This week, MHI will celebrate its twenty-fifth birthday. Since its inception, entrepreneurial blood has flown through the company like an iron vein through sedimentary rock. Even now, CEO, Paul Brown, sits on the business and management advisory board at local UWE, where he advocates for getting graduates ready for SME life – as well as being a member of the Bristol Private Equity Club.
As it’s a day to celebrate entrepreneurs, we thought we’d take a look at our young team members who operate their own commercial endeavours on the side of working for MHI—and hearing how working for the company has helped them.
We caught up with them below:
Harry Smith
Placement Student – Sheffield Hallam University
Harry joined MHI as a placement student this year, having finished his first two years as a Business and Entrepreneurship student in Sheffield Hallam University.
What is your side business?
Top Shelf Creps. We supply exclusive trainers, both retail and wholesale. I operate an eCommerce site for retail customers to browse and order their desired shoes. The wholesale element is based on pre-existing clients, who reach out to us to purchase bulk items for themselves to re-sell, more of a B2B transaction.
How did you get into it?
From being young, I’d sell anything I could. I got such a buzz from it. With this, I started off re-selling streetwear items when I was 14, which combined my passion for fashion and passion for making money. After a couple of years of selling clothes, I was starting to outgrow the margins, and shoes were the next product that would give me that bigger margin.
How is it going?
Yes, it’s going fairly well! I’m really putting time and money into trying to make the whole purchasing system more automated, so it doesn’t require as much time from me, especially because I’m currently on my work placement. This year should hopefully be a big year. I’m looking to move around 1,000 shoes in this financial year, which would be slightly lower than double that of last year.
How has working at MHI helped/assisted this?
I’ve only been at MHI for a month, and I’ve already learnt so much that I can make use of in my business. Obviously, selling a product requires shipping, so coming into a business like MHI, full of distribution and shipping experts has been a blessing. Understanding the process, right down to the bone, and being surrounded by like-minded people has really helped me to progress and learn to the best of my ability.
Finley Reep
Placement Student – University of the West of England
Fin also joined MHI as a placement student this year, having finished his first two years as a Business Management student at the University of the West of England.
What is your side business?
Alongside working for MHI, I am involved in a lot of little projects, the main project being Gymstinct, a no-nonsense practical gym wear brand which I started with a good friend of mine from home.
How did you get into it?
Gymstinct originally started out as hobby of mine during my time at sixth form. At the time when the fitness industry started to take off, Reece and I began an Instagram page where we posted training videos and nutritional advice etc. After leaving sixth form, we decided Gymstinct could be more and gave it a new purpose, releasing our own clothing line.
How is it going?
It went through a rebranding phase where we worked with a marketing group to establish what Gymstinct is really all about and then portray this through our clothes and actions. We re-launched late February this year, all but sold out of the first launch and the 2nd launch is just around the corner so it is going better than had expected.
How has working at MHI helped/assisted this?
In my short time at MHI thus far, hearing how rapidly the business has grown over the last 1-2 years and seeing what changes have been made has given me an insight in what it would take to scale up my business going forward. Particularly distribution, where since joining, different website installations have been made to automate and streamline as much of the process as possible.
Ned Cosgrove
Junior Software Engineer
Ned joined the company as a junior software developer this year after completing his computer science course in Bristol.
What is your side business?
I'm a DJ & producer under the name sound:scape. Currently I have a monthly radio show on 1020 radio called the Global Get Down where I play upbeat music from around the world and occasionally play my own tunes/ remixes. I also used to put on world music events in Cardiff with my night Global Sounds.
How did you get into it?
I got into DJing at University and playing tunes with my friends at house parties. When I moved to Cardiff, I made friends with like-minded people and noticed that Cardiff didn't have a lot of variation in music for a night out, so we started putting on our own nights. After working as a sound engineer in Cardiff and getting the gist of how it works, I started producing my own music as well.
How is it going?
It's going well! Through my radio show I get sent lots of new and unreleased music from different labels all over the world and have released 2 singles on an Italian electronic label called Botanica Records. I'm currently working on my first EP and have played out in Bristol, so I've got my foot in the door! Once I've got a bit more of a network here, I'd like to put on my night again but Bristol is much more musically competitive than Cardiff so it may take a while...
How has working at MHI helped/assisted this?
Recently I've started to make my own visuals/AV designs through writing code and speaking with the boffins in the IT Crowd has given me a lot of ideas as to how I can use Raspberry Pis and other electronic bits in my future setup. Plus, I've found similar music-minded people and it's always great to hear about new bands and artists they're listening to!
How else are MHI sharing their wealth of entrepreneurship experience?
It’s not only our own team that we are helping, but MHI are also helping our clients grow using our SME mentorship, digital print, and international delivery services. One of these is a company called Wuzci, who the MHI team are working closely with to assist and support the launch of their exciting new greetings card platform.
So, if you’re a small business looking to expand using our print and delivery expertise, feel free to get in touch with any of our team and we’ll be glad to help!
