Our very talented client, Matt Lawton, was awarded a £3000 prize package earlier this year as the champion of #IAmEnterprising to help kick start his music business. #IAmEnterprising, a partnership between The Women’s Organisation and City of Liverpool College, offers support to students who want to develop their business idea. As part of Matt’s prize, we designed and developed his new website to help him boost his business model and online following. Check it out here.

We’ve thoroughly enjoyed working with Matt over these past few weeks, he’s a very talented and creative guy with the most upbeat personality and we thought it would be nice for you all to get to know him too.

Here’s a few questions we asked him…

What do/did you study at City of Liverpool College?

I have just completed a Foundation Degree in Popular Music and received a distinction! In September I will be going to Salford to complete my BA Popular Music.

What inspired you to take up bass?

My dad and brother both played guitar so I was around music from a very young age. At around age 12 I started to play guitar but soon after I discovered the Red Hot Chilli Peppers and quickly made the change to bass!

Did you enjoy the I am Enterprising competition? Did you find it challenging?

I found the I Am Enterprising competition to be more challenging than I had expected, I was put in a position which enabled me to think more critically about my business, it’s products and my competitors. By completing the competition process I found I had a solid plan to move forward for the next 12 months which is something I’d never had before, at this stage I thought that even if I didn’t win the competition it would have still been beneficial as I now had clear goals of where to take my business.

Have you got any advice for other students taking part in I am Enterprising?

Focus on your business plan! After I had written a business plan that I had confidence in the rest of the process was relatively straight forward.

Do you have any music heroes?

Too many! My bass heroes are Marcus Miller and Christian McBride but my all time musical hero is Miles Davis.

What made you want to teach bass to others?

I began teaching bass 10 years ago simply as a way to make more money! However the more I taught the more I enjoyed helping others and generally just being able to talk about music all day! The material that I accumulated in planning lessons for my students and also in the music that I studied for my own musical growth became the basis for my website.

What do you do in your spare time?

In my spare time I generally just play my bass! Once I’ve learnt the tunes I need to learn for the week, completed any recordings, lesson material, blog posts or whatever I need to do for work, I then either work on the music that I want to learn or composing new songs for my band, Red Giant. I actually really enjoy practicing music so in my spare time I pretty much just keep playing bass!

What’s the funniest thing that’s happened to you recently?

A lot of the gigs I play are weddings or parties and there are always plenty of drunk guests to keep us entertained! The best I’ve seen for a while was last month when at the end of the night, one of the bridesmaids got on stage and belted out ‘Bat Out Of Hell’ by Meatloaf, start to finish, every single word… It was amazing!

#TEAMBOLD wishes Matt and his business all the best for the future!