Young entrepreneurs learn lessons from legends at awards night

Bodybuilding champ, movie star and politician Arnie Schwarzenegger, Aussie rugby union legend John Eales and martial arts icon Bruce Lee all provided inspiration for a business audience at a celebration of the success of the region’s young entrepreneurs.

Ian Cass, chair of the Microbusiness Alliance, selected the trio for the personal and professional values which drove their career achievements and for the relevance to his own focus on developing the small business mindset.

Ian told how Schwarzenegger is an example of someone who learned from his mistakes and tried to make up for them. 

He said Eales was referred to by fellow Australian rugby star David Campese as “Nobody”, because nobody’s perfect. He added that Lee worked hard on focus, flexibility and communication.

Ian said: “When starting a business you need to focus your energy on getting your good business idea up and running. Don’t worry about nice-to-have things – focus on the essentials that you need to get your business going.

“Make sure you get the core of the business right before you start flitting onto other things but you also need to be flexible. You will make mistakes and there will be things you didn’t expect, so you need to be able to change quickly.

“Also, you usually start a business because you are passionate about something and you have to be able to get that into your presentation – communicate to people in a few words what your business is and what it can do for them.

“If you have a good focus and you are flexible and you communicate with your community and customers you won’t go far wrong.”

Ian was speaking at the latest edition of THUD (The Hook-up Dinner) Yorkshire, which brought together young entrepreneurs from Hull, the East Riding and North Yorkshire in Trinity Market to present their enterprising journeys and ambitions for the future.

The event is supported in promoting youth enterprise by Hull City Council and the John Cracknell Youth Enterprise Bank (JCYEB), which donated cash prizes to help three young people who pitched to the audience of business people.

All three spoke about their work and faced a variety of questions from the floor. They opened up about what they do, what sort of challenges they face and how MC4C has helped them, particularly with some of the less exciting but essential aspects of running your own business.

Audience members then voted for the best business and awarded the £400 first price to Georgia Begbie, owner of Big World Adventure Land. In a tie for second place, £200 each was awarded to Bobby Waud, owner of bespoke welding and fabrication solutions business Waud’s Welding, and Lewis Rose, whose company Heritage 4 All is based in Hornsea and operates Time Warp Tours.

Ian said: “I’ve been coming to THUD since the first one about two years ago and the big takeaway for me is the energy of the young people, which keeps coming through from these start-up businesses trying to make a go of it in very difficult times.

“I come here to see them and also see the support that Hull gives them, because there are areas of the country where that doesn’t happen. If I can give the young people one decent idea or tip one tip that will help them that’s good enough for me.”