By Carolyn Dailey, Founder of Creative Entrepreneurs
We are launching our brand new podcast – Creative Entrepreneurs Conversations – in which I interview the most innovative and inspiring leaders across the creative startup ecosystem — creative founders as well as investors, educators, policymakers and cultural leaders — the people who are building and championing creative businesses and have key insights to share.
The aim is to create the first truly joined up conversation focused solely on creative entrepreneurship — and in the process give a major leg up to creative entrepreneurs everywhere, bring the creative entrepreneurship ecosystem together and give the wider world a window onto the world of creative business – spoiler alert: it’s not about starving artists.
I started Creative Entrepreneurs (CE) as a side idea. Because I needed it. When I left my 20+ year post at Time Warner (HBO, CNN, Warner Bros., Time Inc.) to start my own creative agency, I learned very quickly that I didn’t know what I didn’t know about starting a business – and that there was a dearth of joined-up support in a language I could understand. I was amazed to find that every single person I knew across all the creative sectors* said they had exactly the same experience. Clearly, there was a huge need for role models, learning and connection.
A scrappy little CE website was born, as just a baby step to help fill the gap. Given the importance of the creative sectors to the UK economy (second biggest contributor after financial services), we were able to have a launch at No. 10 Downing Street in 2016. This helped hugely with raising awareness in the UK — to my surprise it generated similar demand from around the world.
Fast forward, CE is now a fully fledged learning and connection platform with a community of over 4,000 people, which we transformed over the past few years into a fully digital experience, letting us reach more people around the world.
In this next step, with Creative Entrepreneurs Conversations, we want to take things to the next level. We’ll tackle – through intimate 1:1 interviews – the topic of creative entrepreneurship, shining a light on the challenges, and the opportunities fuelling the next generation of creative success stories. If you want to build a brilliantly successful creative business – or you want to champion and learn about the people who are – you don’t want to miss this.
These are conversations you can’t find anywhere else and we hope you find them as fascinating and as valuable as we do.
* Creative sectors: Design, Fashion & Crafts, Architecture, Art and Photography, Film, TV, Videogames & Media, Music & Performing Arts, Advertising & Marketing