Stef Lewandowski
Create something every day

A creative business is seen “as an oxymoron - either you’re creative and sit around in a beret or you’re a business person and sit around in a suit”.

That is how Stef Lewandowski sums up the central dilemma facing small but rapidly growing creative companies such as his own. The 28-year-old runs 3form, a Birmingham-based agency specialising in web design, online gaming and interactive tools, with clients including Vivienne Westwood and lastminute.com.

Formed by Mr Lewandowski shortly after he had graduated in computer sciences, the company was initially based on a “bit of a killer idea at the time” - a piece of software that enabled people to update their website themselves. Now that such software is commonplace, the company is “onto the next big thing”.

This need to constantly refresh product ranges, driven by the fast pace of technology, is accepted by online entrepreneurs as an integral part of doing business. “Within five years, your unique selling point is obsolete,” he said. The rapid rate of change, allied to the small size of many creative companies, can make the sector appear unduly risky to banks and other lenders.

But Mr Lewandowski ar-gued that a better mutual understanding between companies and the finance sector would help both realise the potential gains from that high level of risk. “There needs to be a brokerage between the two,” he said. “We are seen as a high risk proposition but risk is exciting - that’s why we do it.”

Mr Lewandowski said that his experience as a member of the business support for creative industries working group, set up by the government, suggested there was reasonable access to finance and advice for entrepreneurs with good ideas. But small businesses then faced a barrier getting support for growth beyond that initial period. “There’s not enough attention paid to companies and businesses past that start-up phase,” he said.

Companies in sectors such as online gambling are operating in an increasingly global industry. But small- to medium-sized businesses can struggle to extend their marketing beyond the UK. “They find they don’t have the contacts or skills to take them from level A to level B,” he said. “The message put to me, both regionally and nationally, was the need to be giving business at that level a serious leg-up to reach that next level.”