The Beacon Entrepreneurs

On Friday, our Year 8 boys were challenged with a ‘Shark Tank’ scenario which replicated TV’s Dragon’s Den in style. They were tasked with presenting their business start-up ideas in front of a panel of four parents acting as judges to mark the end of their KidsMBA course. The ABE Endorsed KidsMBA has been identified as one of the world’s leading children’s entrepreneurship programmes by Forbes magazine. We are thrilled to integrate the entrepreneurial initiative as part of our Upper School ‘Shining Futures Programme’.

The KidsMBA was developed by former Beacon boy, Mark Watson-Gandy, who saw that around 50% of UK businesses haven’t survived their first five years due to basic mistakes. This led Mark to create a course that is taught in schools to educate and ensure that enterprise is encouraged as much as possible among the younger generations.

Before half term, our boys enjoyed informative workshops across 16 different modules, ranging from customer service, bookkeeping, legal framework, accountancy, logos and marketing, each of which was led by experts within The Beacon Community. Following these, our boys were put into teams to decide upon their own business proposition to pitch to potential investors in the ‘Shark Tank’ scenario. The modules gave our boys an insightful overview of core factors they would need to take into consideration when developing their own business ideas.

Each group devised a different business propositions, some of which included presentations with business cards, branded clothing and props to help bring to life the idea. The panel of judges gave constructive feedback to each team whilst complementing what they liked about the business idea. Some judges even stated “I would invest in this business, it’s a great idea”. Each idea was unique with completely different target audiences including university students, new parents, healthy eaters, environmentalists, sporting fans, hot chocolate lovers, clothes shoppers, and the day-to-day gym goer. The array of ideas made it a difficult decision to pick an overall winner. After the judges took some time to discuss all the business plans, weighing up the positives and the negatives, finally they concluded that ‘All Within One’ should be awarded the trophy as the overall winner. Their idea was focused on helping local businesses, by creating a supermarket in an area that brings businesses like a grocery, bakery, butcher and fishmonger all together under one roof so that it is easier for shoppers to get all their fresh ingredients in one place. This group devised a clear presentation with finances, tax, payroll and even rent for a supermarket. Congratulations to Sebby C, Ishaan N, Zac S, Freddie S and Charlie SW.

Well done to all the teams who took part, the quality of all the pitches was highly impressive.  A big thank you to our ‘Shark Tank’ parents, Mr Vergopoulous, Mr Pearson, Mr Sales and Mr Richmond for attending and supporting with the adjudication of the event.