What is it like to start a company? We asked Jenna Ackerley, MD of Events Under Canvas to give her insight.
“I wasn’t expecting that attending my cousin’s wedding would lead me on to build a luxury marquee business. But 12 years ago, after I saw how incredible they were at that wedding, I decided to jump in and set up East Anglia’s first tipi hire company.
In that first year, I told myself that if I could get 12 bookings, I’d have proved I can make a go of it. I built some good rapport with the main tipi manufacturer, found a local barn to store all the kit in, set up a Facebook page, pulled together some crew, and commissioned a friend to build us a website. There was no business plan, other than a simple Excel Spreadsheet to work through the numbers and calculate if I could make it viable.
Within a couple of days of the Facebook page being live, I had a call from a lady wanting tipis for her wedding the next summer. At this point I had not even ordered any tipis, yet she was ready to send me her deposit to secure her date. This gave me the confidence I needed to crack on, and a big sense of responsibility towards customers ready to put their trust in me. That first season we did 56 events, smashing my original target, and bringing in profit from year one. Bookings at Latitude, Isle of Wight Festival and Jimmy’s Farm quickly built our reputation as a can-do, trusted event tent provider.
Those early months and years were a very steep learning process. Navigating HMRC, VAT, business banking, Companies House, payroll, HR, Google Adwords, SEO, stock management, bookkeeping, pricing, fleet management, insurance, invoicing, cash flow, purchasing, terms & conditions, health and safety – All subjects I knew nothing about, but I had the balls to go and find people who did, as and when each need arose.
I reached out to an ex-boss on LinkedIn and told him my plans and asked if I could buy him a coffee to talk through my ideas. He agreed to be my regular mentor, and later his wife and he became investors, friends and confidantes. I have always sought out advice and guidance from people further along their path than I. I have learned that the moment you think you know all the answers is the moment you falter. We always need teachers and must be proactive in seeking out the right ones out for where we are on our journey.”
“The growth of the company over the next 7-8 years was unplanned, exciting and often overwhelming. My job became less about wearing many hats and juggling a small business, and more about building a team around me of people who could do things better than I. Kind, customer-focussed sales people, strong, safe and skilled ops managers and crew, diligent administrators with amazing attention to detail. Can-do mindset, letting people fail and learn, having people’s backs, exceeding expectations and challenging norms became the culture at Events Under Canvas, leading to a lot of pride, staff retention, fun, awards and high morale. It wasn’t easy, and our amazing team worked long hours in tough conditions to build us a reputation of high-quality and integrity.
Some impossibly hard challenges that still make me sweat when I think about them include; exiting a co-founder very early on, having to choose between someone’s weddings and my crews wellbeing, taking risks and making judgement calls that put our people at risk, rising above unkind rumours and betrayals from people I trusted, exiting people who I cared about but knew were not good for the business, making redundancies and handling some tough HR issues I would rather run away from, handling heart breaking complaints when things went wrong, and navigating family health emergencies and divorce, all whilst carrying a weight of responsibility I resented and cherished interchangeably.”
“Starting a business is not easy. There are some incredible highs, but some desperate lows, and being selective about who you are willing to take criticism from is a lesson I wish I had learned sooner to save myself a lot of pain and self-doubt.
I am unbelievably proud of the journey I have been on with Events Under Canvas. I attach a lot of my identity to my company, and when Covid cancelled 125 weddings overnight in 2020, with all the challenges and drama that period brought, our resilience, integrity, loyalty, creativity and confidence, all prevented Events Under Canvas (and its founder) from collapsing entirely.
A 12-year-old Events Under Canvas is now a calmer, stronger, more mature and stable place. It is led collaboratively by a leadership team of trusted experts, where quality, passion, safety and pride are staples. Our brilliant 18 strong year-round team, supplemented with another 50 summer seasonal crew, can undertake 25 events per weekend across England, and over 400 events per year from our HQ in Capel St Mary, Suffolk, where we have three warehouses, yard, offices, cleaning decks and showcase space.
I started my business when my son was four months old, using some personal savings and a small loan from my parents. Through guts, failure, tenacity, grit, doubt, stress and risk-taking Events Under Canvas has survived and is thriving. I can’t wait to see where the next 12 years will take us.”