How We Built MyCharleston

Dance brought us together when Elena stumbled into Fiona’s dance class on a cold January evening back in 2013. Within just 20 minutes we had a connection and were planning our first performance. Neither of us could have imagined that this newly formed friendship would lead us to teach thousands of people to dance, to become world record breakers and create our company, MyCharleston.

Elena and Fiona's first photoshoot in 2013.

Our business is a partnership characterised by our energy and passion which has been enriched by having two distinct personalities with a shared vision: Creating a successful dance company.

The success of our relationship is as much about our differences as our similarities. One thing we have in common is we are not shy to speak in public, in fact we love it! We both have drama degrees and when we arrived at the NatWest Accelerator in Brighton (a business programme to support SMEs), we won the pitching competition on the first day. While many people hate public speaking, we are in our elements when talking about MyCharleston.

Wining the Pitch Challenge on the first day of joining the NatWest Accelerator, 2016.

Leading dance lessons for 200 people at Brighton Fringe 2017.

Apart from our love of the limelight, we are quite different, but this works because we can be the ying to each other’s yang.  Elena keeps Fiona on task and answerable to deadlines. Fiona pushes Elena to step outside the day to day business and focus on the future vision.  Sometimes we do struggle to see things from the other person’s perspective because we are both passionate, strong women. Thankfully our senses of humour are completely aligned and this has always got us through tense moments. Teaching dance and creating 1920s events leads to some ridiculous situations and we would not have come this far if we didn’t both see the funny side.

Elena and Fiona in the studio ready to teach.

Dressed in costume ready to perform.

People quickly recognise that Elena has the business brain, she is considered in making decisions and can structure her time to achieve tasks. Her five years’ managerial experience in the marketing industry has given her so many useful skills for running the business, from project management, to web editing and running marketing campaigns. Her creativity and talent for marketing is so effective that when we looked to enhance it, marketing consultants they said there was little we could do to improve our social media campaigns.

Fiona loves working with people, she is a strong communicator and will work hard to nurture the talent she sees in others. She is excellent at designing content for dance courses and training teachers.  Her experience as a documentary maker for BBC means she can bring our product to life. The first video we made went viral and as a company we recognise video marketing is a huge part of our success.

Together we are creative, enthusiastic, analytical and supportive bringing out the best in each other and, in turn, our work.

How We Built MyCharleston

Dance brought us together when Elena stumbled into Fiona’s dance class on a cold January evening back in 2013. Within just 20 minutes we had a connection and were planning our first performance. Neither of us could have imagined that this newly formed friendship would lead us to teach thousands of people to dance, to become world record breakers and create our company, MyCharleston.

Elena and Fiona's first photoshoot in 2013.

Our business is a partnership characterised by our energy and passion which has been enriched by having two distinct personalities with a shared vision: Creating a successful dance company.

The success of our relationship is as much about our differences as our similarities. One thing we have in common is we are not shy to speak in public, in fact we love it! We both have drama degrees and when we arrived at the NatWest Accelerator in Brighton (a business programme to support SMEs), we won the pitching competition on the first day. While many people hate public speaking, we are in our elements when talking about MyCharleston.

Wining the Pitch Challenge on the first day of joining the NatWest Accelerator, 2016.

Leading dance lessons for 200 people at Brighton Fringe 2017.

Apart from our love of the limelight, we are quite different, but this works because we can be the ying to each other’s yang.  Elena keeps Fiona on task and answerable to deadlines. Fiona pushes Elena to step outside the day to day business and focus on the future vision.  Sometimes we do struggle to see things from the other person’s perspective because we are both passionate, strong women. Thankfully our senses of humour are completely aligned and this has always got us through tense moments. Teaching dance and creating 1920s events leads to some ridiculous situations and we would not have come this far if we didn’t both see the funny side.

Elena and Fiona in the studio ready to teach.

Dressed in costume ready to perform.

People quickly recognise that Elena has the business brain, she is considered in making decisions and can structure her time to achieve tasks. Her five years’ managerial experience in the marketing industry has given her so many useful skills for running the business, from project management, to web editing and running marketing campaigns. Her creativity and talent for marketing is so effective that when we looked to enhance it, marketing consultants they said there was little we could do to improve our social media campaigns.

Fiona loves working with people, she is a strong communicator and will work hard to nurture the talent she sees in others. She is excellent at designing content for dance courses and training teachers.  Her experience as a documentary maker for BBC means she can bring our product to life. The first video we made went viral and as a company we recognise video marketing is a huge part of our success.

Together we are creative, enthusiastic, analytical and supportive bringing out the best in each other and, in turn, our work.

Elena's journey into entrepreneurship

Elena, our MD, has been featured this month in Platinum Business Magazine about taking the plunge from turning MyCharleston into a hobby into a full time job and how the team have grown in in the past 12 month. Read the full interview about her life as an entrepreneur.

Tell us about your journey into entrepreneurship?

Elena with the magazine feature

Fiona and I started working together when we made a short dance film about Brighton. We wanted to showcase our city with people dancing the Charleston in front of iconic locations. After the release of the film it went viral and our dance classes became oversubscribed. From that moment we discovered a gap in the market: People wanted to learn the Charleston. Suddenly we started to get approached to teach, perform at events and make films.

MyCharleston started as a passion project which then grew into a lifestyle business.  Our biggest obstacle from there was changing our mindset. it was hard to think we could take the business a step further. When we were accepted onto the NatWest Accelerator our mentors helped us unravel this block. They challenged our assumptions and pushed us to see we had a business model that could grow. We learnt from shifting our mindset that we could change the company from a hobby into our careers.

In 5 years time what impact will your business have on the world?

MyCharleston provides a service that enriches people, improves health and fosters community. Our experiences make people happier through dance and over the next five years we will continue to grow and create more positive impacts on people’s lives.

What’s your #1 tip for fellow entrepreneurs?

Fiona and I built the company together and working as a partnership has both its challenges and rewards.  My tip if you work with someone is to recognise your partnership as an asset. We have taken time to refine how we work, communicate and nurture our relationship which has been key to growing a healthy and happy business.

How has the NatWest Accelerator programme helped to accelerate you and your business?

Full MyCharleston feature

In August 2017, we were accepted o to the NatWest Accelerator programme where we began a growth plan. It included: Expanding our classes, our events programme and merchandise. In six months we have grown our weekly courses from three to eleven, launched in five new cities and trained four teachers. Our monthly turnover has tripled allowing us to quit our jobs and focus on MyCharleston full time

What are you most excited about right now? 

We are really excited about our expansion. Our ambition for 2019 is to train ten new teachers and to develop into a franchise. We are also really looking forward to the summer season too as we are going to be teaching and performing at many vintage events across Sussex as well as our own 1920s Afternoon Tea events at the Hilton Brighton Metropole in November. 

If you would like to ask Elena a question about MyCharleston or the Natwest Accelerator please contact us here

Being Pitch Perfect

Do you think you could pitch your business in just 60 seconds? Explain the value, the traction and it’s future plans all under a minute? At Enterprenuial Sparks, where we are based, we are challenged weekly to constantly refine and pitch our businesses so if the chance ever did occur that we were trapped in a lift with Ducan Bannatyne we would have him reaching for his cheque book by the time the doors opened.

After months of practice, tweeking, chopping and changing the pitch, the ESparks team challenged me to learn and deliver it on local Radio Station, Radio Reverb.

Always up for a challenge and being the competitive person that I am I took them on it and rewrote it (again), learnt it by talking aloud whilst driving and making my poor fiancé listen to it for the 100th time.

After a few days of practice I took myself down to the studio at Open Market to be on the Brighton Business Show and I felt pretty happy with the result. I even managed to beat the time and say everything in my elevator pitch in just 55 seconds, before the lift doors opened… If only Mr. Bannatyne had been there to hear it.

But seeing as you are,  you can listen to the  pitch and the full interview by following the link and tune in from 24 mins: