Meet Ben, 22, from London, who runs his own influencer and digital marketing agency called Influencer. Part of the Bitesize world of work series.
I'm Ben, I'm 22 years old, and I'm the founder of a digital marketing agency. When I was 15, I launched a clothing brand called Breeze. I wanted the biggest and best celebrities to wear my clothes. However, I couldn't afford traditional celebrities, so I started reaching out on social media to models, food bloggers, fitness bloggers, saying: "Hey, guys, I'll give you free clothes and 50 quid cash to post a tweet along with the link to my website." I got a really good response and I thought wouldn't this be the perfect opportunity for other brands to also benefit from these micro-celebrities posting about them on social media? This is when I had the idea to create Influencer which would be a company that would connect brands with these influential content creators in their social media posts.
After completing my A-levels, I took a gap year before I was set to join the University of Bath. I ended up working for nine months to pay developers to build up my idea from scratch. After months of planning, the developers were not able to complete the project as promised and I was back to square one again.
After this setback, I embarked on a placement at Royal Dutch Shell. Influencer was always on my mind so I decided to leave Shell and focus on how I could launch it successfully. I decided to go with crowdfunding and, after three days, I raised over £150,000 from 139 investors. This has led me to be invited to speak at some of the world's largest tech conferences and I was recently named by Media Week as their Rising Star.
From my experiences, I've learnt that, even if you have hiccups along your journey, you can still achieve your goals if you have the hard work mentality and you have the determination to succeed.
Never, ever give up!
- Ben's company helps brands grow by linking them with influential content creators on social media
- He got the idea during his A-levels after his success launching a clothing brand when he was just 14
- He persuaded celebrities online to wear his clothes and he saw what a positive impact influencers had on his own sales
- Ben's road to success hasn't always been easy, but he didn't give up and stayed committed to making his idea a reality.
Check out the National Careers Service website to learn more about life in marketing.
What to expect if you want to be a business owner
The salary and working hours when you own a business can vary enormously but what's most important is that you work hard and love what you do.
Working for yourself looks different for each person and each business, but in general it means you:
- run your own business and are responsible for its success
- can decide how, when and where you do your work
- charge an agreed, fixed price for your work
- sell goods or services to make a profit
- can hire people at your own expense to help you or to do the work for you.
You can be both employed and self-employed at the same time. You can work for your employer during the day, for example, and run your own business in the evenings and at weekends. It’s important to contact HMRC for advice if you’re not sure if you’re self-employed.
You can get help with setting up or developing your business, through the government’s business support services, for example, for advice about tax or about how to find funding to start your business.
This information is a guide (source: GOV.UK).
For careers advice in all parts of the UK visit: National Careers Service (England), nidirect (Northern Ireland), My World of Work (Scotland) and Careers Wales (Wales).
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