Lazy Camper entrepreneur gets busy with major contract
A YOUNG Yorkshire entrepreneur has won £180,000 of investment, taken on a team of six and landed a contract to be the on-line camping partner of one of the UK’s leading music events.
Jacob Hill, 21, founded complete festival kits company The Lazy Camper in November 2011 and has been growing the business steadily at the same time as studying at Huddersfield University on its enterprise development course.
Its bestselling product is an all-in-one camping kit in bag, and the company has now partnered with the Virgin Media sponsored V Festival to offer easy camping options to the 170,000 attending the events in August.
This follows a successful trial offering the camping package to VIP guests of Virgin Media’s Louder Lounge hospitality area at last year’s V Festival in Chelmsford, Essex.
The Lazy Camper is also partnering with other UK festivals, including Beach Break Live, Wakestock, Cockrock, Lounge on the Farm and Beacons, and is in talks about distributing to festivals in Europe, the United States and Australia.
Hill said: “I am excited at the success of The Lazy Camper and proud that it will be a part of so many festivals this year. I hope this is only the start – I want to keep developing the brand to offer more quality, convenient and affordable products that take the pain out of travelling and camping.”
Hill has also secured investment from entrepreneur and philanthropist Graham Leslie and coffee connoisseur and business investor David Cooper, who will both take roles in the company alongside four other people taking staff numbers from two to seven within weeks.
The Lazy Camper is based at Huddersfield’s 3M Buckley Innovation Centre, a hub for start-up businesses.
Hill is the first student whose business has a fully staffed office in the centre.
He is approaching the end of his second year of study and was named Student Entrepreneur of the Year 2013 in the University’s Awards and most recently he met Prince Andrew and was presented with one of 10 inaugural Duke of York Young Entrepreneur Awards for Yorkshire.
Leslie, who built the largest privately owned pharmaceutical company in Europe, Galpharm International, said: “I am extremely proud to be associated with The Lazy Camper and to be able to support and fund such an adventurous person as Jacob, who has developed his business so successfully by himself and just a few friends.
“In the past eight weeks, he’s not only taken on five new employees but more than doubled his predicted annual turnover to £900,000 – this is indicative of the quality of Jacob and his team as well as the mentoring by David Cooper and support given by the vice chancellor of the University of Huddersfield, Professor Bob Cryan, and Professor John Thompson.”
Hill added: “The University of Huddersfield has been hugely supportive as I set up my business and I am looking forward to the third year of my degree alongside the development of the business. I have been lucky enough to be supported by the likes of Sir Richard Branson and Virgin Media Pioneers, and I hope my brand can have just some of the success of Virgin in the years ahead.
“My end goal is not to have a whole airline like him, just one plane would be enough.”
