10 Things I Wish I Knew Before Starting Up
Date and time
Location
The Trampery Old Street
239 Old Street London EC1V 9EY United KingdomDescription
The Guild Of Entrepreneurs hosts an inspirational evening sharing the top learnings from experienced entrepreneurs. You will hear 10 key insights from members of the Guild, and have the chance to network and connect with fellow Pathways members, and Members of the Guild of Entrepreneurs.
Our Speakers- bios below!
Rick Lowe, Co-Founder and Managing Director of Brands In Ltd
Amy McManus, Founder and Managing Director of AM Marketing
Paddy Willis, Co-Founder of Plum Baby
Judy Hadden, Co-founder of Oil Spill Insurance
James Vellacott Co-founder and MD of Cherryduck
The Guild of Entrepreneurs is a Guild of the City of London and an aspirant Livery Company. It is made up of men and women who have invested their own money and time in setting up and running successful businesses. Its aims are to:
-
promote excellence in the profession of Entrepreneurship
-
support the Lord Mayor, encourage the growth of the City and promote its full potential to
entrepreneurs and growth businesses
-
foster fellowship among entrepreneurs
-
give money and time for charitable works that support the development of entrepreneurs and help to bring the opportunities of entrepreneurship to young people.
Look forward to seeing you there!
Part- funded by the ERDF as part of the Legacy For Growth project. Capital Law have very kindly offered to sponsor refreshments for this event.
Speaker Biographies:
Paddy Willis
Paddy was co-founder of Plum Baby, the world’s first premium baby food and one of the UK’s fastest-growing new food businesses. The Company was listed in over 1,700 supermarket stores within twelve months of launch, achieved 5% market share within 2 years and was a finalist for the New Product Launch category in the Marketing Society’sannual awards, just losing out to Magners Cider! Plum was sold to Darwin Private Equity within year five on sales nudging £14 million at retail.
Paddy has since been an active supporter of start-ups, co-founding Grocery Accelerator, the UK’s first investment-backed programme for ambitious new brands, with nineteen companies to-date sharing over £3m in seed funding. For five years he built Bathtub 2 Boardroom, one of London’s leading not-for-profit start-up incubators in London, during which time he developed a mentoring programme and personally mentored over 100 new entrepreneurs.
Rick Lowe
Rick is Co-Founder and Managing Director of Brands In Ltd which is a Fashion Licensing company specialising in designing and selling licensed apparel worldwide. Working with global entertainment partners such as Disney, Warners and most of the key music artists, Brands In runs retail programmes into brick and mortar and online. Customers include Top Shop, Primark and ASOS.
Rick is also a co-founder of Absolute Cult which is a pop culture web site selling licensed product worldwide through marketplaces such as Amazon and Ebay, as well as through its own dot com. The business offers exclusive designs and key marketing associations with all the major IP holders and also has its own manufacturing facility in London that ships product worldwide. As well as his business interests, Rick is Middle Warden for the Guild of Entrepreneurs and actively supports young entrepreneurs through mentoring and speaking.
James Vellacott
Co-founder and MD of Cherryduck
James left school at 17 to pursue a career as a press photographer. After ‘borrowing’ some photos from a photographer friend he got his first job on the Oxford Journal. He worked his way around several regional newspapers, eventually landing a job as a staff photographer on the Daily Mirror. The Mirror job took him all around the world working as a photojournalist in such places as Kosovo, The West Bank, Sierra Leone, Lebanon and Afghanistan. He was even trained by the Ministry of Defence and attached to the British Forces in 2003 for the Iraq incursion.
In 2008, realising newspapers were slowly dying and his career may be cut short, James started Cherryduck with wife Michelle. Cherryduck was created to answer the demand for online video content production. On the back of Cherryduck a real estate company was started to purchase film studios and production space near Tower Bridge, London. This year James and Michelle have launched a co-working space for creative businesses within the film and photography production industry. This space includes a tech floor offering the latest in video editing, sound design and visual effects suites.
Judy Hadden
An Insurance Broker and Founder Freeman of The Guild of Entrepreneurs.
Judy co-founded, built and sold two businesses, one of which she started in her twenties and is now concentrating her time on a new insurance startup she has founded, Oil Spill Insurance; providing peace of mind insurance cover and specialist services to oil users, and helping to protect the environment from oil spills along the way.
Judy also chairs the Outreach Committee for the Guild of Entrepreneurs. Genuinely interested in business, business ideas and in helping fellow entrepreneurs, particularly startups.
Amy McManus
Founder and Managing Director of AM Marketing www.ammarketing.co.uk
Amy McManus is the MD and Founder of AM Marketing, a full-service marketing agency based in Canterbury, Kent. She is a TEDx speaker, member of the London Guild of Entrepreneurs, an Associate Fellow of the Royal Commonwealth Society and a finalist for IoD Young Director of the Year in 2017. AM Marketing is an award-winning Google Partner agency that was placed in the Top 30 UK Google Agencies in 2017 and has a portfolio of clients all over the world. The team at AM Marketing are experts in their field and have worked on some of the largest marketing accounts in the world, including Disney, Marvel, Very.com, and Easy Jet. They were voted Kent Marketing Agency of the Year in 2015 and won an Amazon UK Business Award in 2017.