The Small Business Sessions

The 25th episode is with Enterprise Nation member and This Mum Runs founder Mel Bound. As an exhausted Mum, Mel Bound was desperate to regain a bit of time to herself and put a post on a Facebook group one evening to see if anyone else fancied joining her for a jog in the park after she'd put the kids to bed. 75 women showed up from just that one post and now her community This Mum Runs boasts over 4,000 members. This Mum Runs focuses on creating a space where time strapped mums can regain a bit of headspace by doing exercise together without feeling intimidated or under pressure to loose weight or get fit. Her success was rewarded on 21 October when she was crowned Female Start-up of the Year at our Festival of Female Entrepreneurs on 21 October. We recorded a podcast with Mel before she took to the stage to pitch. This Small Business Session oozes with Mel's infectious enthusiasm about what she's getting up to and why she's doing it. Inspiring and then some.

The 24th session is with Enterprise Nation member and Etieno founder Precious Jason. Diagnosed in 2012 with leukemia. Precious struggled to find natural products that were safe and nourishing enough to the mend the damage that was done to her skin after treatment. That gave her the idea for Etieno, a range of skincare products that make life easier for cancer patients. Setting up a business whilst undergoing cancer treatment unsurprisingly has brought challenges but it has also provided Precious with a great testing ground, canvassing feedback from everyone that crosses her path including medical consultants and those next to her in the waiting room. This is the lady who a year ago came as an audience member to Enterprise Nation's Beauty Exchange with her early stage product, to this year's event where she joined us on stage with a stack of awards under her belt. It's stories like that as well as Precious' own personal journey that make the Small Business Sessions what they are.

The 23rd session is with Simon Lyons, Enterprise Nation member and founder of product design studio Version 22. In this session Simon offers up some great advice about the struggles that so many start-ups face over cashflow and knowing what to prioritise when. Both of his products have been launched through crowdfunding and it was his first campaign that got him chatting to our founder Emma Jones on Twitter. That chat led to him featuring on a panel at one of our events and a piece in the Economist. Since then he has visited 10 Downing with us and secured a piece in The Sunday Times after our Meet the Journalist events in Nottingham. If we ever need a testimonial, we know who to call!

The 22nd session is with Enterprise Nation member and StatueFindr founder Grace Everett. Author Grace Everett had an idea for a book about London's great statues that morphed in to an idea for an app. She has now launched StatueFindr which provides a new way to explore the diverse range of sculptures in the city of Westminster. Spot a statue, check the app and you'll get information about the statue and the artist who created it. Listen to this session for a great discussion on setting goals and Grace's brilliant answer to our regular question asking what superpower entrepreneurs would like to have.

The 21st session is with Robert Edmonds, Enterprise Nation member and founder of NRG Digital. Robert is a three times BAFTA nominated director, producer and editor and spent 17 years in the TV industry working on some of Britain's most popular primetime shows including Grand Designs and Crimewatch. Rob has now moved into the commercial sector and founded NRG Digital, which creates content driven video and events for some of the biggest brands in the world. Tune into this week's session for discussion around the importance of building trust, dealing with the loneliness of going it alone and what makes great content.

The 20th session is with Enterprise Nation member and founder of David Harris Magic, David Harris. With a father who performed magic to entertain him for hours on end, it's perhaps not surprising that David Harris ended up being a magician for a living. Swapping a career in security services to getting paid to have fun and entertain people has required years of practice and a commitment to spending at least two hours a day on his craft. The one trick he hasn't quite mastered though is how to explain to people that doing magic really is what he actually does as a job!

The 19th session is with Enteprise Nation Member and Annellino founder Gabriella Turner. Gabriella discovered an Aladdin's Cave when visiting her grandmother in Italy who wanted to buy her a graduation present. She fell in love the 150-year-old workshop operated by a third generation goldsmith which inspired her to set up fine jewellery brand, Annellino. Gabriella's 18 carat gold products are now made in the workshop using a technique followed by Renaissance sculptors. Listen to this session for an inspiring discussion about supporting artisan producers, the importance of outsourcing to experts and how to stay motivated when working on your own.

The 18th session is with Enterprise Nation member and Ibraheem Toy Store founder Nazia Nasreen. Standing terrified in front of journalists doesn't sound like the perfect night out, but the brains behind the UK's first online Islamic toy store summoned the courage and it paid off! That pitch at Enterprise Nation's Meet the Journalists even in Birmingham led to her being featured in the Economist and local publication, Business Quarter Magazine. Nazia then attended one of our digital bootcamps and met a brand strategist and a packaging expert, both of whom she's now working with. If you ever needed a session that encourages you with real life examples of just how many opportunities are out there when you step out of your comfort zone, this is it!

The 17th session is with Enterprise Nation member and The Perfume Garden founder Marina Barcenilla. Marina distinctly remembers sniffing just about everything that passed her by so it's no surprise that she ended up as a perfumer! She founded The Perfume Garden five years ago, which focuses on creating luxurious fragrances inspired by nature for a whole range of different products from perfumes to skin care to candles and home fragrances. Self taught and a big experimenter, The Perfume Garden has really blossomed in the last year with a recent run of awards but Marina is the first to admit that it has taken time and a lot of patience to get to this stage which is probably very reassuring for a lot of us to hear!

The 16th session is with Enterprise Nation member and Neo-Slip founder Neomi Bennett. Neomi left school without any qualifications but once she'd had her family, decided to study nursing as a mature student. It was a study project that led to her launching her own product, Neo-Slip, which now counts the NHS as one of its clients. Neo-Slip is a little bag that goes over a patient's foot to help combat the difficulties with putting on anti-embolism stockings. With 25,000 people in the UK dying each year of deep vein thrombosis after they've had an operation, most of which could have been avoided, the product is much needed. Neomi's intention was never to start her own business though so this session is a great example of how entrepreneurial ideas can come right out of nowhere.