Meet the mentors: Aimee Bateman, Investment Readiness mentor
Aimee Bateman comes to We Are Creative with extensive experience in raising capital, career coaching at all levels, and running a creative business. Formerly a commercial recruiter, she pivoted to YouTube in 2010 following the credit crunch with a mission to help people get a job. The channel took off. After building and successfully raising investment for e-learning platform, Careercake, voted UK’s #1 career development platform, she exited in 2022 with an ongoing desire to help more people in their professional development.
Today Aimee is an executive coach helping others shape careers they love. She brings a wealth of experience as a coach and CEO, including that of securing VC and angel investments across two continents while operating in a challenging landscape in which under 2% of funding is invested into a female founded company.
What motivated you to become a mentor with Creative Enterprise, and what keeps you coming back?
I was contacted by Creative UK because I had experience raising investment as a woman in such a male space, and they asked me to come and help as a mentor. I’ve now been mentoring for two years and really enjoy it. There’s something about being in a room full of people like you. They’re your people, your tribe. That’s how I feel when I’m in a room of founders. I didn’t enjoy the process as much as I wished I had done at the time, and I want to help other founders enjoy it more.
In your experience, what are the biggest challenges screen-based founders face when trying to create and grow sustainable businesses – and how does mentoring help navigate these?
Often, founders need to get out of their own way – and can benefit from being shown how to do that! It’s a difficult world out there, raising investment, and in the creative industries it’s considered a higher risk than in the tech world, for example, where investors can see more clearly how they will scale projects and multiply their investments. It can be hard as a founder to see it from that perspective; when you love your creative project, finding a way to sell it to an investor as a way to help them make money, rather than a project that’s worthwhile or creatively satisfying, isn’t always straightforward. That’s where I come in.
What’s the number one misconception new founders have about investment, in your opinion?
Everyone thinks it’s easier than it is to get investment! Buckle up, it’s going to be hard work and you’re going to need to roll your sleeves up!
Often founders come into mentoring when they’re a little frustrated, when they’ve tried everything and have been at it for a couple of years, and seen their peers succeed around them. My role is often to help them get to a space where they really believe that they deserve success. Good things happen to other people around you in the industry, why not you? And when you have that belief, you can start taking successful meetings where you can raise capital. It’s about that, too.
How would you describe your approach to mentoring and what do you think makes it effective for screen/creative businesses?
Empathetic. I’ve been through it and seen it first hand so I really understand what it’s like. I’m also a qualified coach and I have worked extensively in career development: I’m looking at it from all angles and bring a wealth of experience. I’m always looking for ways to help founders build a career and business they love and that they will love in the future: it’s not much good spending time and effort building and developing something that is not in line with your values and that you won’t enjoy at the end.
What’s one thing you’ve learned from the founders you’ve mentored that’s influenced your own work or perspective?
I see some of them enjoying it more than I did, and that’s a great thing. I think a lot about the feeling you have 30 seconds before you go to sleep. When you’re a founder, how is that quiet 30 seconds feeling to you? How can I help make it OK, so you feel peaceful and content rather than consumed by worries?
If you could give one piece of advice to any creative entrepreneur starting out today, what would it be?
Do the work on yourself first. Self development is essential. You can have the best pitch, book the best meetings and have a fantastic brand to sell, but if you don’t really believe you deserve it, it shows. Oh, and hire people that are good at the finances...