5 minute read
Feature: Riding the Waves
RIDING THE WAVES
A story of how the pandemic brought about the dilemma of ‘adapt or die’ for one particular OR-founded business. Matt Turner (Mullens 2008) tells his story which might be familiar to many.
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February 2020. I’m on top of the world. Well, on top of a ski slope anyway. I’m with nine of my colleagues on an all-expenses-paid company ski trip. We’ve smashed our end-of-year targets and we’re celebrating in style.
We’re top of the industry. We’ve just won the highly coveted Best Stand award at Confex, Britain’s largest events and production trade show, held at ExCel London. We’re the talk of the town and we’re planning further expansion.
March 2020. We’re decimated. 100% of our revenue from putting on corporate events and entertainment is now an illegal activity. We’re in lockdown. Every client is forced to cancel. We’re haemorrhaging money like I’ve never experienced before, and we’re running out of it. Fast.
I left Reed’s in 2008, surprisingly desperate to start a business. I didn’t have the university desires or travelling aspirations that my friends had; I just knew I wanted to create something. A little deeper than that, I actually just wanted to be something. Looking back, it was surprising because I had no experience and no real understanding of business. In fact, infamously, I was the only Reed’s student ever to gain 0 on a business studies A Level exam (or so Mr Atkins told me).
It was with a lot of hard work, some scary risk taking and a bit of luck that within a decade Clownfish Events became a multi-million-pound operation, employing twelve full-timers, running a fleet of vehicles, owning a warehouse in Chessington and running events for Google, Virgin, Amazon, Apple and British Airways. All with an unbeaten 5* ratings record. It was epic.
But for all its brilliance, the years of building Clownfish had taken a lot out of me. Trying to start and then sustain a business is isolating. The long and unsociable hours are lonely. The unrelenting imposter-syndrome. The ‘can I really do this?’ voice plays over and over. It’s important for me to admit that, to balance the modern-day narrative that ‘being your own boss’ is everything. I’m a big advocate for entrepreneurship, but consciously so. Perhaps that was why I was so willing to fight for business survival. I’d given too much of myself to let it collapse and, critically, my team are like family to me. They’re all major contributors to our success, and I felt I owed them.
So, despite the paradoxical challenge of running an events company that has ‘bringing people together’ at the core of its service in a global pandemic that lawfully demanded social distancing and lockdown, I got to work. I embodied the phrase ‘I can’t control the waves, but I can learn to surf’. I worked out three key things pretty fast:
1. Every company event, meeting, party or conference is now online. Adapt or die. 2. COVID is going to be in the air for some serious time to come. We have time. 3. No company wants to be the ‘Cheltenham Festival of March 2020’. The corporate market will stay online for the longest.
Fundamentally, that’s all I really needed to know. I knew how to run a business and I trusted the team around me.
So, in April 2020, I borrowed £300,000 from the bank and, along with existing capital, spent £500,000 on two things. First, a three-story redevelopment that included a professional TV and film studio, a green room space and editing suites at Clownfish HQ. Second, we invested into the highest grade of cameras, drones and live broadcast equipment on the market. Over the summer of 2020, as Clownfish was being rebuilt (both literally and figuratively), our already expert technical team learnt and mastered the art of filming, editing and live streaming. We launched two brand new businesses (and revenue streams): Clownfish Studios and Clownfish Media. To coin a quintessentially 2020 business term, we pivoted. And if we hadn’t, none of us would have our jobs today.
Our state-of-the-art TV studio has already hosted Vernon Kay, Davina McCall, Tim Vine, Britain’s Got Talent’s Magical Bones and the actual Basil Brush! We’ve been using the studio to live stream company awards, Christmas parties, training days and team building events - all virtually. Our Media business (creating short videos for online content) has not stopped since April. We’ve filmed for schools, Buddhist temples, small business training courses and, just recently, New Wimbledon Theatre. All of them are new clients. These two new revenue streams have kept us afloat, whilst our events arm has continued to make a loss since February 2020.
After three days with the Clownfish team (now that it’s legal again), we reviewed the last 18 months with enormous pride and began to feel excited for the next chapter. We have ambitious plans including launching a record label, starting a foundation (aimed at helping young people get into film and media) and working out how and when we can achieve net zero carbon emissions.
Throughout the horror of COVID, I have looked for the positives. Never before has the corporate world paused for longer than 10 days and after the whirlwind years of building a business from scratch, I finally had some time to stop and think. A few years ago, I had formed a long-term plan with my number two, Alasdair, for him to take over the general management of Clownfish. I had thought that I was ready to try something new, but the ‘new’ Clownfish, the process of becoming a venue and the challenges that the pandemic has brought have re-inspired me, re-energised me and, ultimately, kept me.
On the last day of November 2019, I lost my dad, aged only 59, to cancer. Perhaps strangely, this was the greatest motivator for getting through COVID. As the tsunami of cancellations came in March 2020, somewhere in my subconscious I knew I wasn’t willing to give up something that I did have control over, having just been forced to give something up that I had no control over. I still can’t control the waves, but I’ve learnt to surf. ■
