StartUp Croydon Does Global

If you didn’t know it already, Global Entrepreneurship Week  runs 14-20 November 2016 and is an initiative that takes place across the world with over 35,000 simultaneous events in 125 different countries.  It is designed to help those with a business idea to take part in events to test their aptitude, meet other start-ups and find out more about what they can achieve.

Here at StartUp Croydon, we pride ourselves at helping people start and grow their own business with our focus on assisting local people. Yet as our previous article, Never Underestimate The Power of Word of Mouth highlights, our reach goes further than the borough boundaries. In fact, our reach extends beyond UK borders to assist business students in other countries as part of their entrepreneurial education.

StartUp Croydon tenant, South London Export Club (SLEC), plays a large part in assisting local businesses find out about opportunities to start or continue trading abroad.  From organising or leading trade missions to providing workshops on the nuances and specific etiquette of doing business with different countries, they do a lot of work to help local businesses.

However, they do a lot of work in building relationships with international organisations including business faculties of colleges and universities.  Previous delegations from colleges in the Netherlands have been hosted at StartUp Croydon’s business centre Weatherill House.

Over the last 15 years StartUp Croydon has assisted SLEC host approximately 30 students each October from Croydon’s twinned town Arnhem.

The students visit for two days, with activities consisting of talks and factory visits and this year was no exception with our very own Feyley Barnham giving the welcome talk before students went to the Town Hall for a welcome by the Mayor and Deputy Mayor of Croydon.

SLEC have also been bringing students over from a college in Holland for over 16 years where they come for 4 weeks to 6 months to learn English and other skills.  A former participant, Remco Hiddink came to SLEC for 3 months and was so good he was offered a job with a company in Teddington.

Reflecting on his internship at SLEC, Remco commented “While doing my internship at SLEC I developed my networking, deal closing and business skills massively. My mentor Bryan Treherne submerged me in British business culture which helped me in future jobs in the UK as well as in the Netherlands. I really believe my internship at SLEC kick started my career and I can recommend it to any young professional looking to build his/her CV.

“On Tuesday the 15th of November we are organising an event for 60 Dutch students coming over for the Global Entrepreneurship Week. Frankie Snobel, founder of Tipplesworth Limited, will lecture about the life of an entrepreneur. Frankie has been very successful building her small company Tipplesworth. Her products are in many of the big retailers like Waitrose, Selfridges, Harvey Nichols and Fortnum & Mason. Her business recently won the ‘Best Small Business of Richmond award’.”

The future of this type of experience has been secured following a successful assessment of the student visits by the Dutch government allowing SLEC to continue to train students for the next four years.

So, if you are inspired to continue your business studies and education and take the next steps to realising your dream or have an idea for a business that you’ve been putting off, we run a monthly half day introduction to starting your own business workshops each month at our business centre Weatherill House.

These are very popular and our workshop taking place during Global Entrepreneurship Week – 15 November – is fully booked.  However, dates for 2017 will be available on our website here.  Details of additional events to celebrate Global Entrepreneurship Week are also available on their website.