Earlier this year, UCL School of Management and Fashion Business School, London College of Fashion launched the Business Builder Programme in collaboration with Enterprise4Good, aiming to support east London entrepreneurs and small businesses.

During the programme, participants engaged in both online and in-person sessions that covered key aspects of the entrepreneurial journey, including marketing strategy, organisational capacity, and financial metrics, providing essential business skills and fostering a supportive network among local entrepreneurs.

The programme brought together 20 entrepreneurs from diverse industries, ranging from architecture and construction to sustainable fashion, all united by a goal to stimulate economic growth in their local communities. We recently caught up with entrepreneur and architect Fabian Danker, who participated in our Business Builder earlier this year. Fabian tells us about his start-up Studio Colab and how the programme helped him foster key marketing skills that he’s used to grow his business.

catching up with studio colab founder fabian

My name is Fabian, I’m an Architect based in East London. My company is called Studio Colab and specialises in design-led house extensions and refurbishments in London. The business has been going for just over 3 years.

The day-to-day running of the business is not too different from working in full-time employment in terms of core skills, however the aspect of marketing and lead generation for a new business is only something you can really appreciate and understand first-hand.

Initially when I set up the practice, most of my leads either came from word-of-mouth or were paid for via third-party companies. For the first couple years, this was enough to sustain myself and the business. Last year, however, I noticed a dip in incoming leads so I branched out into paid adverts and spent more time on marketing the business.

Although I spent a relatively large sum of capital on advertising, it did result in enquiries and eventually projects. However, I was curious to see how I could improve my lead generation strategy.

As a member of the Newham Chamber of Commerce, I was told about The Business Builder Programme which was a collaboration between Enterprise4Good, UCL School of Management (UCLSoM) and Fashion Business School, London College of Fashion, UAL (FBS, LCF).

The tutors had been carefully selected with a background in business and marketing and, as many of the teaching staff are entrepreneurs themselves, it helped to ground the seminars with first-hand experience.

The programme was spread over a 6-week period with each session focusing on aspects of you and your business: understanding the entrepreneurial mindset, exploring purpose and values, developing marketing strategy, reviewing organizational capacity, using financial metrics and reviewing and implementation.

Although the Marketing Strategy session was what I initially wanted to focus on, the structure of the programme was tailored in a way to understand your underlying purpose of the business, and in a logical order allowed you to question what you do, why you are doing it, who is it fot, and how are you measuring your success?

The programme uses a combination of in-person and online sessions and through seminars, games, business theory based in academic research as well as experiences of the tutors it gives a holistic strategic view and understanding of your business.

I found when running a business, I tend to spend most of my time working in the business rather than on the business. Taking a few hours a week to review and reflect on the business is a necessity to see how your business is doing.

The main take-aways I’ve found from the programme is to be specific on my targeted clients. Understand them and what they want. Tailor my marketing and advertising to them. Measure the metrics of conversion rates and see how to improve.

I firmly believe the tools and insight the programme has given me will be helpful to my business for years if not decades to come and would recommend the programme to both aspiring entrepreneurs and established business owners.

Find out more about the Business Builder programme.