Lyndsay Watterson: selling handmade walking sticks worldwide from York

Every box Lyndsay sends out to a customer changes someone's life. Few businesses could make such a claim, but this is what people tell her day in and out.Her business, Neo Walk, now employs ten and has customers in 35 countries. American actresses Selma Blair and Christina Applegate have both become big advocates for Lyndsay's handmade walking sticks.But it all started in her kitchen. After Lyndsay experienced a catastrophic MRSA infection, her left leg was amputated. "I knew that I needed a walking stick and I was just looking round at what there was out there. But nothing seemed to speak about me, nothing reflected me in the walking sticks I was seeing. So I literally decided just to make my own."In this episode, Lyndsay covers:• her journey from creating her first prototypes, to being stopped in the street by people wanting to get their own, to launching in 2013 as a one person business• a tipping point in 2020 which caused a spike in growth and led to Lyndsay taking on staff• the community Neo Walk has created• what makes the walking sticks so unique and bespoke• how she funded the business initially and why she sought external finance• the process of applying to and securing £60,000 from BEF• supporting MS (multiple sclerosis) charities in the US and UK• the impact of winning awards including "Entrepreneur of Excellence" at the National Diversity Awards and one of Yorkshire's most exciting businesses• Lyndsey's mission to see disability normalised and the importance of representationWhat next?• More about Lyndsay's business Neo Walk: https://www.neo-walk.com/about • More about the Business Enterprise Fund (BEF): https://www.befund.org/aboutFUNDED: Brilliant Entrepreneurs and Founders is a podcast by the Business Enterprise Fund a social enterprise dedicated to breaking the "finance shackles" faced by many small and medium-sized enterprises & social enterprises.Find BEF online at https://www.befund.org and on LInkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/business-enterprise-fund/• This podcast is produced and edited by Jamie Veitch https://www.jamieveitch.co.uk/• The music is "Aerosol of my Love" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/• Artwork design by Research Retold https://www.researchretold.com