Ms Trinder avoided putting pictures of herself in marketing material for her hotel for two decades: “I focused on running a small, niche business and wasn’t necessarily out in larger circles where I might have encountered direct bias. Nevertheless, I always felt conscious of the potential for discrimination and often worked behind the scenes rather than stepping into the spotlight.”
But her mother served as a role model, having built her own successful business in the 1970s despite overt racial discrimination.
For Mr Dalgety, he faced a struggle to secure funding, so signed up for a credit card that got the business off the ground before launching an aggressive sales strategy and negotiating cash on delivery payment terms.
When Flake Bake sought to expand after winning Channel 4 Aldi’s Next Big Thing, Mr Williams encountered a new challenge: finding a manufacturer to help it scale up.
“It was a difficult pill to swallow,” he says. “We had created a huge demand after going viral on social media with over two million views in four days and a winning product which sold out in less than 48 hours which no serious manufacturer wanted to make.”
But after a social media campaign demonstrated the strength of demand out there, manufacturers found the proposition hard to ignore and Flake Bake found a supplier with the help of Aldi.
Ms Trinder cites Bingham Riverhouse’s size as a key advantage: “Being a smaller, more agile business allowed us to shift with changing market conditions. For instance, during the financial crash of 2008–2010, we actually had one of our best years. Consumers were looking for luxury experiences closer to home rather than splashing out on trips abroad or expensive central London venues, and we were able to capture that market.”
“Most start ups face challenges and most will fail,” Mr Williams admits. “To be in the anomaly that succeeds you need a high level of perseverance by not giving up when things get extremely difficult.”
He and his dad started out using secondhand equipment, and did a lot of the jobs themselves: “I was the managing director, accounts department, sales department, HR department and dispatch agent. If the driver didn’t turn up, I would also have to do the deliveries.”
His biggest lesson from that period was that successful entrepreneurs need to be able to turn their hand to anything: “In order to lead a successful company you needed a diverse set of skills when you can’t afford to employ experts in every area, and that’s what I did.”
Ms Trinder adds: “Failures have also been instrumental in teaching us adaptability. Learning from each challenge, we’ve been able to reposition ourselves effectively and meet new demands.”
