of its enterprise drive], the persistent feedback received from businesses we work with has been two points: firstly it’s that they can’t believe the council is paying for somebody of that calibre to sit and talk to them about their business and secondly that they haven’t got a product to sell them. The first question is ‘tell me about your business’. They are there to understand the business and see what the can do about it. So that point about not having an agenda or a product is coming through really clearly.” Martin McKerney: “I think we could do with looking at what the Germans do with the Mittelstand concept, where German businesses help other businesses and it’s at a level that is way above just mentoring and looking at investment. It’s about collaboration and interestingly, in the CBI’s recent report, looking at exports. The Mittelstand companies - equivalent to our SMEs – are quite frankly on a different page than we are. A lot of things

MADE FESTIVAL

in our city region are fragmented and a lot of SMEs I suspect don’t have the time to try to understand how you put all that fragmentation together.” Rekha Mehr returned to the issue of choosing business support options from the small business perspective. “For me the needs that I have from a lawyer or accountant are function and transactional. The needs of a mentor are so different. I want to know that that person has got experience that is relevant to the processes and the journey that I’m about to go on. The whole problem with the mentoring landscape is a complete lack of transparency about the value. The combined cost versus the emotional investment as well. It’s one that needs to be made, but I don’t feel that the information is there and is clear enough for businesses to make the right decision.” Andrea Cropley: “I don’t think government helps with that given that there are three or four different initiatives on mentoring that, even though I’ve read about 100 times, I’m still confused about.”

MADE FESTIVAL

Paul Firth: “The other difference is that you don’t actually know what you need from a mentor. If you are a small business you don’t necessarily know where you are weak and where you need support. It’s not just about the inspiration that non-executive directors and mentors can provide, but the actual experience. If you’re younger than me you haven’t worked through a recession before, so there’s a lot of owners and managers out there who don’t know what to do because they haven’t been through that situation.” John Warner: “In the early days of the South Yorkshire Investment Fund we had something called ‘money with management’ where small business loans had a discounted interest rate if you took a mentor on. That’s one reason it was so successful. So when we do design the next fund [in Sheffield City Region], there needs to be an element of that.” He also accepted that a limited pool of quality mentors had in the past been a challenge which needed addressing going forward. Neill Birchenall: “I think there’s a key

LIVE DEBATE difference in that type of model because there’s an investment and it’s the investment fund that’s putting something in, so they have a reasonable requirement to see a return on what they put in. Something I’m keen to see more of is a very small scale investment. If it’s not a mentor but an investor, then the tables are completely turned.” Nicki Clark moved the debate on to the issue of who within businesses should be targeted by support programmes. “While I agree we need to focus on individuals when we are supporting and so on, there is a danger I think that we always focus on the ultimate entrepreneur that set the thing up. Sometimes it’s not obvious to you that you’re not the best person for the job when you’re in that position and you actually need a team of people around you. Businesses that don’t have that team and that capability base aren’t as successful as those that do take that approach. So perhaps it’s about encouraging that sort of culture and spirit on things like employee ownership structures or through bringing in younger, more capable people and putting in place some really structured leadership support. I think there is a danger that initiatives always focus on the ideas person.” Nick Agarwal asked how innovations perhaps coming out of universities or ones that have had some research and development but never been commercialised, can be transformed into entrepreneurial successes. He cited the example of an academic he recently spoke to that developed “reversible glue” five years ago but has not yet brought it to market due to other priorities. David Latimer: “Well Magnomatics technology was invented in 2000 but Magnomatics [the hugely successful green technology business based in Sheffield] was formed in 2006. So it had just sat there. The reason it came out was because a technology transfer professional found it and uncovered it.” Lloyd Snellgrove: “Academics are there to be academics. They are not there to commercialise their IP. There’s not the motivation to do that. Many of these ideas [from academics] are so far from market and need so much investment to get them ready for market, the whole thing falls down.” Nick Butler: “There is a university >>

SPECIAL FEATURE | WINTER 13

LIVE DEBATE mechanism now which is doing it very competently. It’s probably only one in a hundred inventions that get taken on each year.” Paul Firth: “Trying to build companies around an idea is not how you do it.” Neill Birchenall: “It’s an artificial way to try to create a start-up company. - having an academic create the idea and then the university getting involved and some funding etc. What you need is an entrepreneur with a spark that’s passionately involved. There has to be a breakdown in the fear of failure. We need to replace the artificial way of trying to create a start-up with the natural way of getting people together, putting them through some hard times and letting it happen.” Andrea Cropley: “If you look at the US model in terms of exploiting IP, the institutions funding it are private, they are not universities.” Lloyd Snellgrove: “Spin-outs are a tiny part of the university business collaborations.” He went on to explain that, although the US universities maybe more prolific than UK counterparts when it comes to spin-out successes, there are much more practical ways of business and academic collaboration that the UK is very successful at. “The UK is only second to Switzerland in terms of collaboration with businesses. Everyone gets worked up about spin-outs but there are much more practical ways of doing things that can have a greater impact on the companies involved. Caroline Theobald then turned delegates’ attention to the building of successful, high performance teams in SMEs. Can that be done with external help? Paul Gower: “When investing in an SME business, you rarely get a fully rounded team. You’ll get one guy in sales, an operational one, a finance one or a combination of functional areas and you need to work with what you’ve got. That’s why it’s important to bring in someone from the outside to support and fill that hole.” Julie Byrne: “In terms of how we deliver enterprise education within the college, most of it is brief-based, live projects – set up a business, find a partner and look at what skills you need to bring in. So the whole thing is about doing it together. I know there’s the Venture Matrix [Sheffield Hallam’s award-

SPECIAL FEATURE | WINTER 13

WINTER 13

winning enterprise scheme], where you get people with different skills onto a platform that others can access and piece a team together, whether you need a PR guy or a finance person in the early days. So is there some mileage in developing that idea further?” Lloyd Snellgrove: “It brings together different students into teams from different faculties and then they work with external organisations, most of which have been small SMEs working on real world problems. It’s all linked to employability. Caroline Theobald: “So could this type of approach work as part of a city’s economic plan?” Lloyd Snellgrove: “I think it would be incredible if we had 1,000 more companies getting students on board, the impact would be huge.” Paul Firth: “One of the issues we have as a city is that we educate tens of thousands of people every year, many of whom come here and have a brilliant time and love the city. But they can’t find the jobs here that reflect their interests. So we need to start creating that kind of economy. We can also re-engage with

those [entrepreneurs that have left Sheffield] and get them back into the city, which is what MADE is about.” Martin Mckerney: “We need to not rest on our laurels on the success of RISE [the city-wide initiative set up to increase graduate employment among SMEs]. We need to increase the number of graduates in business hugely in the next few years. Also, there’s a large swell of SMEs that continually complain about the lack of engagement and the understanding of how they can engage with the universities. I think we need to do something about communicating that better so they can understand it. I also think there’s a danger that we put this in a strait jacket of universities with SMEs. We need to also broaden that to colleges and even schools.” John Warner: “I think we need to roll out RISE further. I saw an engineering firm yesterday which was absolutely delighted with two graduates it had taken on through the RISE scheme and suddenly it’s been able to engage with the universities.” Neil MacDonald: “But how did they find out about it? That’s the issue – getting the message out about it and getting the information to the businesses.” Caroline Theobald asked whether there was a receptive audience for such programmes in the manufacturing sector. Neil MacDonald: “Absolutely, but it’s very, very difficult for SMEs because they’ve got all of the other avenues that we’ve heard about here. They don’t want to be pushed from pillar to post to find out about where they ought to go to get anything. This one stop shop that we’ve talked about a lot is what’s needed.” Edward Highfield: “It’s almost like we need to industrialise some of these things. There is an absolute gap there and we’ve got to do something about it. How do we simplify it and industrialise it, scale it up, make it sustainable and stop chopping and changing it every five minutes? There’s something really exciting about RISE. How do we link our two greatest assets – our young talent coming out of the universities and our SMEs? The key thing is that 17% of our SMEs employ a graduate and we’ve really got to do something about that. We need to go right back through education to make sure SMEs are seen as a sexy choice

MADE FESTIVAL

[for young people]. RISE is a Rolls Royce service but how do we scale that up?” Martin McKervey: “Where I think there is a whole disconnect here is our LEP has done a city deal of which there is £70-£80m available for skills. How do we access that money? How is it being spent? What value are we getting from it? Surely funding something like RISE could be game-changing for the city region.” Julie Byrne: “The city deal is about up-skilling the current workforce and the provision of apprenticeships”. Edward Highfield: “The principal is around the holy grail of employer led skills. It has that focus on apprenticeships and work-based training. We need to take those principals and apply them to higher level skills as well.” Matt Ainsworth: “There’s still an education needed across the city about where the funds will be made available. I think understanding is needed among the SMEs and the lawyers and accountants that work with them in how they can access these funds. It’s an overcomplicated system at the moment.” Moving on to the perspective of entrepreneurs generally, and what support they themselves are in need of to help them drive economic growth, Matt Smith said: “We believe that policy-wise Britain is actually doing very well. Everything is there to help entrepreneurs get started and grow. What’s actually holding the country back is the culture. We need to celebrate the individual and really communicate the contribution that entrepreneurs make though various avenues.” He also returned to the topic of linking graduates to SMEs and the results that approach can deliver. At this point, Andrea Cropley suggested that there was a gap for some form of scheme to help SMEs develop their graduates once they’re on board. Focusing on the headline topic of the debate empowering high performance businesses to accelerate growth - Peter Harrison pointed out that the initial cost of support schemes with similar aims to RISE and other existing ones, should not dominate the debate. He said: “If we are picking winners and want

intense support then that’s going to cost and we shouldn’t be afraid of that. It all comes down to making sure that the level of investment and the returns expected from that are in line with what we expect. So that broad tier of support costs X and returns Y. The top tier is more intense - it’s not going to hit that many people but the returns are going to be higher. The fact that it’s expensive shouldn’t be the rhetoric. It’s whether the returns are there. As the debate neared conclusion, Caroline Theobold asked for suggested actions that could make a genuine difference to Sheffield City Region and the success of its SMEs. David Latimer: “We are all at heart engineers but our business is now needing other things, like marketing. So we go to the universities for engineers so maybe we should go to them for marketeers as well.” Nick Butler suggested getting 10 very successful entrepreneurs to give free mentoring to Sheffield’s growing businesses. “By MADE next year I’ll have achieved that.” Julie Byrne: “In terms of MADE, we mustn’t underestimate the power of the magic fairy dust. So get a dragon on board, get some big names, and people will sit up. That will get our students to hook into it.” Neill Birchenall: “In preparation for next year we need to engage the entrepreneur community. Get the top 50 SME entrepreneurs [which the professional services people will have links to] to get involved in MADE, who perhaps aren’t the usual suspects. Focus on the ones that don’t always shout about themselves.” Paul Firth: “MADE is about creating an environment and a day in the calendar to get political buy in, get the stars here and get people excited about business in Sheffield and people to associate Sheffield with business. But we do need to get some fresh faces here.” Rekha Mehr: “I’m happy to share a network of people that I think would have interesting stories to share with the audience. It would be great to see a dedicated segment [at MADE] on team building. Having a business that has overcome hurdles by building a team and

“We need to celebrate the individual and communicate the contribution they make” MADE FESTIVAL

LIVE DEBATE talking in detail about how they did it, would be great.” Andrea Cropley: “After MADE could there be a legacy about creating a wider network ongoing that lives throughout the year and gains momentum?” Nicki Clark: “We have talked about a sort of alumni of MADE so you start to get that sustainability and longevity. We have already started to think about that for next year.” Matt Smith: “I’d love to see a start-up and small business careers fair for students and young people at MADE. Maybe we could get small firms pitching to students about why they should work for a small firm.” David Walsh agreed with Matt Smith’s additional suggestion that the coverage of ‘how I made it’ stories from entrepreneurs in the press would also be important in boosting entrepreneurial interest in the run up to MADE. Lloyd Snellgrove: “We will continue to find more companies who want to work with universities. ” Nick Butler urged organisations represented around the table to focus their attention of activities that would simply help SMEs get more sales. John Warner: “By this time next year we will have the design for the new fund and what it’s trying to achieve. So we must design it to suit the needs of the local economy.” Neil MacDonald: “There is a huge network of SMEs that we should tap into and get involved in MADE.” Peter Harrison: “We run a range of business start-up programmes and support services but next year, around MADE, we will make sure we package a range of programmes together and we will be at MADE to make sure when someone is inspired and they need to take action, they can straight away.” Neill Birchenall: “Could we get something like a MADE stall at job fairs at universities to encourage students to set up their own business instead of getting a job?” Julie Byrne: “I’d like at least one MADE event at Sheffield City College.” Paul Firth closed the debate with a promise that ideas raised around the table would be taken on board as regional future policy is drawn up. While those in attendance involved in the MADE Festival were also given much to think about ahead of September 2014. n

SPECIAL FEATURE | WINTER 13

WINTER 13

MADE

MADE 2014

The Entrepreneur Festival: Sheffield 24th - 26th September 2014

madefestival.com

Newly-appointed delivery partner BE Group sets out its stall for next year’s event BE Group has been appointed as delivery partner for MADE 2014. The organisation is a national business services provider, specialising in events and publishing, supply chain management and business improvement. BE Group has offices in Yorkshire, County Durham, London and Glasgow. It is closely involved in the delivery of national government programmes such as the business support helpline and Start Up Loans. It has also recently been selected to manage the £30m Growth Voucher programme to test how best to get practical support to small businesses. Since it was established in 2010 by Marketing Sheffield, MADE has become a major destination-marketing event, attracting leaders from business, government and media. It provides the perfect stage for Sheffield to host a series of thought-provoking events at many locations across the city. Following the focus on young entrepreneurs provided by The Future Made, plans are now developing for the full scale MADE Festival to return with a bang in 2014. The overall target is for 4,500 business owners and managers to attend the festival, which will take place during week 22-26 September 2014. Attendees will include visitors and speakers from across the UK and major international markets. There will be numerous specialist fringe events organised by the many partners and stakeholders of MADE. Organisations are invited to propose their own fringe events which can be included as part of the wider festival programme, under the MADE umbrella. Speakers will include key figures from government and media, as well as a blend of business experts and world famous entrepreneurs. A highlight of the festival will be a major

MADE FESTIVAL

Conference, held at Sheffield City Hall from 24 – 26 September. Key topics, chosen for their universal appeal to all business owners and entrepreneurs, regardless of sector or business size, will be:

Establishing and Building a Brand Managing Growth Leadership and Management The main day of the conference is 25 September. On the evening of 24 September a special entertainment feature will take place, providing delegates with a light-hearted introduction to the main business conference. Fringe events will focus on other essential business issues such as marketing, technology, innovation, skills, access to finance and funding. These include “Marketing The Art Of”, to develop both digital and traditional marketing skills, “Innovation Factory”, to accelerate innovation among SMEs, and “Meet the Money” to enable business owners to access finance and funding to support their growth. The Gala Dinner for MADE 2014 will take place at Cutlers Hall on evening of 25 September. n

“MADE is the UK’s biggest and most exciting festival of entrepreneurship and enterprise. Sheffield is a very business friendly city, awash with growing businesses and young talent and the perfect host destination. We are delighted to be working with BE Group who will undoubtedly take MADE 2014 to the next level” Brendan Moffett, Marketing Sheffield

A new website will be launched early in 2014. Companies interested in sponsorship, exhibiting and attending MADE should get in touch early to avoid disappointment:

Sponsorship enquiries • Bryan Hoare • bryan@room501.co.uk • 07860 107 636 Exhibitor enquiries • Paul Clark • paul.clark@be-group.co.uk • 0191 426 6333 Visitor enquiries • Caroline Brown • caroline.brown@be-group.co.uk • 0191 426 6333 General enquiries • Andrew Wilson • Andrew.wilson@be-group.co.uk • 07736 685 588 Twitter • @MADEfestival • #MADE2014 Facebook • facebook.com/MADEFestival Linked In Group • MADE - The Entrepreneur Festival

SPECIAL FEATURE | WINTER 13