Folkestone Showcase: From “Just a Hobby” to Business Founders

Our third Be Your Own Boss programme concluded with a Showcase at Sunflower House, Folkestone, on Monday, 1st December 2025. Be Your Own Boss is our flagship start-up programme, working with communities to create new enterprises and develop entrepreneurial mindsets. The eight-week programme builds to a Showcase where participants present   their projects to the local community. To help other organisations replicate this model, we have released the Be Your Own Boss Programme Toolkit – a mixed-media guide to co-designing and adapting the programme locally.

“I put everything in a box and thought [starting a business] was for particular people, and that I wasn’t one of those people, that I wasn’t confident, and not clever enough… No one had told me that, but that’s how I felt." – Tracey, Founder of Lilley's Little Paws (pictured above).

For Tracey, a participant in our Be Your Own Boss programme, these doubts were a significant barrier. While she had already developed popular pet treat products, it was “just a hobby” for her own rabbits and friends’ pets.

On Monday, 1st December at Sunflower House, Tracey proved those doubts wrong.

The event marked the Be Your Own Boss Showcase: the culmination of the cohort's hard work, an opportunity to reflect on how far they’d come, and a chance to share their budding businesses.

“Coming to this course has built up my confidence," Tracey said. "It’s given me a chance and helped me to dare to take a risk… I do get shy still, but now I’m finding it quite exciting and I’m wilng to give it a go and take it one step at a time.”

Celebrating Success at Sunflower House

Tracey was just one of the participants displaying their newly developed businesses at the Showcase. She was joined by peers like Sanjida, whose popcorn brand featured alongside food provided by the cohort and the programme's Food Product Lead, Hulya Erdal.

Hulya, a culinary educator who runs the Folkestone Cookery School, spoke at the event about the transformation she witnessed in the group.

“I would get involved in programmes like this over and over again… because what I love is being able to impart my knowledge and experiences," she said. "It’s a project that’s in touch with my heart because I’m an entrepreneur, I’m a business owner, I’ve done this journey.”

Rebecca Smith, Growing Kent & Medway’s Mentoring Programme Manager, and Jon O’Connor, Chair of Trustees at Sunflower House, also highlighted the progress of the participants and the opportunities to build on the momentum of Be Your Own Boss in Folkestone.

After receiving their certificates – alongside a recipe book developed during the programme – attendees and participants networked over a lunch featuring local produce supplied by Beckie Alves of Kent Food Hubs.

Bridging the Inequality Gap 

Be Your Own Boss is the cornerstone of our commitment to inclusive growth. It aims to provide ambitious individuals with the knowledge, skills, and confidence to start their own food or drink business, without assuming any prior experience.

The programme targets an audience often not represented in  traditional business support. We believe that anyone can have a great business idea, and our aim is to support those ideas by developing activities directly with the people who need them.

Three programmes have now achieved this. Each course runs for six to eight weeks, providing accessible business and kitchen-based sessions tailored specifically to the participants. Crucially, each group remains supported by our extensive food system network long after the showcase concludes.

This ongoing support is vital because the economic reality in our region is challenging.

Kent and Medway are regions of great contrast. Areas such as Thanet, Medway, and Folkestone & Hythe have significantly higher unemployment rates than the Kent average, let alone the more affluent commuter areas in West Kent.

These statistics are not abstract; they affect real lives. Perhaps the starkest example is life expectancy. A baby born today in Sheerness East has a predicted life expectancy of 75 years – 15 years less than a child in Boxley & Detling just over half an hour away.

A Blueprint for Action

We know that tackling these statistics requires more than just good intentions; it requires a proven method. We want to help other organisations replicate the success we’ve seen in Folkestone, Medway, and Margate.

Drawing on the learnings from our co-designed programmes, we have developed the Be Your Own Boss Programme Toolkit.

This is an evidence-based, mixed-media resource for organisations aiming to tackle local unemployment. It removes the guesswork from running a support programme, offering tips, resources, and a practical guide on how to co-design the model with your own target audience.

> Click Here to Download the Be Your Own Boss Toolkit (PDF)

> Click Here to Watch the Be Your Own Boss Documentary Episodes (YouTube)