Blowing Balloons, Trumpets and Fires: FEO to Entrepreneur of the Year

The night after the awards, Jan Brumby from FEO sent me the photo below.

At the top is me, Entrepreneur of the Year 2024, standing on stage in a tux with a trophy. At the bottom is me in 2002, aged fifteen or sixteen, stood with a group of friends behind a table full of balloons filled with flour and googly eyes. We called them FIBS, short for flour in balloons. Forget the iPod, this was peak innovation in Hull. Somehow we even made two thousand pounds selling them. A marketing agency today would probably call it disruptive. They certainly were when lobbed across a classroom.

That photo reminded me of something important. It was never about the money. I think I spent my share on a Sony MiniDisc player, ironically the same year the iPod came out. What mattered was the spark. The belief that you could create something from nothing. And that spark carried me all the way to the awards stage.

The journey in between was far from glamorous. After university and a stint in London, I came back in 2013 when a fire hit the family launderette business. What was meant to be temporary turned permanent. Once the insurance was dealt with, it led to seven years of legal disputes with the business owners, two brothers in their seventies and eighties who could argue about what day it was. Meanwhile I was just trying to keep things alive. My first ever call-out was to a washing machine that an addict had decided to use as a toilet. No one puts that in the business plan.

With company assets frozen, I started collecting laundry in my car after calls from customers asking if we offered that service. From that moment, I did. That became the start of a commercial arm which eventually funded Zip Dry Cleaners, born from another fire-damaged site whose owner chose not to reopen. Later, we took over a struggling competitor after the Covid crisis. In 2021 we launched Botanic Laundry, serving B2B customers. And in 2023, after the long dispute was finally resolved, Laundry Box was born. A business once on life support became modern, welcoming launderettes with fresh investment, new services, new machines and even AI creeping in.

But here is the truth. I would never have made it without Young Enterprise back in 2002 and FEO today. They have been my secret weapon. The courses gave me knowledge and confidence, but more importantly they connected to people who understood the reality of running a business. Entrepreneurship can be lonely, but FEO made it feel less so. Through them I was introduced to Thomas Martin, then Chairman of Arco, who to my surprise was an expert in family business conflicts. His advice helped me break the deadlock in ours (eventually). Without that introduction, I would not be telling this story today.

Which brings me back to the awards. This time last year I sat staring at my laptop wondering whether to apply. It felt risky, almost uncomfortable, to blow my own trumpet. To be judged by peers. To step out from behind the company and be exposed. The thought alone made me want to do my VAT return instead. After days of procrastination and a few increasingly sharp nudges from family and colleagues, I hit submit. Fifteen minutes before the deadline, naturally.

Winning Entrepreneur of the Year was unexpected but incredible. But even if I had not, the lesson would have been the same. People kept telling me how brave it was just to apply. At the time I did not get it. Only afterwards did I realise that it is brave simply to put yourself out there, to share your experiences, and to open the door to support and opportunities you might never have imagined.

So if you are thinking about applying, here is my message. Blow your own trumpet, because you are already brave enough to be doing what you do every day. Whether you are running fitness classes, chasing AI with a start-up, building an empire with a thousand employees, or just keeping it going as one person, your story matters. Sometimes all it takes is one photo, one application, or one awards night to make you stop, laugh, and realise what you have built.

And for me, none of it would have happened without the people and businesses in our region and FEO. They gave me the spark at fifteen, the support at thirty, and the network I needed when things got tough. Without them, there would be no Laundry Box, no award, and no story. Just a bloke still trying to unblock a washing machine.