Hertfordshire Futures spoke to Director, Martyn Niman, King Bee Animations, who is a recent graduate of the Create Growth Programme. Designed for Hertfordshire businesses looking to break into the Creative Sector.

Martyn said:

"You always hear about the Queen Bee – but never the King Bee, so King Bee is a metaphor for ideas and innovation, which are the company goals. Coming from an early love of cartoons that developed into drawing comics and creating characters, this became a business. King Bee has evolved over the years but retains a love of animation."

The Innovation

"Years ago, I was paired with an amazing consultant through the Hertfordshire Growth Hub and his advice around lead generation and going after new business was fantastic. We had two Kick-starters and the company flourished."

The Challenge

"Around COVID times, I was looking for help with advice and consultancy, and I found the Hertfordshire Growth Hub online through a newsletter (I think), so I followed up. The response was quick – we were trying to go after new markets and times were challenging, so to have excellent support that was free was amazing, especially to a small business.

Fast-forward to early 2024, we were ready to take on new business and innovate, and that’s when I met Adam Morley (Creative and Sector Lead from the Hertfordshire Film Office) – they had just become neighbours here at Elstree Studios and we had a conversation, discussing my plans for growth. One of which was the creation of ‘Soul Jump’ which I was finding difficult to get fully established – this has been a real labour of love for a number of years.

When I had kids, I started writing more songs. And then as I was designing characters and coming up with a cartoon show, that was called the non-stop Cartoons sketch show that featured different characters. I suddenly thought, oh, wait a minute. These characters could be in a band, so Soul Jump was born. We piloted at venues like Elstree Studios, at the Museum of London, South Bank Skate Park, but we were reaching a kind of a certain level where we couldn't grow to the next stage of our development because the landscape is quite competitive, we needed to get the music and the animation to a certain level. We knew we needed help and funding."

The Solution

"Adam introduced a company ‘Headliner’ who were the perfect partner for us to collaborate with, as they own a group of recording and activation studios, have a large artist roster, and are connected to the major labels. I attended the film and TV Roadshows and Adam then introduced the Create Growth Programme as part of their offering, so we signed up in March 2024 and haven’t looked back!" 

Impact

"Create Growth helped me to take an intense look at my business. I wished I’d had a time machine to go back in time 20 years and do the course then. The Supply Chain Innovation segment teaches business design principles, and how to develop your value proposition at a very high level. I learned how to think innovatively in terms of business development and came out with clarity and competence, knowing exactly what to do next with King Bee, and with Soul Jump.

We were given a great amount of guidance for the next stage of Create Growth, which was applying for funding, and we were connected to Innovate UK."

Next Steps

"We now have a framework to become investment-ready, and with our creativity and new-found tools, we have a clear plan to go in the direction we need to thrive. In addition, we’re also in the process of developing our own AI-powered animation tool and are getting some further support from the University of Hertfordshire as one of the additional options as part of the Create Growth Programme towards this innovation that ties in with animation workshops that our studio produces.

We’re grateful for all the support through the Hertfordshire Growth Hub, University of Hertfordshire, Herts Film Office, and Estu and thoroughly recommend any businesses within Hertfordshire to get in touch and get supported!"

Find out more about the Create Growth Programme!