Case study – Twipes: entrepreneurship and the environment
Payal Bhavsar
The Enterprise Support Programme is a programme backed by Islington Council to help Black, Asian and Minority ethnic-owned businesses to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Action for Race Equality has been working closely with a range of local businesses across February – November 2022, providing them with one-to-one consultancy support, themed masterclasses, and unique exercises called Action Learning Sets.
Through these activities, participants have found innovative ways to navigate their post-pandemic recovery and to move forwards with their ventures.
Continue reading the case study to discover the journey that one business duo, passionate about environmental sustainability, took with us as they completed all three strands of the programme!
Ellenor McIntosh (Elle) and Alborz Bozorgi (Al) have been saving the world’s toilets and waterways since 2015, founding Twipes – the world’s first truly flushable and truly biodegradable wet wipes.
Since launching their business, they’ve survived the pandemic (and the ensuing supply chain shutdowns) and relaunched to bring their eco-friendly solution as a subscription service shipped directly to customers.
The pair joined the Enterprise Support Programme in March 2022, hoping to develop their business acumen and tap into new marketing insights with the help of their experienced mentoring team.
Once paired with Action for Race Equality’s two specialist consultants, Tutu Adebiyi and Alex Louis, they took a deep dive into the opportunities available to them to update their marketing strategies.
This started with a remodelling of their website, taking on new SEO tactics, optimising graphics, and designing a more intuitive navigation.
They developed social media campaigns with help from a supportive eye from the consultant who provided tips to optimise their content.
They cited ARE’s Action Learning Sets as the kindling that fired up their critical thinking skills. Within these roundtable discussions a participant leads with a specific problem facing their business. The other participants are challenged to provide indirect help by guiding them to potential solutions and then reflecting on how the discourse may have opened thoughts on their own challenges.
This type of problem-solving conversation brought about new ways of approaching problems within Twipes’ own practices and gave both Elle and Al a chance to connect with other minority-owned start-ups at similar stages of development.
As the Enterprise Support Programme came to an end, Elle reflected on the challenges that Twipes have tackled, and the connections made in the process:
We were invited into this community of like-minded entrepreneurs and asked to dig deep into your challenges and support each other through the mud you’re digging up. They supported this process with mentorship to develop those pain points and it created a truly unique growth experience.”
The Enterprise Programme is no longer open for new applicants.
You can read more perspectives from the Enterprise Programme here.
