Hosting thousands of entrepreneurs in a vast room with inspirational business speakers might be the perfect formula for boosting London’s growing start-ups and scale-ups.
That was clear from the success of SME XPO, where the founders of nascent and large firms alike joined the Evening Standard at London’s ExCel to share practical advice to grow their businesses.
It was a precious chance for those a few steps down the entrepreneurial path to pass on their practical advice to those earlier in their journey.
How, Coffee Republic founder and Buy Women Built campaigner Sahar Hashemi asked founders, would you spend £1000 to grow your brand?
Kate Prince, who launched £10 million turnover collagen brand Ancient + Brave in 2018, responded that she would give £750-worth of free products to relevant influencers. “I never ask them to post about it - just gift,” she advised, “and I’d spend the other £250 gently boosting posts on social media a few times a day to get out to a wider audience.”
Annabel Lui, co-founder with her sister Emily of bakery business Cutter & Squidge, said she’d spend £1000 perfecting the packaging and branding and spending some on a freelance writer “to get content out there with the right SEO, so you cover the top 10 Google search terms in your industry, and build authority in the space.”
Lizzie Carter, who founded curly hair care brand Only Curls with £500 of her savings and hit £13 million turnover last year, advised nascent entrepreneurs: “start making content now and bank it - to this day, the videos I took in my earliest days always do the best - take as much video as you can, and do it yourself: low budget works in your favour.”
There was also frank advice from those who have grown entrepreneurial start-ups to large-scale firms: ready meals tycoon Charlie Bigham told small firms to celebrate their niche: “Even the biggest retailer - where you dream of seeing your product listed - will be open to new ideas: they have to be, or they wither and die.”
Retail boss Theo Paphitis was asked at another packed session at SME XPO, ‘do you have to be a confident person to start your own business?’ He responded: “No - but it bloody well helps. You have to be able to sell yourself, to go knocking on doors. I wasn’t confident at school - I was dyslexic, and classified as thick. I was terrible at interviews, my mouth would dry up and I wouldn’t be able to breathe properly, so I couldn’t get a job.
“But confidence comes if you work at it - and it makes a massive difference if you’re running your own business. Don’t be shy, don’t take ‘no’ for an answer.”
Hanan Tantush, founder of adaptive fashion brand Intotum, spoke about imposter syndrome. “Every day I think, this is too big of a challenge,” she admitted. “But going into London Fashion Week, the feedback was so positive, you could see the joy of people seeing wheelchair users on the runway for the first time - every piece of my work was worth it.”
