INTERVIEWED BY QUEEN MARY UNIVERSITY OF LONDON

So in about 2013 I was interviewed by Queen Mary University. They wanted to know all about London Parkour Project and why I started it. I think it has now been taken down. But I think the interview was still great. So I am sending this out here.

Tell us a bit about yourself – e.g., what do you study, how long have you been at QMUL?

When I first started university, I was studying an undergraduate degree in Physics. But very quickly, I felt like something was missing. I often struggled to see how what I was learning in lectures connected to the real world. At first, I just wanted a good education so I could get a good job — but the deeper I went into the system, the more disconnected everything felt.

The difficult part was that I didn’t know enough about other degrees to confidently switch. Reading brochures and attending open days didn’t help much either. In the end, I stayed with Physics but began taking modules from the Engineering department, hoping to find a sense of purpose and direction. That curiosity ended up opening doors I never expected.

When did you first discover you were entrepreneurial?

Honestly, I didn’t set out to be entrepreneurial at all. I was simply looking for a job — any job that matched my degree — and I just couldn’t find one. We were still recovering from the global recession, graduate schemes were intensely competitive, and many would reject you automatically if your A-level grades weren’t perfect, even if your university results were strong.

Despite consistently receiving Firsts in the first three years of my degree and graduating with an upper 2:1, I still struggled to find opportunities.

It was actually a staff member at what was then the Careers Centre who noticed that I was working on small personal projects that looked like the early stages of a start-up. She also noticed how passionate I became when I talked about them. She asked if I’d ever considered starting a business and encouraged me to enter the “Try It” and “Grow It” competitions. That moment changed everything.

What made you launch your first business?

By the time I started thinking of the project as an actual business, I had already been testing it for a year. Initially, all I wanted was to find a career path that felt meaningful. Learning real-world skills was part of that search.

But as the project grew, something shifted. I realised that creating a business gives you the power to help people — to give someone a job, to provide a service that genuinely improves your community, to make something exist that didn’t exist before.

Once I realised that entrepreneurship wasn’t just about earning a living, but about supporting my family, my friends, and my wider community, everything became far more exciting. It stopped being a “project” and started becoming a purpose.

How did you know it would be a success?

To be completely honest — I didn’t.

But it was more exciting than every other option available to me at the time. I think all young people reach a point where they want to prove themselves and discover what they’re really capable of.

Starting the business wasn’t easy. Keeping it alive during the tough years… even harder. But during those struggles, it became less about hoping it would work and more about refusing to give up. I couldn’t let the naysayers be right. I couldn’t accept that there was nothing better out there for me.

And that determination — more than certainty — is what carried the company forward.

What were the biggest challenges you faced?

There were countless challenges — I could write a whole book. Team members who were enthusiastic at the start but lost interest later. People who claimed to be “experts” in things they had zero experience in. And of course, the people who went out of their way to list all the reasons I should give up. Fortunately, they were almost always wrong.

But the hardest part wasn’t external. It was internal.

My biggest challenge was that I doubted myself — and my dreams weren’t big enough at the beginning. I believed in my idea, but everyone around me believed the opposite. That alone can shake your confidence. You can only ignore negativity and setbacks for so long before you start wondering, “What if they’re right and I’m wrong?”

The surprising part is that once I finally achieved what I set out to do, I realised it wasn’t as impossible as it once seemed. The mind creates bigger barriers than reality ever does.

How did you manage to launch it while juggling your studies at the same time?

In some ways, starting young actually made things easier — you have very few responsibilities, so you can take bigger risks. If I could speak to my younger self, I’d tell him to start even sooner.

Most students cram for exams at the end of the year anyway, but I followed a steady, old-fashioned approach: I revised weekly, practised consistently, and by the time exams came around, I knew the material inside out.

As for the business, I used my spare time to experiment, test ideas, and build bit by bit. It took a lot of effort, but it was fun — and the excitement of seeing something I created actually work made it all worth it.

How is the business doing now?

Right now, we have around five active clients, and one recently signed a 40-week contract — I won’t share the figure, but it’s substantial. The company now runs even when I’m not physically there, which to me is a major milestone.

The stability of our newest business model means we’re finally ready to expand.

It wasn’t always like this. There were times when I wanted to quit — when team members left, when competitors popped up, when cash flow was painful. But strangely, even when things got really bad, the idea of giving up felt worse than trying again and again, even if I failed 100 times.

That stubborn refusal to quit is probably why we’re still here.

Are you working on any other ventures?

Yes! I fell in love with building companies, so I set myself a personal goal: to create at least ten businesses in my lifetime. I’m currently working on company number two.

This time, I’m leveraging my network much more — friends in government, contacts in research facilities — which makes a technology start-up feel like the perfect next step.

We’ll see how far this one goes… but the journey itself is incredibly fulfilling.