HCfE’s Entrepreneurship Hub, set up in October 2018, is a hive of student activity, with students able to share the space, collaborate together and build the foundations for a successful business. One student who regularly utilised the Hub was Charlie Reeve, who studied BA Entrepreneurship before graduating in the summer of 2019. Charlie has gone onto found a clothing company called Reeves of Henley in 2018 and after graduating he shared his thoughts on how the Hub benefited him…
“I founded Reeves of Henley as part of the Applied Entrepreneurship module in the final year of my degree. Reeves of Henley is a British country clothing company, targeting a young, rural demographic, and I first launched the business from the Entrepreneurship Hub.
The Hub was where the businesses day to day activities to took place and there were several benefits. The two big ones were the shared office space and the use of the University of Reading’s postal services which catered for the e-commerce aspect of the business through sending out online orders. HCfE has also helped Reeves of Henley by inviting me to give talks about the business to other students and external visitors such as the Reading Scholars Programme. Reeves of Henley has also received £1,000 of funding from HCfE and Santander through the Greenshoots Award, which allowed Reeves of Henley to work on new product development and a longer-term marketing strategy, and I have continued to work with HCfE after graduation, designing and producing a range of baseball caps for their Entrepreneurship Vibes event.”
Charlie’s clothing is currently sold through equestrian events, country shows, independent retailers and its own e-commerce website.
To find out more about Reeves of Henley and view their products, visit https://www.reevesofhenley.com