Empowering future entrepreneurs: Wickers Dragons’ Den

At TTC, we believe in the power of community, collaboration, and creating opportunities for the next generation. That’s why our partnership with The Wickers Charity, an amazing East London organisation supporting underprivileged young people,  is so close to our hearts.

Since October 2024, we’ve been working together to support Wickers’ mission: helping young people build confidence, gain skills, and explore their potential. This summer, we added a twist, a Dragons’ Den-style entrepreneurship workshop, TTC-style.

🐉 Enter the Dragons

At the end of July, we turned Wickers HQ into a buzzing start-up incubator for a day. The challenge? Come up with a business idea, develop it and pitch it.

With help from our TTC volunteers, teams tackled every stage of the start-up journey: from customer research and branding to business planning and Dragon-pitching.

💡 From brainstorm to boardroom

We kicked things off with energising ice-breakers before diving into two fast-pased workshops.

• Concept & entrepreneurship with Lowry: helping teams dig into real-world problems and build ideas around them.
• Branding with Eleanor: which took creativity up a notch as teams turned their ideas into identities, complete with names, colours, and hand-drawn logos.

Markers flew, paper rustled, and the room buzzed with enthusiasm as business plans began to take shape.

🔍 Market research… with a twist

Next came the expert stations, a bit like speed-dating for start-ups. Each team rotated through:

• Marketing sessions with Lucy: learning the best ways to sell a product

• Consumer research panels with Laura: finding out what customers need from their idea
  
• Pitch coaching from our TTC mentors: helping teams find their voice and tell their story with confidence.
  

This dynamic setup gave every team tools to strengthen their ideas and perfect their storytelling in preparation for the big moment.

🎤 Showtime: Pitching to the Dragons

After lunch, it was time. The pitches began.

Each team stepped up to present to our TTC Dragons. They delivered confident, creative, and inspiring presentations covering everything from brand identity to marketing channels and potential challenges.

We scored them across seven areas: creativity, insight, scale, storytelling, and more. Yes, there were winners. But the real triumph? Seeing how much each team grew in a single day.

The teams came up with some insightful and inventive ideas, including a cooling puffer jacket, an AI waterbottle, an educational fitness app and an AI scent diffuser to encourage sleep.

💫  A lasting impact

We left the day feeling energised, proud, and full of admiration for the boldness and brilliance these young people brought to the table. Events like these are more than one-off workshops. They are confidence boosters, skill-builders, and memory makers.

❤️ Want to get involved?

The Wickers Charity is doing vital work year-round. If you’re as inspired as we were, visit the website and find out how you can support its mission.

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• A thought-provoking day with the Travel by B Corp Community
• TTC partnership with The Wickers Charity