Lucky Ali: My Entrepreneurship Story

Posted on: 15 November 2022 by Samantha Riella in Enterprise

It's #globalentrepreneurshipweek, a week in which we celebrate innovation and creativity and the University of Liverpool's vibrant enterprise community. Find out more about Lucky Ali, Enterprise & Employability Executive at Careers and Employability, University of Liverpool.

Lucky’s Café+ is a cherished childhood dream that has come to life with the support from my family and the dedicated Enterprise Team in Careers & Employability at the University of Liverpool.

Lucky’s Café+ is a family-run café offering traditionally inspired authentic homely fresh food. We opened our doors in July 2022, but we’ve been working on our enterprise for nearly 2 years. We want to revive the lost tradition of home style cooked food and we want to give people an experience and taste of home away from home. We want to breathe new life into the communities through our café, and we have created a friendly and engaging Community Hub where people can exchange ideas and experiences as well as enjoy a meal. This is directly helping tackle isolation and loneliness in the local community. Through our Community Hub we offer free in-house employability skills such as job-search support, career advice, digital skills support, interview skills with a chance to have a friendly chat with myself or other local residents joining us on the day. We aim to connect local people with the local employers, enhancing the employability of Wirral. Lucky’s Café+ is supporting the regeneration of Birkenhead. Starting something new is always exciting but we cannot do it alone. There is so much support available to us if we are only brave enough to seek it. I still remember my first meeting with Alison Pountney, Innovation Coach & Core Enterprise/Entrepreneurship Lead & LCR Founders Project Co-ordinator at University of Liverpool, that transformed my perspective completely.I was able to see so much hope and opportunities in front of my eyes. Since then, I haven’t looked back… all I said to myself was:

Be steadfast in your faith Lucky and let your ambition and pursuits take you wherever they set.

As a participant in almost every single enterprise program and challenge, Alison's continuous and consistent support and encouragement were and still are instrumental to the development and success of our café. Alison’s advice and guidance have been crucial since the very beginning of my entrepreneurial journey. It brightens my day and fills me with joy just speaking with her. We are lucky to have such a dedicated and inspiring Innovation Coach who is not only transforming the lives of students like me but also the development of the start-up ecosystem within the city region and beyond. But there is no growth without facing challenges and evolving from them…over the past 12 months, we faced setback after setback which only strengthened our resilience and determination to persevere and make our vision a reality. One of the major setbacks was when our start-up loan was rejected at the very last minute. While unsure of what to do next, I have taken every challenge as an opportunity to evolve and grow and went from numerous rejections to winning multiple pitching competitions, Enterprise Fund, and the first ever Wirral SOUP Community Micro-fund Award.

Inspired?

If you are looking to start a new enterprise or build entrepreneurial skills to be used in employment, we can help you along the way. You can find out more about what enterprise is, how to set up a business or pitch an idea, hear from inspiring speakers at our enterprise programmes, and careers events, and be on the lookout for enterprise competitions and challenges to help you turn your ideas into reality.