Chris Walthew (Advertising and Marketing, 1999, County) tells how the act of climbing impacted on his daughter's confidence so much that it inspired him to set up his own business together with its highs and lows.

"I can’t believe it’s now been over half my life since I graduated from Lancaster. My time there has had a huge impact on my personal and professional life since, with what I learnt in my studies, the friends I made, and most importantly it’s where I met my now wife, Beth.

Background wise, my dad always had his own business, and running my own thing was what I wanted to do from a young age, so I was always scheming of business ideas before, during and after my time at Lancaster. I’d had my first tastes of business running a nightclub event in sixth form, a market stall during university holidays back in Devon, where I come from, and selling cut price sports gear to my fellow County College residents as a bit of a money earner during term times.

After graduating, I followed my degree with my first two jobs, working for two sales promotion agencies in London. I have to say I struggled getting to grips with agency life, which was a shock. After a year, I took a bit of a stop gap, getting a call centre job (courtesy of a Lancaster mate) and decided that a sales role would be more suited to me. I joined a start-up dotcom company, where I really found my feet, both in terms of my developing sales skills, getting my first experience of managing people and also seeing first hand the growth of a small company.

Working there gave me the idea to start a telemarketing agency. I launched Prospect Research in early 2004 at the relatively young age of 25, armed with a laptop and phone, working from my second bedroom. My previous company was my first client, and then later that year, another Lancaster friend introduced me to her employer, who became my biggest client for the next five years.

After a year, I moved to Cambridge and started employing people. Beth joined me after a couple of years to set up a market research arm, and we’ve worked together in our businesses since then. Working with your other half is definitely not for everyone, but for us it’s worked fantastically, as our skills really complement each other.

We grew the business steadily over the years, getting to around 20 staff, working for a whole range of private and public sector clients.

After about 12 years, I was getting a little restless to do something else. One holiday back in my home city of Exeter, I took my eldest daughter, who was five at the time, to a funky looking climbing centre as something to do on a rainy day. Seeing this little person climb, grow in confidence over her session, and the place full of other families enjoying themselves in a similar way, was really inspiring and gave me the idea of whether I could set something similar up in Cambridge.

Completely different to what I’d done before, particularly with only having worked in business to business, but I did my research, found a suitable location and secured funding. Another Lancaster friend, who worked in commercial property, even had a hand in securing me our venue. I also remembered I had a fear of heights, although spending quite a few hundred thousand pounds on a climbing business is a pretty effective way of getting rid of that fear!

The centre, called Clip ‘n Climb Cambridge, opened in July 2016, and was an instant hit. Within a few weeks, peak times were pretty much sold out, and it has continued to be like that ever since. There were many similarities running this new business to my marketing business, but also many differences, and in the early days I felt stress and anxiety in a way I’ve never had before or since. Not a pleasant thing to experience, as I’m sure many of you can relate to, but it taught me many professional and life lessons that have been invaluable since.

Beth took over running Prospect Research, but we found having two businesses a bit too much with a young family, and sold it in 2018 to a senior manager at the company, so both of us could focus on building our climbing business.

Our plan was to open a chain of climbing centres, called Climb Quest, and in 2019 we found a great location in nearby Milton Keynes, opening that in February 2020. Our crystal ball of predicting good timing was particularly off, as within a few weeks, Covid struck and like so many businesses, particularly anything to do with hospitality and leisure, its impact was shockingly fast and devastating.

Since then, keeping the business afloat has been a case study into applying the sort of lessons covered in the LUMS courses, increasing the number of customers, the frequency of visits and spend per visit, while managing costs, all parts of our day to day decision making. These changes have had to be made rapidly as Covid developments have unfolded.

We’ve been fortunate to have had a very supportive relationship with our bank, Natwest, our staff and suppliers have been amazing, and whatever you think about how the government has dealt with Covid, we couldn’t have carried on without the huge amount of support they have given to us and other businesses.

Writing this at the end of 2020, we can say with confidence that we’ll be able to ride out the storm until the world gets back to normal. The impact of Covid has certainly changed our plans and outlook for the future with both our current business, and any ventures we start up in the future. We can take some consolation that changes and improvements that we’ve made will benefit our current business in the long run and are looking forward to the future with cautious optimism.

Running your own business isn’t for everyone, but for me professionally, there’s no better satisfaction than seeing your ideas become reality, and I can’t see myself working for anyone else again.

If you’re reading this whilst studying at Lancaster, a couple of bits of advice about your time at university, to finish with. Take all the opportunities you can to gain insights and experiences about potential careers you might be interested in. Build up your network of contacts, which is basically getting on with people and staying in touch with them. The person you’re sat next to at lectures or across the hall from your room, might open unexpected doors for you in the future. Finally, work hard of course, but remember to enjoy yourself as your time at Lancaster is a once in a lifetime experience."