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Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower, Steve Jobs famously said, and Guernsey certainly has a lot of leaders. But as any entrepreneur will tell you, it can be a lonely road full of hurdles, hoops and pitfalls.
This is where the Digital Greenhouse comes in...
A hub of creativity and digital ingenuity, the Digital Greenhouse was set up in 2016 to support those in our community who want to break out of the mould and build the future, for themselves and for others.
I sat down with Lucy Kirby, the Director of the Digital Greenhouse to find out about the organisation, what its aims are, and what a future full of leaders looks like.
The Digital Greenhouse is a States of Guernsey initiative supported by the Committee for Economic Development. The organisation's main aim is to grow the island’s digital and creative sectors, and it does this by developing programmes and providing a workspace for budding and established entrepreneurs.
“Our function is to create opportunities for new businesses to start and develop,” Lucy tells me, “particularly utilising technology.”
“We want to push forwards innovation, particularly in the digital space, so that businesses that are established in Guernsey can continue to thrive, their productivity can increase, and they can think about how they could diversify the services that they provide both on and off island.”
Pictured: The Digital Greenhouse is in the heart of St Peter Port at the market.
It’s a big remit, and one that sits in a space that is constantly evolving. With the advent of AI technology and a western world that promotes a business mindset that is falling further and further away from the classic 9-5, organisations like the Digital Greenhouse have to be nimble and dynamic.
“The interesting thing for us is how important choosing the right partners is to delivering programs and supporting us in delivering those programs.
“Technology moves so quickly that we have to be very, very agile and so we have to respond to customer demand and change and flex those programs.
"Even though we have a number of programmes this year that may look very similar to last year... the content is completely different. We do that by making sure that we're working on a day-to-day basis with the people who are innovating... they are literally based within the same space as us, or they're coming in and talking to us. We're always working very closely so that we can tweak and change and iterate our projects.”
The organisation usually has 18 or so active programmes a year, ranging from boot camps to StartUp support groups, and AI workshops.
“We have a range of partnerships and a number of programs,” continues Lucy.
“They support those who have got a good idea, but don't know where to go next... they're passionate about an area they've come across, a problem they think they can solve and we will start with initial programs to help them at that stage all the way through to supporting businesses who are thinking about scaling.
"We'll connect with local experts who have been there, done that, and who are fantastic supporters of the local ecosystem and want to give their time back to new founders.”
The Digital Greenhouse consistently repeats a mantra that continues to resonate with its clients: Locally grown, globally focused.
It’s a mantra that I heard repeatedly during an event I hosted late last year called Untapped Potential. During the event, Lucy spoke with Black Vanilla’s Nichole Culverwell and Collas Crill’s Wayne Atkinson about the innovation space in Guernsey and its continued vitality in the face of island-specific hurdles. It was clear that the people who are brave enough to take the leap, launch a business, and face those hurdles, are more often than not aiming to build something that can function outside the parameters of the Bailiwick.
Pictured: Numerous entrepreneurs have been helped by the Digital Greenhouse.
"Success is where we grow and develop and hone something locally, but we always leverage the mass of the rest of the world.
“We're not trying to get every customer to be on island. If we think in a digital space, that's our opportunity. Through the use of technology… if we can really raise the aspiration in the island to understand that opportunity and see it as something that's reachable... then the opportunity is huge.”
She says Guernsey has always had a “real entrepreneurial vibe to it” and that the island has always had to “bend and flex” due to its size.
“I think, when you look at, how the island's been able to develop its different sectors over the years, that's evidence to how innovative and entrepreneurial Guernsey can be when it wants to be, and how many good ideas bubble up from the grass roots here.
“What we find really exciting is how you can support people to take those initial ideas and turn them into something that really is a higher level of ambition.”
Guernsey hasn’t always had the Digital Greenhouse, but it needs it.
We have never been more connected to the big wide world and this access comes with myriad possibilities for new businesses, entrepreneurs, those who want to build the next MicroSoft, and those who want a ‘lifestyle’ job. With the Digital Greenhouse, the road isn’t quite as lonely as it used to be.
“It's really important that Guernsey has somewhere that sits at that apex of innovation and entrepreneurship,” Lucy says. “To help pull together the activity it creates. The accidental collisions where like-minded people come together and through that connection accelerate their business further and faster.
“There is always a risk when you're in a small environment that you look at the status quo and you think, ‘OK, well that's what it's always going to be’ - that's very risky when the speed of change is so fast globally.
“So, we need to have some group that is always thinking about the future, thinking about what's coming up on the horizon and pushing people, challenging people to think differently about what it means to run a business, that it means to innovate within this space.”
Pictured: The Digital Greenhouse hosts numerous events and programmes, including the StartUp academy.
Lucy says it's still early days for the Digital Greenhouse and there’s more excitement and innovation just round the corner. In fact, as I was speaking to her, she was waiting for a group of local ‘innovators’ to come in and brainstorm ideas, thrash out problems with their plans, and take those next daunting steps towards developing their businesses.
"Particularly post pandemic, more businesses are coming through who are working wholly in a digital space and the ventures that are coming in later today are ones who are very much globally focused and they've developed products locally across a range of areas.
“They're coming in today to talk about opportunities for the year and we're really looking forward to finding out from them: What are the key pain points that they're starting to feel as they start to scale?
“We can then identify those pain points, work with our partners and find pain relievers for them so that we can start to carve out new programs that really respond to the actual issues that they're facing right now.”
Lucy is empowering to talk to, fascinated by the possibilities that local people can harness and she says being involved with the Digital Greenhouse has been a humbling experience.
“It's a really risky time when you start a new business and it’s humbling to watch people passionately believe in something, so much that they say, ‘right... I'm going to throw myself into this entrepreneurial world. I'm going to put my time into it. I'm going to put my own money into it and it could work’.
“We need to support and believe in these people, to lift them up so that they’ve got the best possible chance to develop their new ventures and ultimately grow this community.”
Pictured top: ‘Innovators’ meeting at the Digital Greenhouse.
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