Four start-up founders from London recently met with two of the UK’s most successful entrepreneurs to discuss how to give their businesses a competitive edge in a digital-first world, as part of BT and Google’s new ‘Get mentored, Get growing’ campaign supporting UK SMEs to grow and thrive through mentoring.

Ranging from a new social media platform based in Canning Town to a Chingford-based virtual assistant business, the four SMEs who met with Liz Earle MBE and Levi Roots were each looking for advice and inspiration that would empower them to take their ventures to the next level:

Olivia Simpson, Jamaican Juice (Peckham)
Ropa Ushe, The Uni Social (Canning Town)
Cherrelle Stewart-White, CSW VA (London)
Beard of Aaron, (London)

According to BT research* almost half (49 per cent) of all UK small firms are worried their business wouldn’t survive without external support, while 64 per cent said they’d be more likely to adopt new technologies if the IT and telecoms industry provided training.

Cherrelle Stewart-White, founder of CSW VA said: “In my mentoring session with Liz, she gave me some informative and practical advice around how I can tackle my business’s challenges – for example, I should perhaps be looking to employ someone who can help me manage my time so I can focus on doing what I do best, which is helping my clients!

“I really appreciated having someone with fresh eyes look at my business objectively and give me an honest and constructive critique about how I can improve. Getting one-to-one time with a mentor has definitely given me some valuable food for thought that will help me organise my future plans for the business.”

Ropa Ushe, founder of The Uni Social said: “I found the mentor session with Liz so insightful – she was really open about what The Uni Social needs to do next and it’s that kind of transparency that can really help move a business on to the next stage of its journey. You just don’t get that level of honesty from friends and family.

“I now have a better understanding of some of the business pitfalls in which I might otherwise have got caught out by. With Liz’s expert advice I’ll be able to spot some of the typical startup mistakes, as I know what to watch out for.

“Having a mentor has meant I’m a lot more prepared to take on the unexpected – I’ve been able to benefit from the experience of somebody who has already gone through what I’m going through and have been able to view my business in new ways. As Liz told me, failure to prepare is preparing to fail!”

Levi Roots said: “I had a fantastic time meeting with the entrepreneurs and sharing my thoughts on how he can help Sweet Smiles to grow. Running your own business can sometimes be overwhelming and lonely, so I know from my own Dragons’ Den experience how game-changing it was, both professionally and personally, to work with someone who could understand and appreciate my challenges and ambitions, and give me the support, advice and tools to help me build and grow my business. It’s been a pleasure to get the chance to pay it forward as a Guest Mentor for BT and Google and help small businesses unlock the power of digital to accelerate their growth.”

Liz Earle said: “It was a real pleasure to meet with these founders, hearing about the business and sharing my expertise. When my wellbeing publishing brand was launched more than twenty years ago, our mail order business was based around paper forms and payments by cheque. Today everything moves at a completely different pace. You have to act like a publisher on your social media channels and be super responsive to customers who want a real-time answer, not a letter in the post! With my later publishing brand, we had to learn a mass of digital skills super-fast and I encourage small businesses to grab all the available resources and training they can to help successfully navigate their way in the online world.”

In October, Levi Roots and Liz Earle joined BT and Google’s team of dedicated digital skills experts that provide one-to-one mentoring sessions for small businesses as a Guest Mentor. The founders they met with now join the thousands of small businesses that have already benefited from the BT and Google initiative, which aims to address the digital skills gap and help boost the UK’s post-pandemic economic recovery. Besides mentoring, the partnership also offers on-demand training webinars which cover a range of topics including, digital marketing, e-commerce and business strategy.**