On Wednesday 23rd September at 3:30PM Brighton College welcomed four of Brighton and Hove’s most successful and dynamic entrepreneurs. The entrepreneurs visited this year’s student participants in the Young Enterprise Company Programme to help them to evaluate a diverse range of innovative ideas for products or services.

The event started with a five-minute talk by each of the four entrepreneurs, who told the students about their individually unique paths toward business success, and imparted insight that will be useful to the students as they look toward starting their own company and launching a product as part of the Young Enterprise Company Programme.

In true ‘Dragons Den’ style, the four entrepreneurs then became ‘Dragons’, to whom the participating students pitched their business ideas in front of a live audience of Company Programme participants.

The business ideas pitched included xmas cards, a compilation CD of local unsigned bands, scented candles set into old metal toys, hair decorations, plates and mugs with revision information on them, and printed handbooks about great figures in history.

The ‘Dragons’ provided critique, hints, tips, and constructive feedback on good ideas and discussed the flaws in bad ideas within a high-pressure scenario that was designed to truly put the participating students through their paces and to test their mettle as future entrepreneurs.

The event was organized by Mike Macfarlane. Mike is a volunteer Business Adviser for Young Enterprise who is this year assigned to Brighton College. The Company Programme relies on the voluntary efforts of a team of business advisers who mentor companies at each participating school to provide help and guidance to the students who learn about business and enterprise by starting their own company.

Mike has been a volunteer business adviser to Young Enterprise for three years and says:

“Working as a volunteer business adviser is an often stressful but always rewarding experience. In my opinion the secret of successful business is in making good decisions. Good decisions only come with experience. Experience comes from making mistakes, and I’ve made a lot of mistakes to get my small businesses this far and I’m still learning all of the time. Passing on some of the wisdom gained from my own mistakes to an enthusiastic group of teenagers makes it all worth while, and the passion and creativity of the young people who get involved with the Company Programme never ceases to impress and inspire me in my own business activities. I passionately believe in this type of business-to-community partnership and encourage anyone interested in becoming a volunteer Business Adviser to get in touch with Young Enterprise”.

After feedback from the Dragons, the students have since decided to launch their company, ‘Million Dollar Media’, which will produce a ‘whats hot’ in Brighton promotional video to help local businesses to connect with younger potential customers using digital creative media syndicated through locally based online portals that are popular with younger people, though the company may still combine this with the promotion of some local unsigned bands.

Million Dollar Media Marketing Director and Brighton College student Lucy Wild said:

“After the Dragons helped us establish that the compilation CD of local unsigned bands and the syndication of a video promoting shops and businesses in Brighton were the best ideas to develop, we have decided to try and combine the two by using the soundtracks of unsigned bands as the soundtrack for our videos. We have elected our Directors and Million Dollar Media is planning to speak to local shops and businesses about the concept in the coming weeks to get their feedback. We’re going to be extremely busy!“

Brighton College Headmaster Richard Cairns said:

\\\"Pupils at Brighton College are very enthusiastic about Young Enterprise and the school has been involved for many years. It is so important for children to have interests beyond the classroom and putting their business ideas into practice is certainly a test of a range of skills and commitment. We are incredibly fortunate to have such successful entrepreneurs to share their own experience and offer advice. As a country, we depend on those who are prepared to take risks, build businesses and create jobs. I hope that some of the future wealth creators will look back to this Dragons\\\' Den experience and be grateful for the guidance they received from Mike, Simon, Natalie, Angi and Daniel.\\\"

‘Dragon’ Simon Kirby, who founded C-Side in Brighton in 1993 and is currently standing for Parliament in Kemptown said:

\\\"I was really impressed with the quality of the pitches, the thought that had gone into the ideas and the enthusiasm the students clearly had for business\\\"

Fellow Dragon Natalie Dybisz, whose alter ego ‘Miss Aniela’ has had 4.7 million hits on Flickr and achieve approximately 40,000 views a week, said:

“It was interesting for me as a \\\'dragon\\\' to use my own experience to critique the business plans of the students. I think gaining practical advice from people in the \\\'real world\\\', who have approached projects hands-on, is the best way to make them think realistically.”


About the Young Enterprise Company Programme in Sussex

Young Enterprise (YE) is a national education charity, formed in 1964, delivering an exciting, practical, hands-on business experience through various programmes to young people aged between 5 and 23.

In the YE Company Programme students, aged between 15 and 19 are involved in setting up, running and eventually winding-up their own company over the course of an academic year. They elect a board of directors from amongst their peers, raise share capital, and market and finance a product or service of their own choice. At the end of the year they present a report and accounts to their shareholders. They are supported by volunteers from the business community who act as their advisers. During 2008-9 597 students from across Sussex ran 58 companies and the early signs are these numbers will grow during 2009-2010.

Local business people or entrepreneurs who are interested in becoming volunteer Business Advisers for the Young Enterprise Company Programme should contact Dave Fotheringham, Sussex Development Manager by emailing davef@yesussex.co.uk.


About Mike Macfarlane

Mike (26) is a communications professional with a long history of entrepreneurial activities behind him. Mike is currently sole owner of two businesses. NewMedium.tv is a digital creative and video production firm specializing in working with professional services firms in the legal, banking and finance sectors with clients including Deutsche Bank, Mazars, Eversheds, Irwin Mitchell and Ashurst. IR Squared.co.uk is an investor relations and corporate communications adviser working with FTSE350 and AIM companies on the digital and video aspects of their investor communications with clients including FTSE100 Tullow Oil. Mike is also partner in a successful engineering firm, installing energy efficient heating systems on an industrial scale in factories, warehouses and aircraft hangars.



About the ‘Dragons’

Simon Kirby

A serial entrepreneur, Simon set up C-Side in Brighton in 1993 with partner Martin Webb. Starting with just one pub, by 2001 the business had grown to over 30 sites including nightclubs, restaurants, bars pubs, a fitness centre and a radio station, all in Brighton and Hove. At one stage C-Side operated two of the worlds top 5 nightclubs according to The Independent newspaper.

When Simon sold C-Side in 2001, it was a Sunday Times Fasttrack 100 company with over 500 employees and a £15 million turnover.

Simon also spent 3 years in New Zealand, during which time his entrepreneurial activities included a film studio, property developments and hydro electric power scheme.

Back in the UK, Simon was formerly the East Sussex Cabinet Member with responsibility for Economic Development across the County. He is currently the Conservative Parliamentary Candidate for the Brighton Kemptown constituency.

Simon features in the Who\\\'s Who guide of business leaders. He is always looking to invest in local businesses and often provides free advice upon request.

Natalie Dybisz

Natalie Dybisz (aka Miss Aniela) is a 23 year-old photographer originally from Leeds, now living in Brighton, who stunned the photography scene in 2006 by using Flickr to showcase her independently produced, digitally processed self-portraits. Within 6 months, still as a university student, Miss Aniela acquired 1 million hits on Flickr, and in a short time developed a huge following that led straight to one-woman gallery exhibitions in both Europe and the US, and guest appearances for companies like Microsoft and Blurb at world-leading tradeshows like Photokina.

With no formal training in art, Natalie stunned both art and photography scenes with her ‘Miss Aniela’ alter ego, challenging the tradition of spending years as struggling, unknown artist, and blurring the boundaries of ‘professional’ and ‘amateur’. On leaving university Natalie was able to almost immediately pursue a full-time living from her photography and ‘Miss Aniela’ brand.

Natalie is partly represented by US agency Icon Photo who manage the likes of photographers such as Rankin. However, mainly managing herself as a brand, with no exclusive representation from an agency, Natalie has utilised and profited from the power of internet marketing by selling her work as both fine-art directly to buyers, presenting at festivals and workshops, and selling her own self-published books.

To date, Miss Aniela has had 4.7 million hits on Flickr, with approximately 40,000 views a week, and a further 10,000 views a week on her website www.missaniela.com. She has been featured in press all over the world and was recently on the cover of American Photo.

Angi Mariani

Angi Mariani is the owner of Latest Homes Magazine.

Daniel Hill

Daniel Hill is an award winning social entrepreneur with accolades including Finalist in the 2008 SEEDA Business of the Year Award (Young Entrepreneur of the Year); Finalist 2008 Brighton and Hove Business award (Young Entrepreneur of the Year), Semi-Finalist 2008 Barclays Bank Green Leader in Business (putting the companu in the top 25 of the UK’s environmental services), Regional Winner of the 2009 Sun Newspapers Britons Best Local Business, and finalist for 2009 Brighton and Hove Business Awards.

In 2006 he started the first and only building materials re-use centre ‘Tiger Auctions’ with wife Charis. 120 million tons of surplus building materials get dumped in the UK every year and a massive 13 million tons is either brand new or reusable.

Tiger Auctions relies entirely on collections from the public, the construction industry, and end of line stock from retailers. It allows builders, businesses ad local authorities to save money on waste disposal costs and to reduce their carbon footprint, for which they are issues a Carbon Saving Certificate. Collecions range from tiles, bricks, doors, timber, new bathroom suites, windows and much more, and the firm specializes in sourcing rare items, such as a recently sourced 300 year old Georgian fireplace surround and a large quantity of marble recently reclaimed from the Lloyds of London building. The firm has also recently been approached to collect the surplus construction materials generated for the London 2012 Olympics.

All funds currently raised by Tiger Auctions are used to take the reclamation business globally, starting with Project Africa. Tiger Auctions has recently joined the Homeless World Cup International Supporters club, committing funds raised from reused building materials to the Milan 2009 tournament. This partnership will take the principles of reclamation to African nations to build schools, clinics, training centres and street soccer stadiums.

About Brighton College

Brighton College is the leading co-educational independent school in the country and last weekend was listed in the Top 20 schools by the Daily Telegraph. The Headmaster, Richard Cairns, has recently introduced a new section to the school\\\'s Life Skills programme to give pupils a greater understanding of business etiquette. All pupils from the age of 11 years undertake the course, which covers other valuable lessons such as ironing a shirt and even pitching a tent.


For further information please contact:

Mike Macfarlane
Young Enterprise Business Adviser to Brighton College
mike.macfarlane@newmedium.tv
07764 225 924

Photos from the event can be found at www.yougotpapped.com

 

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