Beth Goddard

Beth Goddard’s experience of becoming a teenage mum at 19 inspired and motivated to achieve her ambitions in education and in business. Now aged 26, she has a first class degree under her belt and is successfully running More! Productions with her husband Ritch.

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Beth and Richard hit on the winning idea to set-up live arts production company More! Productions after working in the arts for several years. They realised that they could use production-making techniques to develop creative projects in non-arts related sectors. With a small loan from family, they got their business started.

The biggest challenge Beth has had to overcome so far is realising that there is a huge difference between being creative and running a business. She says: “When you engage in a creative activity you often start with no end point in mind and just see where you end up, it’s a very organic process. Now that we run a business we realise that we have to begin with the end in mind in order to pay ourselves at the end of the month! We have developed a very different portfolio of skills.”

Inspirational role models for Beth include Richard Branson, because ‘he has no academic history but has built a global organisation". Anita Roddick is another role model - Beth admires her for "sticking to her principles" - as is Jordan aka Katie Price, because "she knows the game and how to play it and doesn’t pretend to be what she’s not".

Beth believes that being stubborn and persistent have been key to her success. She refuses to believe that she can’t make it and thinks that has a lot to do with becoming a parent at such a young age - an experience which was life-changing for Beth and Ritch. But they are grateful to the people who thought they wouldn’t succeed because "they have become the motivation to do just that."

Her advice to other young women who are thinking about taking the plunge into self-employment is to go for it and not to be held back by a fear of failure. She says: “Sure, things might not always go according to plan but you are only ever a failure if you give up…instead try to find new ways of doing things.”

Enterprise for Beth means turning ideas into reality, finding new ways of solving problems, being creative, never accepting that something can’t be achieved and most of all loving what you do.