Reuben Agilinko

I run FunnClubb, an Ofsted-registered children's holiday camps, football club across Hackney and East London. Two companies, seven venues, a team of 30. No funding, no investors, no grants. Ever.

Before that: four years in debt, a £70,000 VAT bill that nearly finished me, and eighteen-hour days, seven days a week, in a sector that didn't expect me.

This year I raised my day rate 92% mid-booking-window. Everyone said demand would collapse. The two biggest weeks in the company's history came afterwards.

I've also released fifteen albums as an artist and promoted precisely none of them, which turns out to be the same problem as the first one.

Topics I can speak on:

• Pricing nerve: how to raise prices without losing customers
• Bootstrapping with zero funding
• What six years of 18-hour days actually costs you
• Building a business in the community you're from
• Why founders stay invisible a,nd what it costs them
• Running an Ofsted-registered business: compliance, safeguarding, trust
• The artist/operator crossover