Coffee entrepreneurs stir things up from flat whites and cappuccinos the next stop millionaires mile. Yesterday we shared a great article about “Community Focus” which had considerable, traction via Instagram, today we look at a local startup business who have a great heart for the Manchester community.
The Journey Founders Luke Tomlinson and Pete Gibson began in 2013 with an idea, and a Kickstarter campaign that helped fund their first site, a 5 x 3m wooden pod on Greengate Square. Soon after, their coffee trike appeared – a portable brewbar. This was swiftly followed by a Hub on Deansgate, which blends perfectly a larger working/meeting space and a coffee shop, as well as being their first site to offer something a little stronger into the evenings. When community spirit is the driving force of a business, the rewards can be wonderful, both financially and otherwise. The earliest businesses were very much about providing the needs of a local community - an exchange of talent and expertise in a specific area for a livelihood in return. They were places where people came together and shared moments of everyday life, and pooled talent and resources.
In this post-industrial age, where it seems as though profit and business growth are taking priority, this is still possible. A balance can be struck between money and community focus. In fact, community could even boost profits in a number of ways… From a young age, Harris Couture founder Nathan Bikindou always showed great interest in fashion. After struggling to find bold, colourful pocket squares to match his personality, he decided to start his own fashion company that would enable urban gentlemen to express themselves through bold, colourful pocket squares. With core manufacturing links to Congo Brazzaville, we pride ourselves on being ethical in our manufacturing processes.
We ensure that our manufacturing partners adhere to our manufacturing policies, which include fair wage and employees’ rights through innovative design, exquisite materials and quality craftsmanship, we are able to create unique pocket squares to cater to the Urban Gentleman. We provide only a limited amount of each style and design specifically to make sure our products always stay unique to our customers. Due to the uniqueness of our pocket squares, we were featured on That’s Manchester TV. We have since been able to expand our collection to knitted ties that perfectly compliment our unique pocket squares. Upon registering with the Entrepreneur Academy at Curricula & Co, I was assigned an educator who I could meet up with on a monthly basis to plan and strategise on the next course of action for my business. (This feature appears in the 2016 issues of Sharing Success Magazine, subscribe for your paper or digital copy.) Manchester is the place to be for bright new start-ups, according to statistics. Last year, the number of new business launches smashed the 14,000 mark. Manchester City Centre and Trafford are up there among the best places in the country for fresh new ventures, which is very encouraging, as the economy thrives on SMEs and new enterprise, which generate new jobs, and a more vibrant community. The culture of collaborative innovation, as well as the pre-existent hotbed of raw talent makes it inevitable that the only way is up for Manchester and the North West, which has seen the recent arrival of Media City.
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