Jonathan was keen to tap into Oxford Innovation’s expertise to maximise growth potential following a referral from the Growth Hub. Since first engaging with OI in 2018, he has spent time with a variety of coaches covering a range of subjects.
“I was really impressed with the amount of support that was available,” he says. “Just talking through things with people is really, really handy when you don’t have any business experience yourself. Having that sounding board is great.
“The first coach I met with gave me some marketing and strategy support – sense checking the direction of the company. And then more recently I’ve been working largely with Lynda Clark, and we’ve been focusing on putting together a proper business plan.
“She’s been really brilliant. She’s got a really good buyer and consumer hat on, so she was very good. One of the key things is that [Oxford Innovation coaches] challenge your assumptions. It’s easy to make a lot of assumptions, and so Lynda was very good at challenging some of them.”
Along the way Jonathan was also able to tap into the wider pool of business coaches Oxford Innovation has to offer, working with coaches such as Ernie Capbert on branding and customer segments and Andrew Upton on strategic planning.
He has also worked on financial management with Theda Gray and leadership and management with Sarah Pryce, who offered support around recruiting the business’ first employee and related best practices. “It’s nice to be able to provide some employment,” says Jonathan. “I know that’s one of the drivers of the [Oxford Innovation Cornwall] programme.
With input from so many of the Oxford Innovation team, Jonathan feels the multi-coach approach has had a positive impact on the business. “I’ve been really impressed with the quality of the coaches,” he says. “And the way that the programme is delivered – it very much slots around you. It’s not like ‘you must attend this training session that’s been booked for you at a convention centre an hour away’. It’s ‘we’ll come to you’ or a local cafe or whatever. And when’s good for you? And how long can you do? It’s tailored around you, which is brilliant.
“Because I’ve got to run the business at the same time and manage staff and find premises… The meeting with Oxford Innovation might be one of a hundred things that you do that week but it just slots in around everything else
The time I have invested into the coaching is paying dividends. Some of the things that we identified, such as taking on staff, when was the right time to do that? And we identified that in the strategy. And that’s been really handy because it has allowed me to focus on growing the business and focus on corporate orders, which was an area that was identified and has been quite lucrative in the last year.”