Where are they now?

Black Circles.com, BT Business Essence of the Entrepreneur winner 2008

Michael Welch won the Most Outstanding Entrepreneur accolade for his company Black Circles in last year’s Essence of the Entrepreneur competition. With this award came the top prize of a business grant for his company. Michael was able to use this grant to to embark upon their international strategy and was able to secure a couple of international investments which have now generated enough income for them to grow more European deals.

Black Circles have now gone from just operating within the UK to having franchises in France, Germany, Holland, Belgium, Italy, Spain and Portugal! Michael commented: “This growth would not have been possible without the money from BT Business. It has really helped us employ the right people, whereas before we were just getting by on the staff we already had. With language barriers and foreign legal contracts to negotiate, we really needed the right staff!”

Michael went on to comment, “We were absolutely delighted to win the BT Business Essence of the Entrepreneur top prize, it meant so much not just for me but for the whole company. It was an award that could recognise all the hard work form my team, as well as the idea which I originally came up with. This was great motivation and recognition for Black Circles. There are a great deal of business awards around at the moment, but the BT Business Essence of the Entrepreneur campaign is hugely credible because of the judges and BT’s name attached to the award. There are also no strings attached to the award, so all of the recognition and added PR and marketing opportunities goes to your own company. The chance of winning the top business grant as well is an excellent idea in the current climate – any funds without interest or strings attached at this time are most welcome and very useful!”.

Young Marmalade, BT Business Essence of the Entrepreneur Winner, 2008

Young Marmalade, a combined car purchase and low-cost insurance scheme specifically designed to help young drivers get behind the wheel of a safer car, was awarded the BT Business Essence of the Entrepreneur Most Original Business Concept award in 2008. The scheme is not a straight-forward concept to explain, and the award has now helped to break down barriers with customers and certainly helped to open doors to the press. Richard Hammomd described it as a "Crazy name, clever idea" in the Daily Mirror this year.

The award has given Young Marmalade credibility and helped them launch their own insurance scheme, Provisional Marmalade - underwritten by a major UK insurance company. DSA research shows that learners who are able to practice between professional driving lessons have a better driving test pass rate. Provisional Marmalade provides a cost effective and simple route to help with this practice. Provisional Marmalade will be launching in July 2009 through a number of exciting distribution channels.

Young Marmalade is also now supported by 12 car manufacturers, all of whom are keen to sell cars to a sector of the market to which they would not normally supply. This is partly due to the restrictions on credit having had a negative impact on car sales in 2009 making applications for vehicle finance that would have been accepted 12 months ago being rejected by finance companies. To counter this, Young Marmalade has introduced several innovative schemes to help young drivers be safer on the road, which include their Guarantee Support Scheme and the Lease Scheme.

Speaking about their win, co-founder Crispin Moger said: "Like most entrepreneurs we are absolutely passionate about our business and it is immensely rewarding that BT Business and respected entrepreneurs such as Peter Jones want to tell the world about us."

The new BT Business Essence of the Entrepreneur winners can now be seen at gallery@oxo, on London’s South Bank from the January 28 – February 28 2010.

Original Travel, BT Business Essence of the Entrepreneur Winner, 2008

Although he started his career in the City as a corporate financier, Nick Newbury always wanted to run his own business and work in a field that he was passionate about. After six years as an investment banker he found the niche he was after. He identified a growing trend for taking several short breaks a year, as opposed to a single, longer holiday and for having experience-led holidays compared to the more traditional city break.

With so much doom and gloom in the world of business at the moment we remain hugely positive and are enjoying living up to our BT Business Essence of the Entrepreneur award. Our biggest development since winning the award is that we have completed on the acquisition of another tour operator, Tim Best Travel. The tie-up brings together two market-leading companies, both of which take pride in the quality of their experience-led travel portfolios and also their culture of offering exceptional levels of customer-service. The enlarged company now becomes one of the best tailor-made choices for clients at the luxury end of the market.

Both Original Travel and Tim Best Travel have experienced uninterrupted growth since their inceptions in 2003 and 1994 respectively. Revenues at Original Travel have grown at a compound annual growth rate of 75% since launch while Tim Best Travel has experienced 15-20% revenue growth over the last few years. In its short history Original Travel has made several timely strategic decisions including re-inventing the short break with their Big Short Break portfolio, expanding into experience led long-haul and family holidays, raising private equity capital in June 2007 and now by choosing what it considers to be the perfect partner in the bespoke travel sector.

Original Travel co-founder, Nick Newbury said "Since June 2007 we have been able to assemble one of the best teams in the business, increase our client base, market-share and product offering."

Tots to France, BT Business Essence of the Entrepreneur Winner, 2007

We were thrilled to win one of the BT Essence of the Entrepreneur Awards in 2007. It has propelled our business from a little known internet company to a trusted and established online family travel business.

An accident on our family holiday in 2005 made me realise how unsuitable most holiday properties are for young children. I wanted to change that. I had a vision of holiday properties that were both gorgeous for parents but still suited to the specific needs of young children with a key emphasis on safety.

When we won the award we had a few properties in France but since then we have expanded to more countries. Having proved the concept and sent many hundreds of happy families off on their holidays we are now scaling up. We have expanded our operation to include properties in France, Italy, the UK, Portugal and Spain. The award gave us the chance to share the idea and gave us great marketing and publicity!

We have created a new website and altered our branding to allow this expansion. This means that we now have hundreds of properties in more countries which means that families come back to us year after year. Our ultimate vision is to expand globally so that we have properties around the world, allowing parents to travel wherever they like with their young children. We expect to be in 4 ‘world zones’ within the next five years with estimated turnover of £6 million. Everything we do, we do with an eye on scalability.

We’ve grown year on year, and even now, we are experiencing 50-100% growth. To accommodate this, we have built an office where the Tots Team work. We are also building a network of Work At Home Mums who will act as a flexible resource that allows us to expand our opening hours with the season. We are thrilled with how Tots To France has developed since winning the award, and it certainly gave us a great boost and additional status.

Alice Bowe Garden and Landscape Design
BT Business Essence of the Entrepreneur Winner, 2006

Alice Bowe was selected as one of the 2006 BT Business Essence of the Entrepreneur winners for her garden design company, Alice Bowe English Garden and Landscape Design. Following her success as a winner, Alice was selected to be involved in a recent BT Business advertising campaign.

Artist and garden designer Alice developed a company that makes garden design convenient and hassle-free. Harnessing technology Alice created an online survey for customers to complete regarding their garden design requirements. Based on this information Alice then completes the design and sources local tradesmen to complete the work.

By using technology in her business Alice has been able to offer what was has previously been perceived as an expensive service, bespoke garden design, to a wider customer base. It was the simplicity of Alice's service and the community of local tradesmen she is creating that caught the judges attention.

"I didn't think I would win such an award, I was amazed to think my little business could be recognised this way. Winning was a huge honour and has helped tremendously in raising the business' profile" said Alice. Since winning and poising for a photo-shoot with Perou, Alice has gone on to star in a BT Business Office Anywhere advert.