Learning to be a Rockstar

Is it a good sign when 20 minutes into the first session with our new company mentor, we find he holds his head in his hands and exclaims ‘oh my goodness’? That is exactly what we achieved by explaining to him what Ammba does and the range of projects, clients, interests and activities we get up to each week. It wasn’t, I don’t think, that we are any more busy than any other young company who is growing, but rather the range and diversity of what we were doing that had caused the head in hands moment.

We were sitting in Rockstar Hubs in London with our new mentor Ketan Makwana, a renowned mentor, businessman and leader and had explained amongst other things that we were “specialists in the education, cultural & heritage sectors, delivering consulting and product development to engage users with digital content”. Admittedly it doesn’t fit on a business card very easily, and while it may technically constitute a ’60 second elevator pitch’, it is not easy to get your head around. No doubt Ketan at that point was looking for a quick exit from the room, but thankfully he persisted with us. After some probing questions and discussion he announced, “so basically, you build, curate and train”. We liked him immediately.

Rockstar Hubs sadly isn’t there to turn us into the next Foo Fighters, as the name may suggest, but it is there to take promising young businesses and partner them with a proverbial rockstar of the entrepreneurial world. Ketan was very much our Dave Grohl (of course if you are not a Foo Fighters fan, this may be an oblique reference, but google him, he is a big deal). We were there to work with a mentor to help us make the move from a consultancy business to a fast growing small company with a range of digital products and service offerings.

Over the last 6 months, we have worked with Ketan to understand and develop Ammba as a business and also to develop our own skills and knowledge. It is all learning that we can use to make Ammba even better, but also to enhance the service we give to our clients and the projects we work on. It has not been without challenge and Ketan takes great delight in posing us curve ball questions, that metaphorically stop us in our tracks, but these are well-balanced by the epiphany moments he also inspires.

We are extremely fortunate to have met Ketan. That he has the knowledge to steer us is and is so enthused about our work is a bonus. Ammba’s future was always exciting, but now even more so as we work to become Rockstars in our own right.

Blog by Robbie