“We really need steering to keep us focused and on track.”

Gillian, a 24-year Costco veteran, designed Strong Point. Simon — a freelance sports teacher with a long career in education behind him — wrote the 200 categories of trivia. The game's mechanics came out of evenings playing during the pandemic. The hard part was figuring out what to do next.

After a Paul Lancaster introduction and a NatWest Accelerator event, Gillian and Simon reached out for mentoring. They were matched with three people who had lived the next decade of their roadmap: barrister Nick Hawkins, who would advise on legal routes for overseas expansion, and brothers Dan and Joe Robson of Robson & Robson, who had scaled and sold a business of their own.

“It has been great working with our mentors,” Gillian said. “Both they and the people who introduced us took time to understand the product, the concept and Si and I as people. It built our confidence and we knew this was the direction we needed to take our business in.”

The pair are heading into their first board meeting focused on growing B2B relationships and improving customer relations. The vision is a Strong Point family — Junior, Expert, Movies, Geography — plus two further new games already in concept.

Simon’s summary, when asked what changed: “The way we are paying it forward by helping others is admirable. Our future is bright thanks to meeting these mentors and we can't say thank you enough.”