​So, Mae and Sam, you’ve been best friends for over 25 years and business partners for 10! How did you first meet?

We’ve been best friends since we met in the playground at primary school. I had moved to the school a couple of years after everyone else started and instantly thought Mae was the coolest person there and followed her around until we became friends. We bonded over our shared love of arts and crafts, often spending time at Mae’s house doing papier mache and painting.

​How was the transition from a good friendship to becoming business partners?

Our transition from friends to business partners was very gradual. We worked together for a long time before we got to that point. But we wouldn’t even describe ourselves as just business partners, more like family. We crossed a threshold about three years ago where we started to do things more effortlessly than friends or business partners could. Things like immediately being fine after an argument or being able to disagree with each other’s opinions without either of us getting upset; things that friends sometimes struggle with because there’s usually clear boundaries that come with that territory. It definitely feels more like we’re family who’ve gone into business with each other but it did take a while to get to that point.

​How did you deal with conflict, and how do you prevent it from affecting your friendship?

It’s a case of testing boundaries whilst always having open lines of communication. We’re quite different communicators, for instance I want to talk about everything all of the time whereas Mae doesn’t really want to talk about anything any of the time. We’ve found that the combination of these two things has created a fantastic level of compromise. Learning this has made the transition into business so much easier. From my experience having that foundation of friendship is what makes us better founders. If you don’t have that, it’s more of struggle to understand where the other person is coming from because you don’t have any insight into that person’s history. Whereas we have an extensive history so find it much easier to understand why we’re arguing and are quickly able to come up with a compromise.

​What are the advantages of having a good friendship as part of your business structure?

Our friendship has been invaluable throughout the formation of the business. Naturally there have been incredible highs and crushing lows but we always have each other to celebrate and support through each success and challenge. We often think of our relationship like a marriage, there’s a contract that binds us and sometimes it’s going to be hard but there’s always going to be amazing stuff happening too. You’ve got to celebrate the wins and roll with the punches – and there’s no one better to do that with than your best friend!

​What drove you both to start a creative industries-related business?

When we were going through school, creative aspirations were largely stamped out for Mae. She’d wanted to be a fashion designer, but the people around her said it wasn’t a real career path, it wasn’t stable and there was no money in it. She actually ended up becoming a chartered accountant which is possibly the most dramatic change she could have done. I always wanted to be a ceramicist but I thought there was only one path to get there, which was university, so when I didn’t get into any art schools I thought that dream was dead in the water. I tried studying law but that didn’t work out and I ended up working for a tech startup.

So when we entered the working world, neither of us were pursuing our dreams but we were looking around and seeing that, actually, there are loads of people working in the creative industries doing a variety of things that you just don’t get taught about in school. We learnt that the whole point of going into the creative industries is that things don’t have to be linear. School had taught us that careers were linear and that there were only about three jobs in each creative industry that had very specific entry paths.

We started ERIC, because we realised that a lot of what we’d been told wasn’t true, most of it was outdated and there are actually tonnes of career opportunities in the creative industries. The purpose of ERIC is to stop other young people from falling into the same traps that we did and so that they know just how wide and lucrative their creative career options are.

What were some of the early pitfalls you encountered?

One of the earliest pitfalls we encountered was quitting our jobs to start the business then realising neither of us had any money. That was a bit of a panic that led us to starting a video production company that we ran for about 5 years which ended up being quite successful. We used the money we were making from that to fund ERIC so it ended up being a happy disaster.

We often wondered if the market was ready for ERIC and for a few years it wasn’t, though the young people who wanted our help definitely were. It’s just the businesses we needed to fund the company that weren’t. There ended up being a lot of waiting.

ERIC’s had several different formats over the years which has probably been our second big pitfall. We’ve pivoted the business at least three times. The company actually started as an online magazine then we ran alternative careers fairs for 10 years before finally creating the ERIC app during the pandemic. Pivoting your business is never an easy decision because you essentially have to scrap everything and start again. You obviously retain a bank of knowledge to help you restart but it’s a huge effort to change your entire business model. But we’d say we’ve learnt more from the pitfalls than we have anything else and the current version of ERIC, the ERIC creative careers app is, by far, the one that enables us to help the most young people.

How did you find the technical aspects of the business?

Neither Mae or I really have any tech experience. I used to work at a tech startup but it doesn’t mean that I know anything about tech so that’s definitely been a challenge.

Embedding ourselves in Female Founder communities has been incredibly helpful because it’s nice to have that sisterhood of support and we’ve been able to ask very basic questions without judgement which is great. We’ve learned a lot of lessons from them.

We also, early on, worked with a couple of agencies that didn’t work out. They weren’t very good or we weren’t very good at giving them effective instructions. We’ve had to learn about our own failings on that side.

Now though, we work with an agency that’s absolutely fantastic and communicates very well with us. Communication has always been the big thing for us with tech because neither of us are technical people so we needed an agency that recognises that we have no tech knowledge and communicates with us in a way that we’ll understand.

If I was to give advice to someone who was starting a tech business with no tech knowledge it would be to find someone who can help translate because that’s been incredibly useful for us.

Why did you feel there was a need for a career-focused app?

We decided to create an app because our target audience is Gen Z and I know it’s a bit of a stereotype that they’re always on their phones but having an app means that ERIC

is always in the palm of their hand. Our goal has always been to democratise access to the creative industries and help young people gain the knowledge and information required to find careers in the creative industries. It’s something we didn’t have when we were at school which is ultimately the reason neither of us pursued our dreams of being a ceramicist and a fashion designer. We simply weren’t taught that it was possible or that there were so many different routes to get there. We always wish that we’d been taught about the wealth of jobs in the creative industries beyond the traditional maker roles so now we’re very passionate about sharing that with young people and an app is a perfect place to house all of that in one place whilst also aggregating current job opportunities from across the creative industries.

What was the main marketing strategy you found to be effective?

Our most effective marketing strategy has definitely been TikTok. It’s been transformative for the business, even though the algorithm is constantly changing so it isn’t always consistent. It’s meant that we’ve been able to go directly to young people, lots of our competitors just don’t do that which helps us to stand out.

The other way that we market, which is very important to me because I’m very passionate about changing the education system and making careers education more effective is going through schools and working with careers teams, careers advisors and creative subject staff members. We love working with schools because we feel like we’re making a long term difference and embedding creative careers into individual school curriculums. That’s incredibly important to us.

How useful is social media in your marketing strategy?

Social media has been incredibly useful in our marketing strategy. TikTok especially has helped us to reach thousands of young people and show them how to get careers in the creative industries. It’s enabled us to get directly in front of our target audience and help them learn about the various career paths that are open to them.

We also market a lot through LinkedIn, various members of our team have their own presence on their and use it to shout about the amazing things happening across the creative industries as well as the amazing opportunities that young people can find on the ERIC app.

Which platform do you find to be the best for attracting new clients?

For us it’s LinkedIn. We imagine this is the same for most businesses. It’s useful because it’s a business dedicated platform that allows space for conversations that aren’t overly professional. It fits really well with our colloquial way of talking and we often get direct messaged by people telling us about how passionate they are about spreading awareness around creative careers education, so it’s been a really useful tool to help us connect to other advocates that share our ethos.

How do you see ERIC developing?

There are loads of different ways that ERIC can develop in the future as we’ve seen demands for a number of different expansions. One is to expand into different countries, we get tonnes of requests from people around the world to find opportunities where they are. We could also expand into various different industries like finance, tech or healthcare. But the most requested expansion is to open ERIC up to older age groups. The app is designed for 16-25 year olds but we get lots of feedback from people above that age range who love the app and would like to see it supplied for their age group.

​How important is it that small business owners understand coding?

It’s not necessarily that important for small business owners to understand coding. What is vital is understanding data. We’ve fallen into the trap several times of not really knowing what we’re talking about with data. We have a data specialist at the moment who is working with us. It takes a creative mindset to analyse data and ask the right questions and that’s something that takes time to learn. The data we’re mainly analysing is what the young people on the app are looking at so that we can serve them better. What opportunities are they saving? What resources are they clicking on? It helps us to understand where we need to go next.

Where is the place to learn about the technical aspects of an app-based business?

I don’t necessarily think there’s one specific place. We’ve found founder groups and forums that have been incredibly helpful to our learning. We’ve also, on occasion, called people that we know who work in tech who are willing to sit down with us and answer specific questions. For us, the way that’s worked best isn’t going, ‘let’s just learn about tech’, but having specific questions and figuring out the best way to find the answer. It means that we’re able to apply our learnings to parts of the business we’re working on then and there, making the information much easier to absorb.

Which tech entrepreneurs do you most admire and why?

There is one tech entrepreneur that I absolutely love and that’s Melanie Perkins, the founder of Canva. Firstly she’s come across so much adversity on her journey and so many people just didn’t believe in her as a female founder (which is so depressing) and they also didn’t really believe in the product. But despite all those ‘experts’ telling her it would never work, she’s absolutely smashing it. The actual product she’s created is also fantastic. It’s democratised access to design in a way that really fits in with our ethos at ERIC. I’m always passionate about products that break barriers for people and make the playing field more equal. I’m saying all this as someone who’s terrible at design, I don’t know how I’d manage without Canva. I’d be forking out so much money that I don’t have, just to fulfill my design needs.

I also love the fact that Melanie Perkins isn’t obsessed with money, she’s driven by the purpose of her business not the pursuit of wealth and she gives so much away. I don’t admire tech founders who accumulate wealth just for the sake of it, it doesn’t really make sense to me. It’s not a logical approach to building a business, you really need to be passionate about what the business is doing.

What are your 5 main productivity apps?

I don’t have productivity apps. I can’t force myself to be productive, it just has to happen and that’s largely motivated by my passion for what we do at ERIC. If I wasn’t productive then we wouldn’t be able to do all of the amazing things that we do. If I had to pick some then it would be the apps that are foundational to my work like gmail, google calendar, and TikTok. I can’t force myself to be productive when I’m not and I often think that that’s a detriment to most traditional businesses that force people to work set hours. It’s one of the benefits of running a business that I can work when I want rather than forcing myself to be productive during ‘work hours’ and not producing my best work.

How do you both like to unwind after a busy day?

I like to unwind by taking my dog for a walk along the beach. I find the water incredibly calming and it has a massive effect on me. I don’t know what I’d do if I couldn’t do that. I also enjoy doing yoga to calm me and spend time in the sauna at my gym. I think a little bit of solo time goes a long way to helping me unwind and keeping me grounded.

How important is it to maintain a good work-life balance?

We strongly believe that work shouldn’t be the be all and end all of your life, it should be something that you enjoy doing and that’s something we really try to instill in our

employees. It shouldn’t be a 24/7 slog to get work done, you should be able to enjoy your life.

I sometimes struggle to be productive at all times during the working day and if I just sit there and force myself to carry on then I’m not going to produce my best work. No one is. Sometimes it’s incredibly helpful to go away, enjoy life for a bit and then come back refreshed and ready to carry on. It makes for a very flexible work day where I’m producing higher quality work and getting more things done than if I forced myself to sit there for set working hours.

If you could develop any app to solve life’s problems, what would it be?

It would be an out of office for every app on your phone. I can’t bear how overly communicative we’ve become. Ironic for someone who loves a chat as much as I do. But there are just too many ways that we are now available to each other. If someone wants to get in touch with you then they can Whatsapp or Dm you on instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Twitter or email you. I actually think it’s really damaging to everyone’s mental health. So I would have an app that created an out of office to tell people that you aren’t available at the moment. Sometimes you just need to be unavailable.

What top tips would you like to offer our readers for launching and app-based businesses?

Find a small business that has created an app that you like and reach out to the team, ask them questions and ask for advice. People love giving advice. Every time someone asks me for advice about business I get a massive ego boost. It makes me feel like a big deal and I think 90% of business founders probably feel the same. Go to them with specific questions about what you want to do and what you want to find out, don’t just ask for general advice. Also start embedding yourself into business and founder groups, Slack has loads of groups with founders in them. They’re a great place to get advice and learn from other people’s experiences.