There are things you can’t be taught, and there are things that aren’t taught – the balance between the two needs to be addressed for the next generation of innovators, according to a leading social media entrepreneur.
Ryan Williams, co-founder of KOMI Group, a multi-million-pound social media, marketing and licensing agency, has written an open letter to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak urging him to overhaul A-level business studies in the national curriculum. In the letter, he accuses Mr Sunak and his government of having ‘shunned the opportunity to support the creation of the next generation of British entrepreneurs’ despite saying they want the UK to be the best place to start and grow a business.
In this current economic environment, he says, the government needs a long-term plan for growth, and first-class enterprise education should be at the heart of such a plan. He tells Rishi Sunak that business studies must move away from teaching old and dusty perceptions of business and textbook learning to become ‘laser-focused on giving students the tools, drive, and expertise they need to be successful in business’.
Ryan recently sold his share in KOMI Group in order to focus on other business ventures and to support the creation of young entrepreneurs. It’s the latest step in an entrepreneurial journey that began when he turned his passion for parody football Twitter accounts into a successful business.
“Believe it or not, my journey into business was a complete accident,”
explained Ryan.
“It all started when I began playing around on social media, making funny parody accounts of various public figures. It was something to pass the time while we were looking after our new-born baby. I was still working my full-time job at Manchester Metropolitan University in the IT department. I’d been interested in entrepreneurship in the past, but my time at school taught me that it wasn’t for people like me, so I pursued a career in IT instead.
“Some of my accounts began to pick up a lot of followers and engagement, one of which was Deluded Brendan, a parody of the then Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers. The account gained so much attention that it won at the Football Blogging Awards, and I had to take time off work to accept it, despite no one knowing I was behind the account!
“Founding KOMI Group, however, was no accident. At the time, there was a brilliant online community of other people running similar accounts, and we all worked together to compete with the likes of LADbible. That meant promoting each other’s accounts, sharing any tips we had, and making connections. That’s how I met Andrew Trotman and Matt Thomas, co-founders of KOMI.”
Before long, KOMI Group was an 80-strong agency of people working with some of the country’s most recognisable accounts. But it was what he learned in the years building his own following and then launching a business that led Ryan to move on to new ventures, and to devote more time to encourage young people to follow in his footsteps.
He believes that the national curriculum fails to encourage entrepreneurship, with children being pushed towards higher education, and he describes business studies courses ‘unfit for purpose’ and likely to end up ‘boring kids to death’.
Ryan said:
“Building a business isn’t presented as a viable option for children who are instead pushed towards academia and university – which isn’t a problem, as long as the door of entrepreneurship isn’t shut off to them. Schools could go a long way in fixing this simply by inviting local entrepreneurs to speak to children and giving them a realistic view of business, making it clear that anyone can do it with the right attitude. It starts with one idea, you take it one step at a time, and you learn as you go.
“Specifically, for the Business Studies curriculum, they have attempted to make the subject far too academic for it to be effective. Entrepreneurship isn’t about carrying out a series of administrative tasks, and it’s not a box-ticking exercise. You don’t need to know every single detail of every moving part of a business. You don’t need a 20-page business plan, and there’s not just one way of starting a business. This approach is boring kids to death, as it did for me.”
Instead, Ryan believes the focus needs to be on realistic, inspiring and creative approaches to entrepreneurship that sets young people up for the future, not for a type of business that was common 20 years ago. It needs to be hands-on and foster that entrepreneurial spark which will get them to success.
“Children have a much better awareness of running businesses online than any person writing the curriculum appears to have. Kids see their favourite influencers posting paid content on Instagram, promoting their newest products online, and influencers-turned-businesspeople using socials as a way to build a business – from musicians, to models, to bakers. The curriculum needs to do more to acknowledge the fact that most young business owners operate online, and it’s becoming less common for them to set up bricks-and-mortar shops.
“Companies that are still relying on traditional methods to communicate with their current and potential customers are seriously missing out. It’s not the case anymore that social media is purely populated by teenagers that you assume couldn’t be part of your customer base. It is estimated that 92.4% of UK adults are on social media, and these platforms offer some of the most accurate targeting tools available. Many people use social media as a search engine and expect to be able to find out information through these platforms.
“My opinion, and what I wanted to get across in my open letter to the PM, is that we need to be teaching young entrepreneurs to be resilient and determined, and to continue trying even when it doesn’t seem to work at first.
“These businesses will soon become the very foundation of our economy, and in order for the country to prosper, they need to be able to thrive. Giving young entrepreneurs the proper tools and education is absolutely central to this.”
Ryan’s current focus is inspiring the next generation of young entrepreneurs through speaking at events and engaging with key stakeholders in the education and enterprise sectors.
You can keep up to date with his journey here. https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryantwilliams2/