Andre Hackett and Richard Abiona – the directors of London Mobile Studios (L.M.S.) – can be classified as young and gifted. Starting their path to entrepreneurship at age 17, the long time friends founded their company in 2009. The main driver behind L.M.S. being that engaging youth groups in creative arts projects can encourage them to stay out of social trouble. L.M.S. approaches this by stimulating young people’s creative side and incorporating this into their day-to-day lives.

“Participating in the Innovate London programme has given us added confidence and constructive feedback about our business idea”.

- Andre Hackett

Context

In May 2010 L.M.S. came to Innovate London for support and business advice. Looking to propel their company idea and gain the business skills they were lacking.

Action

The Innovate London business advisor ran through their company’s history with them, reflecting on its progress and allowing them to start planning future steps to overcome their business skills gaps. They enjoyed the guidance of the business advisor in writing their business and marketing plans – not simply having it written for them, but being encouraged to re-evaluate their plans and establish solid groundwork to grow their business.

Result

L.M.S. has been able to successfully grow its business. The company is now able to use the profits from its commercial work, plus generous in-kind donations, to keep charging forward on its charitable projects. Andre and Richard’s charitable activities have given them a profile as campaigners against weapons and as art-event organisers. Innovate London provided inspiration and insight into how they could use their Escape, Charity Arts Programme to show potential clients how they operate as educators and motivators, which has helped L.M.S. grow its business potential.

In June 2010 the directors won the 2010 World Skills UK competition.

“Innovate London pushed us to take action and prioritise our activities to get immediate revenue, the path to success is clearer now”.

- Richard Abiona

Visit London Mobile Studio’s website at: http://www.londonmobilestudios.com/

On entering the ‘Marketing Week Live 2011’ show your attention was immediately drawn to the Giant iTab – a giant interactive tablet designed by Touch2View, our very own Innovate London client. The tablet touchscreen is designed to run Apps and present App based content on a large scale, with all the interactive gestures and commands found on the smaller sized tablets and smart phones of today.

Showing on screen was the latest copy of ‘The Times’ newspaper App where visitors were able to search, read and review the latest News and Wimbledon highlights as well as the ‘Marketing Week Live’ Showguide App where visitors were able to see giant interactive floor plans with links to individual exhibitors, seminars and show events, enabling delegates to plan their visit and make the most of their day.

One of the unique things about the Giant iTab is its ability to draw the audience in as people associate the look and feel with familiar hand held devices, thus vastly improving the interaction between consumer and screen – a major plus for potential advertisers and content providers who want to get their message across.

Many visitors commented on the advantage of using apps as ‘familiar’ software and said they would feel much more inclined to use the technology if presented in this way.

As well as the giant iTab being available for Sale and for Hire in a range of sizes, Touch2View’s  plans for cross-platform devices and other operating systems are already underway.

Visit giantitab’s website at: http://www.giantitab.com

Visit Touch2View’s website at: http://www.touch2view.com

Innovate London is helping Michael Carty to refocus his business as a basketball event provider and to be innovative in his product offer and to gain entry into new markets after several years of being dependent on the public sector.

Michael established a social enterprise Macpro in 2003 after doing community work for some 20 years ago to provide support for young people in disadvantaged areas of Southwark and Lambeth. The main focus of activity was on basketball training. This proved very successful and resulted in significant youth training and support benefits for the local communities.

Macpro manages the only leading community basketball youth league of its kind in London . Thousands of young people have benefited from the Macpro programme. They learn to be more focused and determined to achieve their life’s goals. The impact is measured by a high percentage of these young people from the programmes attending college and university and local and international scholarships, leading to rewarding careers. Some aspiring young basketball players from Macpro have gained international collegiate basketball recognition and stardom, which provides a great incentive for new young people joining Macpro today.

Macpro organises summer schemes and holiday programmes for young people, offering fun games events and mini tournaments, as well as offering a wide variety of corporate and institutional related coaching and training programmes and formal accredited and non-accredited training programmes.

Visit Macpro’s website at: http://www.macpro-uk.co.uk

Show & Tell Design was founded in January 2010. The formation of the company was mainly due to the co-founders being dissatisfied with their current employment situation and it was decided that the skill base that they had would be a great foundation for a new British design company.

The company is made up of a skilled and qualified furniture maker/designer, Robin Shannon and a qualified industrial product designer, Stephen Morgan. Between the two business partners the diversity and range of projects that can be undertaken is vast.

The key functions of the business are to design and produce high end designer lighting, furniture (both bespoke and off the shelf) and interior products. The product range at the moment includes 4 lamps, an acrylic coffee table, bedside / floating drawer and a mirror (all of which can be seen on the website www.showandtelldesign.com).

The type of market/consumers that Show & Tell Design cater for are made up of people interested in unique design, interior products with originality and high end contemporary design. At the moment Show & Tell Design have high end products, but over time the product range will develop to encompass more mass manufacture products, allowing more people to have access to quality British design.

The company also caters for contract markets undertaking projects to refurbish and interior furnish clubs / bars / restaurants / hotels / shop displays.

The company is only in its infancy but can already boast a credible online presence and interest from a multitude of blogs and design sites. The company also has had interest from Liberty of London, The BBC, design boutiques such as Lifestyle Bazaar and much overseas interest.

The main issues with starting the company were at the beginning there was a lot of planning and not much action. This led to a feeling that not much was happening when in actual fact all the planning only facilitated many tasks that arose throughout the set up and running of the company. It was amazingly useful to be able to use the resources provided by Innovate London to help the progression from the planning to implementation phase. Innovate London not only provided a personal business mentor but also hosted a range of networking and educational events; this was exactly the kind of interactions that a start-up company requires. Another issue which is more specific to a design company was that a product range had to be designed and made ready for market; you can’t sell products if you have nothing to sell! This was a long task to design develop and manufacture the first product range; again there was a lot of planning and not much action.

The designing phase was greatly aided by the use of facilities and resources provided by the London Metropolitan University / Met Works. They provide networking events and tutorial seminars that range from marketing to motivation and how to keep it. Other issues included developing and honing skills needed to liaise and negotiate with suppliers, manufacturers and retailers. These skills are constantly being worked on and never stop being practiced. Discovering and creating routes to market was also another learning curve for the company and again is constantly being worked on.

Much of the hard work has paid off; the company has been followed by the BBC for 3 months for a new TV programme “The Next Big Thing”; products have been sold internationally as well as in the UK, the first retailers are now starting to take up the products, the company has shown at 2 exhibitions and has been invited to show at another early 2011 and the company has already started to show self sufficiency and will be able to cover its costs for the first time!

Visit Show & Tell’s website at: http://www.showandtelldesign.com