Culture Creative’s Zoe Bottrell explains why success is a mix of planning and trust
// North East
Production company, Sticks & Glass houses a state-of-the-art post-production space in Leeds that represents their transition from camera-wielding freelancers to bricks and mortar business owners. Founders, Adam Bennett and Verdy Oliver used investment obtained through Creative Growth Finance to build out their Leeds facility, enabling them to boost their repertoire and improve their offering to clients.
Now, as well as providing filming and production services for clients such as BBC Sport, CBS, IMG and C4, Sticks & Glass rents out its edit suites to those that need them. They also provide great coffee (free of charge).
We caught up with the two founders to learn about their experience of opening a production space off the back of covid, the challenges they faced in securing investment and the importance of having a partner.
Adam Bennett (L) and Verdy Oliver (R)
Creative UK
How did Sticks and Glass get started?
Verdy Oliver
I was freelancing (as a camera operator) about 20 years ago and doing lots of news and documentaries when Ogilvy (a major advertising agency) got in touch and that’s when I met Adam, who was Head of Production at the time.
We used to go all over the place filming stuff, with Adam producing and directing and me shooting. We did all sorts for a lot of corporate clients all over the place and after Adam left Ogilvy we just continued being mates and doing bits of work together.
Adam Bennett
We did that for a few years and then eventually we decided to make our own brand and try to win a bit of work under our own label.
Verdy
Adam’s advertising agency background gave us some credibility which helped, and we built up the business really slowly. After a while we realised that going out on the road and lugging cameras around did have a shelf life and we wanted some bricks, mortar and a team somewhere.
Adam
I’m from South London and Verdy was up in Manchester, so we didn’t know where to have our base. We originally thought of Media City, but that was already quite saturated by then. We thought about London and the Midlands, but then we were hearing a lot of things about Leeds.
Verdy
And then a couple of my pals started working in Leeds and an opportunity came along where they needed some extra post-production space. And we thought, right, that’s what we’re doing.
We came and had a few visits and we fell in love with the city instantly and we thought, this is it.
Adam
That was five years ago. And that’s when we first took the small unit upstairs before – thanks to Creative Growth Finance – we had a big expansion last summer.
CUK
What were your biggest challenges when you were first getting started?
Verdy
Cash. It was literally overdrafts, credit cards, borrowing off mates and stuff. But luckily it was a small operation, so it was achievable via domestic means.
We could just beg, borrow and steal to get up and running. And we had a small footprint; we didn’t have any staff, so we kind of just made it happen by cobbling it together.
Adam
It was a lot easier back then, to be perfectly honest. I mean, my overheads pre-premises were my Internet, my phone and my car; and now it’s still my internet, my phone and my car, but with two other big internet bills.
I guess our challenges at that point were just, you know, clients roll on and roll off and when you’re one person on your own or two people, a cancellation really can affect the business. It’s a far more fragile lifestyle but it was sort of a lot simpler as well in many ways.
CUK
From where and how did you first find funding?
Adam
We reached out to our accountants, Hallidays in Stockport, who have been fantastic with us from day one and have really helped us grow. They have a corporate finance team, so we spoke to them and we did the rounds. It was in the middle of covid, so we didn’t get to speak to anyone face-to-face. We did loads of zoom calls where we presented to business angels and groups of anonymous people. No one was interested in anything we had to say.
And actually I still believe it was a really tangible, exciting offer and a really good business. But unfortunately, Verdy and I know that we need to see people face-to-face and win them over personally. And I do think that the reason none of those things came to fruition when we first started looking was because we weren’t in a room with real people, shaking hands.
We did about 30 drafts of a business plan listening to every single person’s input, and in the end we found some private equity funding from some friends. We got a grant from the LEP (Leeds City Region Enterprise Partnership) and people only believed in the financing of it once those other two things were in place. Creative England [former name of Creative UK] was the final piece in the puzzle – the biggest piece in the puzzle.
CUK
What sort of challenges did you face as an early-stage business seeking investment?
Adam
What we heard a lot is that we weren’t asking for enough money or we were asking for too little money and we were in this area in the middle. Nobody really wanted to invest in the middle of covid and we probably wasted a year looking for money, didn’t we?
Verdy
Yeah, just because we were so green and so inexperienced and we’d never done a cashflow forecast in our lives. Even after we were first established we still didn’t know anything about the corporate governance and we didn’t have a board or anything like that. We were just totally winging it.
We probably lost a year just doing it wrong and barking up the wrong tree.
Adam
I’d just stop you there. I don’t think we did it all wrong.
Verdy
No, we learnt a lot
Adam
The thing we did wrong was listen to everybody’s advice. Now Verdy and I are a couple of years older, we’re a hell of a lot more experienced and forthright about what we believe we’re doing with the business. And we’re probably not quite as easily swayed.
Verdy
You know, it’s like any career: when you’re young, you kind of listen to everyone and go along with everything. But then, you know, you get a bit older, wiser and you can dig your heels in a bit more.
We’ve learned so much, this is a whole new job to us. We didn’t know about running businesses. We knew about being freelancers and going around the world with cameras, so it’s like having a whole career U-turn. It’s great. Now we feel like we’re learning stuff again.
Adam
And actually, we’re probably a hell of a lot more mature than a lot of other businesses of our size because of the scrutiny and the hurdles we’ve gone through with financing. We only have a board because of the way we’ve been financed. And we also happen to have a wonderful ally on our board in Nick (Cavander, Creative UK Investment Manager) who really scrutinises the numbers. It’s great having Nick in our board meetings because it means there’s this other person, another voice who’s looking at things from a different angle.
CUK
What sort of growth has your business you experienced since the CGF loan?
Adam
Before the investment, we only had one employee and now there are seven of us. We had the finance which allowed the expansion and the expansion allowed the headcount. We’ve also overly doubled our turnover and hit all our numbers.
And, more importantly for us, we’re winning the sort of work that we built the company to win. We’re making broadcast TV, doing colour grading, we’re doing dubbing mixes, we’re doing voice overs and ADR (Automated Dialogue Replacement) sessions, which is what we built the studio for.
Verdy
The calibre of work that’s coming through here is more like what we wanted it to be. There’s a lot more stuff that comes through here that we’re a lot prouder of now.
CUK
Do you have a proudest achievement as a business?
Adam
I was really glad we didn’t make anyone redundant during covid. I think the fact that during that period of huge uncertainty – and it wasn’t through amazing foresight and us being amazing business leaders – by chance we managed to divert our energies into these business plans, these forecasts, finding the new space and actually doing this expansion.
You know, we opened up as covid was finishing in this country. And that meant that during that horrible period where no one knew what was going on, we didn’t sit on our hands.
Verdy
I always get a kick out of a new person joining the team because I think that’s a big milestone. Every booking’s a kind of kick, you know, you get that endorphin buzz. We try not to get too excited when we get an email asking for a quote on a big job, and half the time they don’t come in. But those big inquiries just wouldn’t happen unless we had a world class facility.
Adam
And the other thing that I am proud about is that when anyone like a graduate or an intern or someone unemployed knocks on the door or sends us an e-mail we always say, yes. Whatever it is we say yes; we get them in, we have a coffee and if they’re still persistent we let them use an edit suite. And I hope that in the future we’ll be saying, oh, do you remember when so-and-so popped in and now look at them on the red carpet at the premiere of that movie?
I want to be proud in the future of us opening doors to people and letting them into our industry because it’s a terribly nepotistic gatekept industry from which we probably all benefited at different points.
Verdy
Adam and I didn’t go to university and we’ve got a big agenda in terms of non-academic learning, especially in this industry. A lot of the education field is still pushing that [need for higher education to work in production] and we believe most is irrelevant. The technology moves so quickly anyway. By the time you’ve been out of the game for three or four years studying, it’s all different coding and workflows.
CUK
What advice would you give to early-stage creative businesses who are just setting up?
Verdy
Don’t listen to the noise, don’t be overwhelmed by the jargon and the absolute mountain of red tape that it takes. Just remember why you’re doing it and, and try and do it with somebody else, it helps. You can bounce your ideas off them [a business partner]. And if you can’t, just get a really good mentor.
Adam
There’s also this naive desire to be corporate and grow and be big, but actually no one wants to work or be with people who are corporate and big. They want to work with nice people who look after them. And it doesn’t matter if you’re working in a multinational or a tiny boutique hotel, being nice always helps.
Verdy
Stuff goes wrong, especially equipment. And I think if you’ve built up a bit of a personal relationship and they know who you are as people, they understand it a bit more. If you’re a big corporate machine with no face, when the s**t hits the fan they might not be as forgiving. So be nice to everyone!