Elite Training Experience

Seen a niche that needs to be filled, and got big ideas for filling it well? Starting up is all about seeing these opportunities and doing things better. Our StartUp of the Week is Elite Training Experience, a warm weather triathlon camp designed to get triathletes of all level race-ready. Let's find out more!

1. Explain your business in thirty seconds or less

Our goal at Elite Training Experience, or ETE TriCamps, is to become the de facto provider of warm weather triathlon training camps for the UK’s 140,000 active triathletes and the 2 million triathletes worldwide.

2. Where are you based and why is it a good location for your business?

We’re based in London but our camps are run overseas. We ran the first camps in Gran Canaria last autumn and are running a block of seven camps in Cyprus at the moment. We travel a lot, so being able to manage the business on the move is vital to us

3. How did you come up with the idea?

I’m an enthusiastic triathlete myself and attended several camps whilst trying to qualify for the GB Age Group team. Whilst the camps were a great experience, I felt there was a big opportunity to reach a far broader audience

4. What stage was your business at when you applied for the Start Up Loan?

We’d done a lot of research, and talked to a lot of potential customers and had worked out how and where we wanted to run the first camps. So we had a plan, but didn’t have ready access to the capital.

5. How have you used it to grow your business?

The first thing we needed to do was to market the business. We wanted to be able to try a few different approaches. The VSU loan allowed us to do this – and provided the working capital to commit to our first camps.We’re just about to launch a new website too – the current site has reached the end of its natural life.

6. Who has helped you on your business journey?

I’ve been lucky enough to work with a number of experienced individuals within the industry who’ve been able to give me great insights and make connections that I couldn’t have made on my own. Rob Kerr, who was our start up advisor, was also really helpful during our planning stage.

7. Biggest achievement so far?

Delivering such a positive training experience to almost 100 triathletes within our first eight months of trading.

8. What’s next for your business?

We’ve just closed a £140,000 equity investment round on Crowdcube and I’m really excited about the future. We’re on to something good here. Feedback’s been tremendous, and our camps are selling out. In the next 12 months we want to run another 25 camps - not just in the Canaries and Cyprus but in locations like South Africa.

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