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Shane Bratby
I am the founder of MobilityBuy.com and Disabled Entrepreneurs.
I was diagnosed at ten years old with Friedreich's Ataxia, a degenerative and rare neurological condition. I was told I wouldn't live past my 25th year. I am now 27, with four beautiful children, two of which are disabled.
Having lived in fear for my life ever since I was 10, I decided in my 20s to take the control back and help people who have mobility issues to be as independent as they can be.
Despite leaving school with very little qualifications due to the assumption at my school that I would never work, I was determined to start up my own organisation.
Statistically, disabled people don’t hold as many qualifications as non disabled people but I was determined not to be a statistic.
My first service was a charity which helped disabled people get their grocery shopping but I then went on to deal with mobility aids where I set up MobilityBuy.com which has been running for several years.
Dom Smith
Disabled Entrepreneurs: Dom Smith
I was born with Cerebral Palsy and my parents were told that I would not be able to walk at all from age 12. Now, at 25-years-old, thanks to the love and support of those around me, I walk with the aid of two sticks and regularly travel around the UK promoting and providing content for my business, Soundsphere magazine. This is an online and print publication that looks at rock music and culture specific to the North of England. I also work as a copywriter and journalist in the city of York.
My aim is to support and offer advice (along with my colleague and the project’s founderShane) to people with a range of disabilities so that I can help them to achieve their goals and “live their dream” just like I have been lucky enough to do.
Vanessa Heywood
Vanessa Heywood, a 41-year-old Radlett resident won a £50,000 cheque at the Growing Business Awards in London in 2011 to help grow for her company – Tiny Mites Music – which offers live and recorded interactive music sessions aimed at young children.
When Vanessa was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in 1995, she had to give up her career as a professional actress, singer and dancer. Never one to quit in the face of adversity, the single mother-of-two, who once graced the stages of London’s West End decided to set up a business that took advantage of her musical talent, while allowing her to manage the symptoms of her disability.
Looking after her two young sons by day and working by night, Vanessa wrote in her lounge, often sleeping on the sofa when she was unable to make it up the stairs. Over an eight month period, Vanessa wrote 36 songs and created a group of characters, the Tiny Mites, which sprung from stories she told her children.
Today, the business has grown and Vanessa has contracts with a number of large holiday parks, nursery chains and schools, and has brought out a Tiny Mites CD. Vanessa also provides Tiny Mites Birthday parties for under 5s and is now working on preparing her nationwide franchise operation.
Guy Harris
Disabled Entrepreneurs: Guy Harris
Hi. My name is Guy Harris and I started www.DisabledGear.com in 2009. It is a great business that is evolving. I started it because I felt that there was no decent alternative to the expense of always buying new. I wanted to create a Free-Ads website allowing people to buy & sell second hand disability equipment easily. I knew it had to be a free service and one that was clear and easy to use, with good functionality – i.e. searching for items by price, distance, or keyword – that kind of thing.
Planning was everything and from concept to launch was actually a long period, a year. The old saying “there’s no second chance for a first impression” is really true.
Starting your own business is hard work. Sometimes it seems that no matter what your business will do for others, it’s difficult to persuade them to take a few minutes to look at what you’ve got to show them. But what I know is that every contact with a customer is a golden opportunity to give them a reason to come back and tell all their friends. Customer service really counts. For me, this is easy because I really believe in what I am doing.
I had an RTA in 2003, as a result of which I am paralysed at L1. Predictably, a whole world that I knew nothing about has opened up in front of me, and the first piece of advice I would give to anyone setting out is: Do what you know. It shines through in your business and in your product. And flexibility is also crucial. I started selling new products because I wanted to pay for the free service I was offering. By choosing solutions to my problems, I have hit on some really popular products.
If it weren’t for my disability I wouldn’t have this business. My disability is my strength. I understand my product and I understand my customers. For example, I sell wheelchair jeans. When I found this manufacturer and saw the quality of the product, I was thrilled: finally I found the answer to a six year riddle. And I see the same reaction in my customers – except some of them have waited even longer!
To others thinking of starting a business I would always say: Go for it! It won’t be the easiest thing you’ve done. And there will be failures and lessons learned along the way. That’s all part of it. It’s not the falling down but the staying down that marks failure. If you’re the type to get up and dust yourself down and start again, it’ll add extra dimensions to your life, and provide immense satisfaction.
What is interesting is who supports you along the way and who won’t help at all. It’s never how you think it will be. Some organisations or people have really disappointed me. And others just make me smile, as they’re such a pleasure to deal with. Integrity and perseverance are everything. I have started small, because it was on limited funds and I wanted to get things right. And being small means I have to do everything! This means I learn all the different jobs, so that if I grow to employing people, I’ll never be asking anyone to do anything I haven’t done – except get stuff off a high shelf!
Maria Hanson
I have had 18 rounds of surgery – losing most of my insides along the way including my bowel and bladder. I have been left with two stoma bags and nerve damage as a result of the surgery and problems after having MRSA through surgery. I now walk with two sticks and suffer with severe back problems.
Despite my disability, subsequent rehousing and having to bring up my two teenage daughters alone, I decided to go to university. I graduated with a 2:1 honours in Healing Arts and Applied Study from Derby University and stayed on to work as an officer mature and disabled students for a year.
From there, I went on to take the role of Disability Discrimination Act Advisor for Disability Direct in Derby but I felt quite frustrated by the limitations of the job, and took steps to start up as a consultant in my own right. Sadly, a setback saw me having major surgery which led to further complications and I was more or less back to square one.
But that was then. I’ve since founded my own charity - www.meanddee.co.uk where I create around 20 special moment treats a month for terminally ill people as well as running a fast-track nomination process for local hospices and hospitals around Birmingham. In addition, I have set up the "me&dee comfort pack scheme”, where I provide support and a listening ear to parents who are too worried about their ill child to look after themselves. The comfort packs for parents contain everything two adults would need for two days from cups with hot drinks and soup sachets to towels and toiletries and pens etc. Children and teenagers have toiletries and age-appropriate toys.
It may have been a struggle to get where I have but I know that if it wasn’t for my experiences, I would never have been able to set up me&dee charity and help others.
Robin Kettle
I am the founder and owner of Access All Areas, one of the UK's premier access auditing companies. I also own the disability information resource Ableize and run a mind, body and soul internet directory and I am the editor of disability directory called the Best of the Web.
I am (cough) 52 years of age and a tetraplegic wheelchair user after a motorcycle accident in 1976.
I am a self-confessed workaholic, my access auditing takes me to all areas of the UK and I have a client list ranging from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and the DWP to Capital One.
I help businesses comply with the Equality Act 2010 to ensure they meet the needs of people with disabilities. I take great pride in my work in finding the right solution at the right cost.
Meanwhile, my Ableize directory, blog and forum is now the UK’s largest and most comprehensive disability, health and mobility resource.
Living and travelling in a wheelchair continues to be a struggle and gets that bit tougher as the years tick by, but rather than slow down, I seem to be taking on greater challenges to prove to myself and the world that there is always the opportunity to better yourself and make a difference.
Robin
Marcus Krackowizer
As painters’ careers go, Marcus Krackowizer has certainly not followed a traditional path on the way to carving out a reputation as a highly successful modern impressionist artist.
Born in Vienna and raised in Essex, a freak diving accident at 18 left Marcus confined to a wheelchair with little control over the movements of his hands. With typical tenacity he didn’t let it change his life ambitions, graduating with an MSc in Aeronautical Engineering from Imperial College London before a brilliant 20 year global engineering career working for companies including Marshall Aerospace and BAE Systems.
Several years ago he made another life-changing decision – to follow a childhood passion for painting. Leaving behind the huge pay cheques, travel and corporate life, Marcus is now an in-demand artist with collectors around the world.
With over 50% of the population reportedly feeling unsatisfied and unchallenged by their jobs Marcus proves that there is life and happiness beyond the security of the 9-5 routine. To see some of Marcus’s work go to: http://www.modern-impressionist.com/
Richard Shakespeare
Richard Shakespeare who suffers from cerebral palsy had been looking for a job for over a year and clocked up over two thousand rejection letters before he decided to become a consultant advising businesses on disability issues.
He said: “I applied for absolutely everything that I could physically do and didn't know how to get out of the unemploym ent trap. After nearly a year without a job offer, I was starting to get depressed and the number of suitable jobs seemed to be going down. “It struck me that there must be hundreds of businesses that had no experience of dealing with disabled people and would benefit from speaking to someone with a real-life perspective on the matter.”
Richard attended a number of networking events to bounce his idea off of local business leaders and decided it could work, so he set up his modest office in Derby. And business has been booming so far – with clients already queueing up, one of his first was a local Novotel hotel. In October he visited as a mystery guest and later reported back to the manager and briefed employees on how to improve service.
“Now that I'm self-employed, the pressure is really on me to make ends meet but I'm determined to make it work and I'm confident that I can.”
Erasmus Habermann
I am a wheelchair user due to cerebral palsy. I am originally from Germany but I have been living in the UK since 1999.
When I left Staffordshire University in 2007, I found it extremely hard to find a job. I then started thinking I should really begin to write down my business idea – until then I had not really considered that running my own business would be a viable option for me. How wrong was I? In 2009Habermann Translation was born…
We specialise in translations from English into German and from German to English. The business is currently run this under the permitted work scheme. Our aim is to provide an excellent service to our customers. We achieve this by tailoring our service to customer’s individual needs. We will not take on more than we can confidently handle, in other words if we get a job then we will not take other jobs on until we have completed and delivered it to the customer.
Annie Makoff
Annie joined DisabledEntrepreneurs in 2011, having worked in the journalism, marketing and PR fields for several years.
She was born with an undiagnosed genetic condition characterised by lack of sight in one eye, three missing digits on her right hand and foot, an asymmetrical face shape and a small frame and since 1999, she wears a prosthetic leg following a lower limb amputation.
Unsurprisingly, Annie experienced a difficult childhood due to bullying, on-going health issues and severe bouts of depression, but still managed to gain good GCSES, A-levels, a contemporary arts degree and a post graduate masters in journalism.
Whilst many assumed Annie would either work in a hospital or, as one careers advisor kindly suggested, a jeans factory, Annie was determined to do the one thing she loved best: writing.
Prior to joining Disabled Entrepreuers, she has worked as a magazine journalist, a magazine editor, a marketing executive and a PR consultant, before realising that her on-going health issues and numerous hospital appointments were making it difficult to work for organisations that weren't always sympathetic to her health needs.
Having taken the (slightly) scary leap into full time self employment, Annie now works as a freelance journalist, copywriter and PR consultant and is in the throes of setting up a second business, AP Digital Creatives with her partner, Paul.
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