{"id":12123,"date":"2020-07-08T15:31:45","date_gmt":"2020-07-08T15:31:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.openbusinesscouncil.org\/?p=12123"},"modified":"2021-11-17T13:20:44","modified_gmt":"2021-11-17T13:20:44","slug":"simon-paine-ceo-popup-business-school-we-pivoted-our-events-business-in-lockdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.footballthink.com\/simon-paine-ceo-popup-business-school-we-pivoted-our-events-business-in-lockdown\/","title":{"rendered":"Simon Paine, CEO, PopUp Business School -“We pivoted our events business in lockdown”"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Simon Paine, CEO, PopUp Business School -“We pivoted our events business in lockdown”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Simon Paine, co-founder and CEO PopUp Business School,<\/a>\u00a0successfully rotated his events business during lockdown and he’s happy to share his story – below<\/p>\n

“We pivoted our events business in lockdown, now we are bigger than ever.”<\/p>\n

Overnight, PopUp Business School saw its business model wrecked and hundreds of thousands of pounds of business down the drain.<\/a> Yet it’s still in business and its CEO, Simon Paine, says there’s never been a better time to start up<\/p>\n

“March wasn’t a great month,” laughs Simon Paine. “We lost six figures\u2019 worth of business, a headline event with Google in New York was postponed and my business partner was locked down in the United States. Our entire business model revolved around holding events where we helped people to start up their own enterprises. With all public gatherings banned, we had no way to make money.”<\/p>\n

But, three months later, the\u00a0PopUp Business School\u00a0is still in business. It was eventually forced to furlough three members of staff but an online pivot means it’s making money again. “We are fighting hard and, honestly, I\u2019ve never felt more positive for the future – it\u2019s been a rollercoaster.”<\/p>\n

PopUp Business School events are funded by sponsors, making them entirely free for attendees. They are, says Paine, \u201cThe best business school money can\u2019t buy”. Prior to lockdown, it had a lot of success. Since founding in 2011, it had reached over 7500 people in six different countries. In the previous year, 967 people actually started trading with attending a PopUp event<\/a>. Its credibility was on the rise and it is backed by organisations including Henley Business School, Westminster City Council and the Department for Work and Pensions.<\/p>\n

The question was: could it\u00a0be done online? Paine says they’ve proven it can. “Overall, taking the events online has been very successful, though there are challenges,\u201d he notes. At their first fully online event, sponsored by Westminster Council, they had 265 attendees, making it the biggest course they’d ever run. A later course funded by Oxfordshire Council also gained an audience of over 100 attendees, more than double what they would have expected for an \u2018in-person\u2019 event.<\/p>\n

“You can get a greater geographic reach, which really helps in more rural locations. We would typically run most of our events in cities and towns before,” notes Paine.<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s a different experience, not being in the room with people; you have to mute them during most of the training sessions so you don’t get that natural back-and-forth you’d get at an in-person event.”<\/p>\n

Everyone has been learning the art of the video call or conference, and\u00a0Paine says engagement is the key. “Generating a strong sense of engagement has become a priority for the online events. Myself and the other trainers manage this in a few ways.<\/p>\n

“One is by creating breakout sessions on Zoom or Teams. During the course, we still want people networking and communicating with each other; it\u2019s part of what makes PopUp Business School special, and these breakout sessions make a big difference.<\/p>\n

“We also run live polls during the course. Often, this helps us to decide how to go forward with that day based on energy levels, at other times we’ll gather information about participants to help us decide what kind of material they will benefit from the most. But we’ve noticed that the polls, themselves, help to build engagement.”<\/p>\n

Getting ‘the tech’ right is also key. This doesn’t involve any in-depth tech skills, but rather there’s a focus on light, sound and building a sense of intimacy.<\/p>\n

Paine explains<\/a>. “We set up our equipment in a way that builds a sense of human interaction,We are careful to plan the practical things, like making sure a laptop is level with your face and that you have good natural light or a diffused lamp.<\/p>\n

“Also, at times we will invite participants to switch their camera on, to wave, thumbs up, smile, put their hands up and communicate, so that it’s not a one-way street.”<\/p>\n

So is the future of the business online?<\/p>\n

\u201cThere’s a lot of power in delivering in-person events,”<\/p>\n

Paine acknowledges.\u00a0“However, doing the events online has enabled us greater reach,\u00a0we’ve brought people to our online events who we think wouldn’t have been able to come to an in-person event.<\/p>\n

“So, we think ‘hybrid events’ will be the future. We want to do in-person events, but also live-stream some parts of the course for those that can’t make the event.<\/p>\n

“There\u2019s never been a more important time to teach debt-free entrepreneurship and it\u2019s our duty to grow our audience size in the UK, develop our international partners and get practical help, information and inspiration to help people get started.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Simon Paine, co-founder and CEO PopUp Business School,\u00a0successfully rotated his events business during lockdown and he’s happy to share his story – below “We pivoted our events business in lockdown, now we are bigger than ever.” Overnight, PopUp Business School saw its business model wrecked and hundreds of thousands of pounds of business down the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":12125,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":""},"categories":[3585,3822],"tags":[3468,14227],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nSimon Paine, CEO, PopUp Business School -"We pivoted our events business in lockdown"<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Simon Paine, co-founder and CEO PopUp Business School,\u00a0successfully rotated his events business during lockdown and he's happy to share his story - below\u00a0\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.footballthink.com\/simon-paine-ceo-popup-business-school-we-pivoted-our-events-business-in-lockdown\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Simon Paine, CEO, PopUp Business School -"We pivoted our events business in lockdown"\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Simon Paine, co-founder and CEO PopUp Business School,\u00a0successfully rotated his events business during lockdown and he's happy to share his story - below\u00a0\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.footballthink.com\/simon-paine-ceo-popup-business-school-we-pivoted-our-events-business-in-lockdown\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"OpenBusinessCouncil Directory\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-07-08T15:31:45+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-11-17T13:20:44+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.footballthink.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/maxresdefault.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1280\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"720\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Hernaldo Turrillo\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Hernaldo Turrillo\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.footballthink.com\/simon-paine-ceo-popup-business-school-we-pivoted-our-events-business-in-lockdown\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.footballthink.com\/simon-paine-ceo-popup-business-school-we-pivoted-our-events-business-in-lockdown\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Hernaldo Turrillo\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.footballthink.com\/#\/schema\/person\/b9610afd0759dc701187a7f622375c23\"},\"headline\":\"Simon Paine, CEO, PopUp Business School -“We pivoted our events business in lockdown”\",\"datePublished\":\"2020-07-08T15:31:45+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-11-17T13:20:44+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.footballthink.com\/simon-paine-ceo-popup-business-school-we-pivoted-our-events-business-in-lockdown\/\"},\"wordCount\":824,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.footballthink.com\/#organization\"},\"keywords\":[\"business\",\"coronavirus pandemic\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Business Resources\",\"Resources\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.footballthink.com\/simon-paine-ceo-popup-business-school-we-pivoted-our-events-business-in-lockdown\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.footballthink.com\/simon-paine-ceo-popup-business-school-we-pivoted-our-events-business-in-lockdown\/\",\"name\":\"Simon Paine, CEO, PopUp Business School -\\\"We pivoted our events business in lockdown\\\"\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.footballthink.com\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2020-07-08T15:31:45+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-11-17T13:20:44+00:00\",\"description\":\"Simon Paine, co-founder and CEO PopUp Business School,\u00a0successfully rotated his events business during lockdown and he's happy to share his story - below\u00a0\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.footballthink.com\/simon-paine-ceo-popup-business-school-we-pivoted-our-events-business-in-lockdown\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.footballthink.com\/simon-paine-ceo-popup-business-school-we-pivoted-our-events-business-in-lockdown\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.footballthink.com\/simon-paine-ceo-popup-business-school-we-pivoted-our-events-business-in-lockdown\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.footballthink.com\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Simon Paine, CEO, PopUp Business School -“We pivoted our events business in lockdown”\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.footballthink.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.footballthink.com\/\",\"name\":\"OpenBusinessCouncil Directory\",\"description\":\"Openbusinesscouncil\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.footballthink.com\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.footballthink.com\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":[\"Organization\",\"Place\"],\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.footballthink.com\/#organization\",\"name\":\"openbusinesscounsil\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.footballthink.com\/\",\"sameAs\":[],\"logo\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.footballthink.com\/simon-paine-ceo-popup-business-school-we-pivoted-our-events-business-in-lockdown\/#local-main-organization-logo\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.footballthink.com\/simon-paine-ceo-popup-business-school-we-pivoted-our-events-business-in-lockdown\/#local-main-organization-logo\"},\"openingHoursSpecification\":[{\"@type\":\"OpeningHoursSpecification\",\"dayOfWeek\":[\"Monday\",\"Tuesday\",\"Wednesday\",\"Thursday\",\"Friday\",\"Saturday\",\"Sunday\"],\"opens\":\"09:00\",\"closes\":\"17:00\"}]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.footballthink.com\/#\/schema\/person\/b9610afd0759dc701187a7f622375c23\",\"name\":\"Hernaldo Turrillo\",\"description\":\"Hernaldo Turrillo is a writer and author specialised in innovation, AI, DLT, SMEs, trading, investing and new trends in technology and business. He has been working for ztudium group since 2017. He is the editor of openbusinesscouncil.org, tradersdna.com, hedgethink.com, and writes regularly for intelligenthq.com, socialmediacouncil.eu. Hernaldo was born in Spain and finally settled in London, United Kingdom, after a few years of personal growth. Hernaldo finished his Journalism bachelor degree in the University of Seville, Spain, and began working as reporter in the newspaper, Europa Sur, writing about Politics and Society. He also worked as community manager and marketing advisor in Los Barrios, Spain. Innovation, technology, politics and economy are his main interests, with special focus on new trends and ethical projects. He enjoys finding himself getting lost in words, explaining what he understands from the world and helping others. Besides a journalist, he is also a thinker and proactive in digital transformation strategies. Knowledge and ideas have no limits.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.footballthink.com\/author\/hturrillo\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.footballthink.com\/simon-paine-ceo-popup-business-school-we-pivoted-our-events-business-in-lockdown\/#local-main-organization-logo\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.footballthink.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/logo_big.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.footballthink.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/logo_big.png\",\"width\":1161,\"height\":250,\"caption\":\"openbusinesscounsil\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Simon Paine, CEO, PopUp Business School -\"We pivoted our events business in lockdown\"","description":"Simon Paine, co-founder and CEO PopUp Business School,\u00a0successfully rotated his events business during lockdown and he's happy to share his story - below\u00a0","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.footballthink.com\/simon-paine-ceo-popup-business-school-we-pivoted-our-events-business-in-lockdown\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Simon Paine, CEO, PopUp Business School -\"We pivoted our events business in lockdown\"","og_description":"Simon Paine, co-founder and CEO PopUp Business School,\u00a0successfully rotated his events business during lockdown and he's happy to share his story - below\u00a0","og_url":"https:\/\/www.footballthink.com\/simon-paine-ceo-popup-business-school-we-pivoted-our-events-business-in-lockdown\/","og_site_name":"OpenBusinessCouncil Directory","article_published_time":"2020-07-08T15:31:45+00:00","article_modified_time":"2021-11-17T13:20:44+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1280,"height":720,"url":"https:\/\/www.footballthink.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/maxresdefault.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Hernaldo Turrillo","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Hernaldo Turrillo","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.footballthink.com\/simon-paine-ceo-popup-business-school-we-pivoted-our-events-business-in-lockdown\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.footballthink.com\/simon-paine-ceo-popup-business-school-we-pivoted-our-events-business-in-lockdown\/"},"author":{"name":"Hernaldo Turrillo","@id":"https:\/\/www.footballthink.com\/#\/schema\/person\/b9610afd0759dc701187a7f622375c23"},"headline":"Simon Paine, CEO, PopUp Business School -“We pivoted our events business in lockdown”","datePublished":"2020-07-08T15:31:45+00:00","dateModified":"2021-11-17T13:20:44+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.footballthink.com\/simon-paine-ceo-popup-business-school-we-pivoted-our-events-business-in-lockdown\/"},"wordCount":824,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.footballthink.com\/#organization"},"keywords":["business","coronavirus pandemic"],"articleSection":["Business Resources","Resources"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.footballthink.com\/simon-paine-ceo-popup-business-school-we-pivoted-our-events-business-in-lockdown\/","url":"https:\/\/www.footballthink.com\/simon-paine-ceo-popup-business-school-we-pivoted-our-events-business-in-lockdown\/","name":"Simon Paine, CEO, PopUp Business School -\"We pivoted our events business in lockdown\"","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.footballthink.com\/#website"},"datePublished":"2020-07-08T15:31:45+00:00","dateModified":"2021-11-17T13:20:44+00:00","description":"Simon Paine, co-founder and CEO PopUp Business School,\u00a0successfully rotated his events business during lockdown and he's happy to share his story - below\u00a0","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.footballthink.com\/simon-paine-ceo-popup-business-school-we-pivoted-our-events-business-in-lockdown\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.footballthink.com\/simon-paine-ceo-popup-business-school-we-pivoted-our-events-business-in-lockdown\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.footballthink.com\/simon-paine-ceo-popup-business-school-we-pivoted-our-events-business-in-lockdown\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.footballthink.com\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Simon Paine, CEO, PopUp Business School -“We pivoted our events business in lockdown”"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.footballthink.com\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.footballthink.com\/","name":"OpenBusinessCouncil Directory","description":"Openbusinesscouncil","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.footballthink.com\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.footballthink.com\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":["Organization","Place"],"@id":"https:\/\/www.footballthink.com\/#organization","name":"openbusinesscounsil","url":"https:\/\/www.footballthink.com\/","sameAs":[],"logo":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.footballthink.com\/simon-paine-ceo-popup-business-school-we-pivoted-our-events-business-in-lockdown\/#local-main-organization-logo"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.footballthink.com\/simon-paine-ceo-popup-business-school-we-pivoted-our-events-business-in-lockdown\/#local-main-organization-logo"},"openingHoursSpecification":[{"@type":"OpeningHoursSpecification","dayOfWeek":["Monday","Tuesday","Wednesday","Thursday","Friday","Saturday","Sunday"],"opens":"09:00","closes":"17:00"}]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.footballthink.com\/#\/schema\/person\/b9610afd0759dc701187a7f622375c23","name":"Hernaldo Turrillo","description":"Hernaldo Turrillo is a writer and author specialised in innovation, AI, DLT, SMEs, trading, investing and new trends in technology and business. He has been working for ztudium group since 2017. He is the editor of openbusinesscouncil.org, tradersdna.com, hedgethink.com, and writes regularly for intelligenthq.com, socialmediacouncil.eu. Hernaldo was born in Spain and finally settled in London, United Kingdom, after a few years of personal growth. Hernaldo finished his Journalism bachelor degree in the University of Seville, Spain, and began working as reporter in the newspaper, Europa Sur, writing about Politics and Society. He also worked as community manager and marketing advisor in Los Barrios, Spain. Innovation, technology, politics and economy are his main interests, with special focus on new trends and ethical projects. He enjoys finding himself getting lost in words, explaining what he understands from the world and helping others. Besides a journalist, he is also a thinker and proactive in digital transformation strategies. Knowledge and ideas have no limits.","url":"https:\/\/www.footballthink.com\/author\/hturrillo\/"},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.footballthink.com\/simon-paine-ceo-popup-business-school-we-pivoted-our-events-business-in-lockdown\/#local-main-organization-logo","url":"https:\/\/www.footballthink.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/logo_big.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.footballthink.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/logo_big.png","width":1161,"height":250,"caption":"openbusinesscounsil"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.footballthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12123"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.footballthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.footballthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.footballthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.footballthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12123"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.footballthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12123\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17001,"href":"https:\/\/www.footballthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12123\/revisions\/17001"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.footballthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.footballthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.footballthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.footballthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}