“Having such a powerful network behind me has really changed how I approach the business. I’m a lot more certain in what I’m doing and I approach it now with a much more positive mind-set.”

“The course really empowered us to trust our instincts, and if we could just harness the tools that they were teaching us, we could really take the business to the next level.”

“Every entrepreneur or small business owner should be trying to learn more. Any time that you invest in yourself will pay dividends, quite literally, from the business in the future.”

“I would 100% advise people to go on the programme. But go all in, don’t hold back.”

“The course lets you understand your purpose better; it makes you figure out your direction of travel. Goldman Sachs taught us more confidence and how to be bold. We’ve gone from 6 employees to 60. That’s a nice story to tell.”

"What I learned from the Goldman Sachs programme is that I needed to step back to step up, so that I could be involved in the strategic planning of taking my business to the next level."

"We still do what we did 40 years ago just in a much more exciting way."

"Joining the family business was an opportunity to run the business, have a say about where to go and be really innovative."

"After finishing the programme, my business has grown from one site to three, and has exponentially grown in terms of numbers and revenue."

"We pride ourselves on being commercially minded with social values."

"The growth we have had has been incredible from the kitchen table to our own premises and manufacturing our own candles. And I’m really excited for the potential for the business now."

"The programme is structured around peer-to-peer learning. At first you think: 'How is that going to work between a restaurant, a cleaning company, a haulage company and a robot company?' But it soon becomes apparent that the problems are the same across all businesses."

"Through the programme I have streamlined a lot of our processes…instead of taking 29 minutes to process an order, it now takes us less than two minutes."

"A social enterprise is a business like any other business, but it strives to make the environment or the society that it works in a better place."

"10,000 Small Businesses allowed us to identify exactly where we wanted to be. You see yourself as someone delivering a vision, delivering a plan and delivering dreams for your team."

"The Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses programme gave me the confidence to rewrite our business plan with more ambition and to approach business angels saying, ‘here we are, we think this is great, come and join us'."