Finalists in the Young Enterprise Regionals

Congratulations to our Young Enterprise Team who were finalists in the West London Regionals. The team won the ‘Journey of the Year Award’ and their Co-CEO, Alix L, was awarded the ‘Achiever of the Year Award’. 

The Young Enterprise Team commented: 'We started our journey in November 2023. We spent a year getting our creative minds together and creating a full and successful business. Since the very beginning, we did our best to get maximum funding; hosting a cinema night for the years 7-8 and bringing in over £200, and getting as many people as possible to buy our shares. Our original idea was to create colour-changing fruit stickers that would indicate ripeness, but with technical difficulties (and no one in our team doing Chemistry A-Level) we had to let the idea go. With team members dropping in and out due to other commitments, brainstorming to find imaginative, feasible ideas was a challenge. But we eventually settled on the idea of a brand to create jewellery holders specifically for necklaces that always get tangled – a brand we called ‘No Knot’. 

     As time went on, and we were still deciding on how to produce our product, the Spitalfields Market date was soon creeping in and we had to bring a product to the stage. With time running out, we decided to create a second, backup product and made Fimo (polymer clay) and sterling silver earrings, each with our own designs and popping colours. At first, it seemed to have been a failure, with only 4 pairs sold. But this all took a turn. After creating new earrings and improving our market, we arrived at Portobello Market with a large array of beautiful earrings and our final product made and ready to sell, making over £100 in only a couple of hours.

     Many sales later, our brand was able to create a good profit with a sustainable business structure. This meant that we were qualified to get into the West London Finals, where after a tough competition with many presentations of products and speeches, we won the ‘Journey of the Year Award’, and our Co-CEO Alix L won the ‘Achiever of the Year Award’. Despite the end of our journey in the Young Enterprise competition, we are proud to say we will be returning to sell our earrings and product at the Cardinal Vaughan Summer Fete, and we look forward to seeing you there!'

Young Enterprise is a leading employability and financial education charity empowering young people across the UK and the sessions were supported and facilitated by weekly sessions provided by Nicholas Troen, Head of Entrepreneurship at  St Paul's School and Jenny Coyle, Head of Economics & Business at Cardinal Vaughan.