Work Avenue entrepreneurship event draws record number of participants

More than 200 entrepreneurs and business owners tuned into a virtual event held by the community’s leading employment hub.

Work Avenue’s annual event, Start-Up Central, held with Google’s training programme, Digital Garage, is now in its fifth year.

Despite being brought online for the first time, it drew this year record numbers of participants for sessions on topics ranging from digital and social media marketing to business strategy held over YouTube and Zoom.

Work Avenue chief executive officer Debbie Sheldon said the event “is always very popular, but has proved even more so at this time when people are considering their future incomes. ”

She said: “Existing businesses are asking how they can diversify to cope with post-lockdown times as well as the new normal of social distancing and other restrictions in place.

“Many are also seizing the opportunity, created by lockdown and having more time on their hands whilst being furloughed, to test business ideas that they have always dreamed of but never had the impetus to try.”

Shaketastic’s Jewish co-founder and chief executive Josh Kettle was the event’s keynote speaker.

The drinks brand, which initially closed during the lockdown, recently held its first socially distanced outdoor event with a pop-up stall and 18-foot inflatable milkshake.

“I firmly believe where there are disasters there are also upsides and I genuinely enjoyed this time to sit back and reflect, away from the daily operational stresses and morning mayhem of the stores,” Kettle told the event.

“We’ve been very lucky to be in a business where you can adapt like this. Most of the record days, weeks and months of our 11 years in business have come during lockdown,” he added.