First Entrepreneurs Monthly Meet-up of the year with Homesure Property sees start-up funding for local secondary school
Another packed programme with record attendance for the first Entrepreneurs Monthly Meet-up of the year which took place on Thursday 29th February at the University of Liverpool’s Fröhlich Café - Yoko Ono Lennon Centre.
Massive congratulations to the 6 students from Years 7-11 at King’s Leadership Academy Hawthornes who kicked off the evening pitching to a panel for start-up funding as part of the Enterprise Education in Secondary Schools Programme that the Centre is piloting.
£1,000 was granted to the students to help them towards their start-ups or to continue to help develop their ongoing businesses. Funding ranging from £250 to £100 was awarded with ideas as diverse as an online beauty and cosmetics store, a medieval themed coffee shop, and a mobile cart selling ice lollies!
Yasmin Hagan, Careers Manager for King’s Leadership Academy, commented ‘Students, parents and staff from Kings Leadership Academy Hawthornes thoroughly enjoyed being part of the Entrepreneurs Monthly Meet-Up. The students delivered their pitches with flair and confidence - we're delighted by the funding they received to advance their business ideas and with the chance to network with the Directors of Homesure! It was a brilliant insight for the students of all the opportunities that are ahead of them.’
Thanks goes to the three dragon’s on the panel, Gillian Torres, communications professional, writer and entrepreneur, and the Directors of Homesure Property, Mark Loughnane and Nick Stott who helped score the pitches and asked questions about each of the pitches.
Yuan Ji, a second year BA (Hons) English and Business Management student in the University of Liverpool, commented- ‘I thoroughly enjoyed the 'Dragon's Den' style segment at the Entrepreneurs Monthly Meet-up. It was inspiring to witness the creativity and passion of the secondary school students as they pitched their business ideas for some seed funding. I learned first-hand the importance of clear communication and resilience in entrepreneurship, and I'm grateful for the opportunity to be part of such an empowering event.’
After the student pitches the Directors of Homesure Property, Mark and Nick, spoke about their background as property investors and agents - providing invaluable advice and guidance to anyone looking to start and develop a successful property business. They talked about their journey, from Nick buying his first rental property as a student, to going into business together and building Liverpool’s biggest independent residential letting agent with 1,500+ properties, supporting investors in the UK and abroad to invest into and manage residential real estate investments.
Nick (CEO) and Mark (Director) of Homesure Property said ‘Thanks to Richard, Christina and the team for inviting and welcoming us to this event. It was a great experience to be forced to try and codify our own experiences to answer the great questions from the attendees. It was a good mix of people, with thoughtful questions and bright ideas, which helped us immensely in trying to stop for a minute and figure out our history to date - and try and pull out something of value to share! I only wish something like this had existed when I was at university as it would've saved me a lot of mistakes along the way! It's not often that you get to ask direct questions to business owners and get a real answer and that's entirely down to Richard's disarming personality in creating a safe, open, and inquisitive environment for everyone involved. Keep up the good work!’
On a final note, The Brett Centre’s Entrepreneur in Residence, Richard Leighton who wrapped up the night commented 'it was really fascinating to listen to Mark and Nick speak about the beginnings of starting-up in the property sector, to understand the ways that they initially developed the business, like by opening-up 100s of properties in the city to house individuals on the local authorities social housing register. It was also encouraging to listen to the pair talk about the company’s plans for the future, that includes going into the auction side of the business, to be able to offer customers a full suite of property services.’
Following Mark and Nick’s talk, participants enjoyed informal networking with pizza and more refreshments - all within the relaxed setting of Fröhlich Café at the Yoko Ono Lennon Centre.
Join our next Entrepreneurs Monthly Meet-up
The next Entrepreneurs Monthly Meet-up takes place Thursday 28th March | 5-7pm at Clockwise Liverpool - based at the Royal Albert Docks with the founder of Spice Kitchen Sanjay Aggarwal! To find out more and to sign up for this free-to attend event click here.