The British Council with the support of Berytech, organized a workshop entitled "From Start Up to Success: a Creative Entrepreneur's Plan" on November 18, 19, 23 and 24. This event was led by Sarah Thelwall, founder of MyCake.org, who has been working with creative entrepreneurs for over a decade as a consultant, business development coach and trainer as well as Percy Emmett - NESTA’s lead Creative Industries trainer, coach and mentor, gathering a group of 30 entrepreneurs in several industries.

The workshops combined the methodology from NESTA’s Insight Out program toolkit with MyCake.org’s Market Day marketing training. NESTA is the UK’s foremost independent expert on how innovation can solve some of the country’s major economic and social challenges.

This is the first time that the Insight Out program has been delivered outside the UK. Sarah’s Market Day marketing training has been delivered across the UK and offers a unique insight into how creative entrepreneurs can understand and adapt standard marketing practices for implementation in businesses where the primary focus is the creative process, and in addition to delivering the financial skills element of this four day course Sarah introduced the entrepreneurs to the insight that has been acquired from working with the finances of hundreds of creative entrepreneurs.
Over the course of two weeks this series of intensive and highly participative workshops was intended to help entrepreneurs with the practicalities of designing, commercializing and implementing their creative ideas proved to be a success as witnessed by the testimonials given by the attendees. Sarah and Percy did not only take them through the practical steps of building their creative ideas into a sustainable, successful business but also addressed the common challenges that many creative entrepreneurs find themselves facing when balancing creative and commercial goals.