LAITO is a promotional video company specialising in working with clients in the creative industries, founded by Rob Lainchbury, James Otto and Kirsty Devaney. The company has been registered for 12 months now and as with every start-up business, it has involved many highs and lows, but the support and mentoring from BSEEN has ensured a successful first year for LAITO.
In May 2013 LAITO received an award of £10,000 from Deutsche Bank to help develop and support the business during the first year. The awards took place Wednesday 4th September in the Royal College of Art, London.
Co-Founder Rob Lainchbury talks about how BSEEN helped develop the business and how it was a crucial factor to winning the award:
“The Deutsche Bank award was highly competitive and the standards of entries were very high. BSEEN helped me start to think in business terms. The information about writing business plans and planning finance really gave me an edge for the competition – we didn’t just have a great idea, we also had the business knowledge to develop LAITO as a profitable and sustainable business. BSEEN got us to understand our own personal strengths and weaknesses and how to work with them. The support from BSEEN also really boosted my confidence and gave me an extra drive to keep pushing the business further.”
LAITO also had a week training course in London where they met other creative start-up businesses such as Birmingham based architectural business ‘SWOT Studio.’ Communications Director, Kirsty Devaney, talks about how being a part of BSEEN helped ensure future work:
“It has been wonderful to meet people on the BSEEN project and hear about their business ideas – they are all so different! The networking skills I developed during BSEEN gave me the confidence to go and talk to people and listen to all their ideas. The relationships made both at BSEEN and with the Deutsche Bank winners has lead to future collaborations and exciting work. Without the help of BSEEN I would not have had the confidence to network and we would have missed out on a lot of potential work.
LAITO have created promotional videos for companies such as Town Hall Symphony Hall Birmingham, Birmingham Conservatoire, FoodBank, Get Lifted, Frontiers Festival, BCU, the Tom Green Septet, Make Some Noise, and fellow BSEEN company ‘MyMateTom’.
LAITO have had to face some challenges during the first year but their BSEEN mentor has been there to help when we have some concerns or questions. Rob explains how the mentor, Steve, helped:
“I was very worried early November when some of our work had fallen through and we hadn’t been paid for some of our previous work. I emailed Steve and we Skyped that evening. We chatted for a long time and he really got me to think straight. He reassured me that running a business can be very up and down and it didn’t mean it was the end. We went through some of the finances and came up with a plan to help the situation. After the call I felt completely reassured and motivated and got onto a number of promotion tasks. By the end of the week we had secured two new jobs.”
It is an exciting time for LAITO as Rob has recently taken on LAITO as a fulltime job and we are looking forward to what the second year will bring. We feel confident that they have learnt enough to be able to adapt and cope with different situations that arise, but know that there is support when they need it.
www.LAITO.co.uk @LAITOTweets kirsty@laito.co.uk
