Wow... it's been a while since I have made a post about how things have been getting on with my business idea... but I am back again, and it is time to present to you my experiences of attending a few events from the Ipswich Thrive programme! There is loads of fun to be had in both the events that I had attended, and so I hope you will read through the whole post to the end.
About Ipswich Thrive Business Week
Ipswich Thrive was a series of events that revolved around celebrating the successes of local business and encouraging entrepreneurship and professional development in the area. Ipswich Thrive was organised by Ipswich Borough Council, with events taking place between the 10th and the 18th of March 2025 at a wide range of venues across the Ipswich area.
Over 20 different business and careers services, and government departments were involved in running the events contained within the programme, including the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), the University of Suffolk, the Suffolk Chamber of Commerce, Dot to Dot, New Anglia and the Business Growth Coaches Network, just to name a few.
The Thrive programme consisted of careers fairs, networking events and conferences, as well as business start-up workshops and private dinners involving some of the most important persons that are involved in the Suffolk business ecosystem.
Without further ado, let's get to the Entrepreneurial Skills Showcase, a business idea pitching event that was run by none other than your regular guests Amy Volkert and Hannah Page from the University of Suffolk's Enterprise team.
The Entrepreneurial Skills Showcase - 11th of March 2025
Firstly, I would like to start off by saying that I wasn't meant to originally attend the pitch in person... I was supposed to be in Cambridge (more specifically the Biomedical Campus) to help out with some serious family matters, before the action got called off the day before and I unexpectedly found myself coming along to attend. With that in mind, I had recorded a video pitch three days before the pitching event on the 8th of March, which took over a dozen attempts before I was able to say the right things, and needed some changing to fit the social impact scope of the Thrive pitching event - which sadly meant having to leave out the publishing sector from the content of the pitch this time round. But that doesn't mean that I have gotten rid of that idea for good.
After getting a phone call from madam at around 10:30am about how I was going to take part in the event in light of the unforeseen circumstances, Hannah led me inside the Atrium building at around 12:30pm, past the crowd of school students, and over to the pitching room. As I walked in to the pitching room, Amy was sitting in the corner getting down to some serious business, and in typical Volkert fashion, it wasn't long before she started doing some messing around with me with conversations about train delays and Christmas phone hijackings, and even being asked to take a photo with her being stood right next to the television screen.
And it wasn't long before more people started trickling into the room - firstly, fellow colleagues from the Careers team started coming in with the trolley full of refreshments. Then came the judges turn to come inside, which included Andy Skinner from AMS, Peter Basford, the director of the Business Growth Coaches Network, Ipswich Central head honcho Lee Walker, as well as Stacey who would be Fleximizing the cash to whoever would win the competition. And the other participants also started coming in, one-by-one.
Eventually the meet and greet ended at about 1:10pm, and after Amy and Hannah gave away some brief introductions about what the Showcase was all about, it was time to get going with the pitching session - there were six pitches to go through, and interestingly enough, Amy decided to start off the session by playing my video-recorded pitch about my fantasy mapping enterprise.
Once the video finished playing, I was then roasted a few times by the judges about my access to the market that I was looking to promote, how I was going to promote the space and some advice on collaboration (to which I answered the questions fairly confidently), and then receiving rounds of applauses from the crowd, it was time to move on to the second pitch from Vivian Tanaka about her new mental health social enterprise called Kameleon. It started with a very powerful message, courtesy of a Northgate High School student who drew an illustration with the caption "What are you like inside your head" - before moving on to describe a powerful story about her being born in Zimbabwe, and then getting brought over to the UK at the age of 10, having no knowledge of English at the time.
And of course it was time to get to the actual need for the product - firstly, Vivian was on point about the sad reality that many mental health issues start manifesting from a young age, and an even more sadder truth about the lack of early intervention by failing youth mental health services, leading to a lack of value for money. However, things appeared to brighten up, as the conversation moved on to the the platform itself - a license-based model that is centered around the idea of positive psychology, people can learn, connect, and most importantly, where people are rewarded for their goals - something that is akin to the Gamify system that was presented in the July 2023 pitching event.
The timescale sounded promising enough, with the presenter having already spent a few years testing the idea with students at several local schools, and to see that it has reached a stage where the platform will be rolling out in eight weeks time. And there are still plenty of routes to build the idea further and eventually turn it into a national idea further down the line - such as building relationships with the local football clubs, such as the ones in Leiston and Needham Market, as well as expertise around safeguarding and GDPR.
Once Vivian's pitch was over, it was time to move on to the third pitch about learning management platform The Hub, where after a technical glitch with the presentation that almost brought the curtain down, things finally returned on board, and the presenter got around to describing a talent acquisition model aimed at getting young people into the creative industries. Overall, while the presenter's Hackathon win for the idea brings an air of credibility to the idea overall, there is still a lot to do before the idea can really help transform Ipswich into Britain's talent capital.
Leaving behind the galaxy of talent management, it was time to move on to the fourth pitch from the creator of the Sweet Treat Festival, providing catering-related events to those who are struggling to find cost-effective solutions to individual dietary needs. Knowing from my experience that confectionary and cakes always sell out at craft fairs, I personally felt that there was certainly a market for that type of idea (in fact, she was looking to target her next confectionary fair in the Ipswich/Woodbridge area), and to see that the presenter has already seen some success running past events in Colchester.
Teleporting away from the world of catering, it was time to move on to fifth pitch about EasyStay, a student accommodation service platform, primarily catered at international students, and designed to solve the issue of students looking for properties in the Ipswich area by connecting tenants with local landlords - something backed up by Hazel's experience as an international student herself, particularly given that costs for staying in Athena can run upwards of £7,000 (and with everything having to be self-funded - ouch!). But you also have to be careful creating such platforms, as you want to have a watertight system to make sure that unscrupulous landlords don't cash in on the idea.
The pitching journey finished on DisMantle Initiative, and I have to say that the final pitch threw in the biggest spanner in the works out of all the presentations I've seen - the presenter's goal was to make Ipswich the most accessible town in the UK. At one point, Sarah was talking about all sorts of futuristic modes of transportation for the disabled; road trains, hail and ride rickshaws, and even explaining that she is in the process of developing Yo-Go prototypes. Some of the transportation ideas seemed strangely familiar in that at one point, Amy even thought about the Heathrow buggy system... hardly a surprise given that madam used to work airside and would see them all the time driving passengers with reduced mobility to their gates - for some, it would be the last thing they would experience on their trip to the UK before leaving the country for good.
With the DisMantle talk out of the way, the pitching session came to an end at about 2:15pm, and so it was time for the judges to leave the ideas room and go out to the Atrium glasshouse to host a debate on who would receive the prize money. In the meantime, it was time to do some messing around with Amy, along with the group of international students who came along to pitch their ideas. Firstly, it all started with conversations about Birmingham and the beautiful canals around the city, as well as some talk about the people who are up to no good there, such as poor quality counterfeit goods that avoid the taxman (the story about the fraudulent property developer from last summer's bootcamp at one point haunting me again).
And then Amy's fun followed on with some conversations about her love for martial arts and how she managed to get into Muay Thai herself (fun fact - it was her partner Prathet who got her into it!), along with some photos of said partner getting involved in some actual Muay Thai competitions from galaxies ago. Plus some chats about Amy's food and Asian languages being thrown in for good measure.
Once the Prathet talk was out of the way, I decided to get to something that has been hanging over my head for a very long time. So I decided to put my archives cap on and ask madam if her past business ideas made it into the newspapers - there is no evidence of Amy giving interviews to the media from two decades ago, but she was very insightful nonetheless about her clients, and quite frankly, was fairly open about potential clients that I could approach as a copywriter - besides her love for fashion, she used to do a lot of promotional work for motorsports events, among tons of other clients. But in any case, there will be no trip to 40 Northampton Road anytime soon to research madam's business past.
The archives in London are off the menu...
Once the second round of fun with Amy had stopped, it wasn't long before the judges returned to the room, and everybody returned to their seats to find out the verdict. Initially, there were going to be two winners who would be sharing the spoils of the £350 prize money, however with the pitch for the Sweet Treat Festival being so strong, it was decided to award the whole lot to the festival's organiser. Never mind.
At least there was a photoshoot with everyone involved to celebrate our achievements.
With that, the showcase started to wind down, and I had one final task to deal with... and that is to accompany Amy back to the Enterprise Zone with the heavy trolley full of refreshments - and some of madam's personal effects. The idea sounded simple, except as we got out of the Atrium building and was heading for the ramps to get back to the bridge over to the Library building, we started to think like eeek... are the drink machines going to tip over from the steep grade of the ramps and cause all sorts of untold mess. Eventually everything worked out and no mess was created from the journey back to the Library building.
But the fun didn't stop there - as I was sitting in the public library putting together the social media posts from the event, I began to realise that I was missing something that I could not go without... and I had the arduous task of having to go back to the Waterfront building reception to speak to a security guard about what had happened. Because I don't have access to the campus by myself, I had to get another security guard from the Library building to accompany me back to the ideas room to retrieve the missing notepad containing the notes that I was going to use for this blogpost. Luckily my stuff was still there in the room, and as I was being led out of the Atrium building, the security guard seemed rather impressed by how things had been going at the pitching event.
Let's Get Social: Challenges in Leadership - 14th of March 2025
Now before I start rambling on about the event itself, I would like to explain what Let's Get Social is about. So, Let's Get Social is an event that was organised by Dot to Dot Consultancy (specifically Simon Pickering) to bring together entrepreneurs, academics and business consultants who want to help make a social and environmental difference in their organisations. It is the second time that the event has been run; with the previous event in November 2023 being quite successful, I had quite high expectations going in.
The session took place in the Town Hall's Executive Chamber room, where top officials from Ipswich Borough Council would usually host meetings and vote on resolutions.
As soon as I arrived into the town hall (no need to blag the council officials to be let in this time round), it wasn't long before things started spicing up in the room, and after Simon started putting on some Bonobo at 50 decibels to spice up the vibe of the place, more people started trickling in, until it got to the point that there were about 40 people in the room and Simon gave a five-minute warning before the session was ready to start. The session started at around 9:40am with some introductions into his portfolio that revolved around supporting nationwide charities, which also happened to briefly include some joking around a group of MPs being invited to talk to a group of 5 year olds.
'Nuff said, with the introduction out of the way, it was time to invite Zoe Portlock of BikeWorks, an cycling-focused social enterprise that was initially targeted at the most socially excluded of society in the Tower Hamlets area of east London, but has since expanded into running a wide range of cycling gatherings around London, as well as offering courses around building bikes and cycle maintenance.
There were a few interesting stories from the Cycle Connect element, starting off with Norma's story about how her pilot Erma was able to help her out with getting to essential services and taking in the sights, and describing the experience as being hugely important language to nail in. But what was even more touching was hearing the story from the All-Ability aspect of the organisation, when they helped out a non-verbal disabled person who was obese and unable to access a mainstream gym in improving their physical health.
But behind the glitz and glamour that cycling brings, the enterprise has also had to cope with some serious challenges in recent years - the biggest one was that grant funding has become less prevalent over the years, given that Active Travel England are not permitted to share their funding with London councils - consequently leading to a £30,000 deficit in the 2024-25 fiscal year. And what's more, Zoe's team also had to make difficult decisions in having to make people redundant and closing off certain aspects of the organisation over time (one example being lack of investment into employment programmes that they had once offered). It just goes to show that social enterprises are a "relentless climb" just like any other aspect of entrepreneurship, and the reward "isn't just reaching the top", as Zoe put it.
On the other hand, Zoe has also described examples of how her enterprise is demonstrating resilience through the most difficult times - one such example was having to adapt to the challenges of the COVID pandemic, by offering emergency cycling services to deliver essential medical supplies to vulnerable patients in hospitals around London, along with recent successes in organising a bike meetup in Regent's Park that received 22,000 attendees, up from 14,000 in previous meet-ups elsewhere in London. Cash reserves are also helping to keep the organisation afloat during deficits.
After taking some questions around franchising and proving social impact, Zoe's talk came to an end, and after a quick comfort break, it was time to get to Claire's presentation about Lofty Heights, where after sharing her story about how the business started from its loft clearing and unhoarding beginnings in 2012, the presentation then moved on to talk about how the organisation expanded to offer skills building courses to get young people into the construction sectors. And there was also some talk about the challenges of heavy reliance on grants and maintaining the business support network being thrown in the middle for good measure.
Eventually, the most fun task of the entire session came along, where everyone had to get in line according to different personal characteristics - firstly, we were made to get in line according to the size of our feet, followed by tallest to shortest person, and eventually dates of birth (which the vast majority seem to have flunked quite badly). Once the fun was over, it was back to the mundane talk about what Lofty Heights has managed to achieve - including helping over 300 young people to get the vocational support that they need, along with future plans to tour villages in rural Suffolk, to target those who have hoarding habits and change things for the better.
With Claire's talk out of the way, we then moved on to the last part of the event, where the panel members would get together to collectively answer people's questions. As I was one of only two people on the table that I was sat on, I was moved to a different table, where I was mixing together with a representative from Ipswich Museums, a counsellor, the spoken word business owner, and a construction worker.
Once everyone had taken their time to figure out the questions, it was time for the panellists to do the talking - joining Zoe P on the panel was Zoe Webb from Your Own Place, Damien from Noise Solution, Rob from Genesis Mencap as well as Debs from Social Enterprise East.
And of course the questions couldn't start anywhere else but on the realm of how social entrepreneurs navigate the world of social enterprises. Zoe W answered the question in that it's about diversifying income streams and not having too many partners, whilst Zoe P described the idea of running into problems as opposed to running away from them, and not just focusing on the rosy parts of the business. Damien felt that it was crucial to make moral decisions to help people during difficult times, describing a time when his business had to pay £50,000 to musicians who were unable to work due to COVID restrictions.
The next question was the one that I felt was going to be the most relevant to my business idea, as the panel was asked about tactics for taking over empty spaces. One set of answers revolved around the topic of community development models that were currently being used in other counties - Zoe W knew of a project in Norwich called the Norwich Unity Hub that takes over random empty spaces, while Debs happened to be aware of a similar model of asset-based development, used in Cambridgeshire, where the mission is to bring people together to achieve a common set of community goals.
But the biggest takeaway from that question came from Damien - it's about building healthy corporate partnerships with others and working to unlock the skills and expertise needed to make the idea work. It's a far cry from the example of a Dubai-based owner, who owns the space that was formerly occupied by Clintons in the Cornhill and is unwilling to sell the commercial space to anyone else, occasionally putting up artwork inside to give a deceptive impression to passing members of the public that it will be turned into an occupied space.
Moving on to the next question about the experiences of social entrepreneurs collaborating to deliver outcomes, whilst avoiding duplication of other organisations' work. Zoe P described the importance of having a mixture of relationships that contain push-backs and successes, with the ultimate goal of finding a single collective voice that will present the best solution to the audience. A similar opinion was also echoed in by Debs, in that there is a strong level of importance of using social issues to solve problems in a cohesive manner, and that competing interests are damaging to target clients of said social issues.
Then it was on to the issue of dealing with funders that switch interests. While Rob's business only gets grant funding for facilities management, he does have one piece of valuable advice - stick to core beliefs and see what comes along from networking events. The two Zoe's on the other hand, believe that going for repeated trade that demonstrates impact clearly can really help bring a social enterprise to fruition financially. And don't always rely on pilot schemes to make your social enterprise work.
The question that followed on from there tied in quite well, and I felt that this was a question that I felt that people in both commercial and social enterprises should know about - the question focused specifically on engagement with the Canary Wharf corporates. Unsurprisingly, as Damien suggests, it is not quite as easy to get into the corporate network - of course it involves a lot of money, and it takes a lot of time before the giants are willing to engage with you. Zoe followed through with her personal experience of working with management consultancy giant EY, in which her business managed to get HR expertise and funding to run team-building events, as well as receiving £300,000 in pro-bono services to help build those connections.
Skipping forward to the last question, which just happens to be another crucial question that I think every business creator in any industry should think about - is the issue how can we help founders relinquish control of their business when the time comes to do so. The two Zoe's believe in a succession plan that allows the new CEO to build a relationship with the organisation and pick up where the founding member has left off. On the other hand, Rob gave the perfect answer about what not to do when recruiting a successor CEO - the founder set such high standards for recruiting a new CEO to the point that it was very difficult to find someone else that would align well with the founder's values, and consequently, the new CEO had to be appointed from the perspective of a clean break.
With all the questions that were needed to be asked being thoroughly answered, the whole delegation started to gather together to pose for a group photo, before the session came to a close. Whilst I was browsing around the stalls, I was able to get some new-founded hope on setting up a fantasy map social enterprise - I managed to get some contact details for the Wayward Adventurers Guild, a fantasy-mapping social enterprise based in Norwich, and one that regularly engages in gaming shows around the country. But this wasn't the only positive development of the day - I managed to get in touch with Community Action Suffolk, and was able to arrange a meeting with them on the 25th of March to discuss ways that I could set up a fantasy map social enterprise. A win-win situation overall.
Conclusions from Thrive
I would like to start this section off by saying that man do I have a lot of things to talk about with regards to the Ipswich Thrive Business Week. Looking at the programme from a general perspective, I have to say that Ipswich Borough Council have managed to get along the right business partners to put together an impressive show of business events and careers fairs. Whether it's a jobseeker wanting to find employment, someone wanting to start a new business that makes a difference in Ipswich, or an already successful business owner who wants to do anything to further expand their enterprise, there was something for everyone to enjoy during the programme of events.
With respect to Amy's showcase event, I would have to say that the event was nothing but utter carnage, yet again - albeit on a smaller scale to the summer pitching sessions. Although it wasn't possible for me to provide an insight into how the University's workshops leading up to the pitching event would have looked like due to the small numbers, the participants of the showcase have all gone into the event well-equipped to deliver their presentations, and I must say that with all the participants being generally supportive of one another during the pitching session, Amy's passion and drive to run the pitching events themselves remains as strong as ever before.
Moving on to my experience of the Let's Get Social event, I have to say that despite the slight change in format from the last time I came in November 2023, it was still an absolute thriller of an event, with an excellent selection of guest speakers. Overall, I have heard some really touching stories from the guest speakers, with Zoe's stories from the BikeWorks presentation about their bike services opening the world up to disabled clients being some of the most impressive stories that I've heard in a while, as well as Claire's story of helping vulnerable people break down barriers and find themselves working in industries that they had never thought about doing before being just as captivating. On the other hand, I was also able to experience some nail-biting stories of times when their organisations came close to collapse and managed to narrowly escape by pivoting things back in the right direction.
Furthermore, the conversations that I've had with the stallholders in the room were generally very positive, and encouraged me to explore new social enterprise routes that I had never thought about before, such as exploring the connection with the Wayward Adventurers Guild in Norwich and taking some examples from them when it comes to setting up a fantasy mapping social enterprise.
With that, I would like to bring this blog post to an end, and I would like to wish those who pitched in the Enterprise Showcase, and others who took part in the programme of events at Ipswich Thrive, the best of luck in their future endeavours.
Signing off now,
Jakub
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