Ollywood’s Director Shortlisted for Award

It is very apt that the owner of a business called ‘Ollywood’ is once again in the spotlight receiving rave reviews and plaudits for the considerable success he has achieved in a comparably short time and during a worldwide pandemic.

Ex RAF Servicemen Oliver Williams has been shortlisted for the Start-Up Entrepreneur of the Year category at the 2020 Great British Entrepreneur Awards for the Wales region!

This recognition is fitting recognition for the 28 year old who invested his life savings into creating Ollywood, a full service custom woodwork, installation, signage and graphics company based in Newport, South Wales in April 2019.

A Near Perfect Take Off Before Hitting Significant Turbulence

Within 12 months of starting the company, Ollywood’s growth was about to move up a gear propelling the business forward. Then the pandemic struck and the country came to a standstill.

Ollywood had been hit particularly hard because nearly all the projects created by Oli and his team were for use in public areas and at public events.

Changing His Flight Plan To Avoid A Crash Landing

Not one to shy away from a problem, Oli quickly began to explore opportunities to utilise the skill sets of his team and find new product ranges to maintain the vital revenue to keep his business going.

With a large percentage of the population furloughed, many started DIY projects in their homes that they had been putting off, whilst others made the most of the good weather and started improving their back gardens.

Both of these popular options provided Oli with options to diversify from his core services. Ollywood began to use stock they already had in their workshop to design custom dining tables and other home wooden furniture. They shared their creations via their very active social media pages and quickly began to receive orders. They then started to build decking areas, garden furniture, erect fencing and even building outside bars for customers. Oli had created two brand new revenue streams providing vital income for his business with minimal cost as he was utilising existing stock.

Many entrepreneurs would be happy with this achievement and continue to hunker down and provide these services during the lock down period.

Oli had a quite different approach. Responding to the rapid growth in demand by businesses for office furniture that will help them protect their staff and clients, Ollywood began designing and building their own sanitiser dispenser stations, perspex screens and social distancing markers. Recognising that many of his competitors have significantly inflated their retail prices, the Ollywood product range was priced very competitively and within two weeks of launching the business had secured orders from across the UK.

Successfully Navigating His Way and Planning His Path to Success

This has continued to grow over the past two months and instead of having to make tough decisions about possible redundancies and seeing the business he has put his heart and soul into, Oli is now on the verge of recruiting additional members to his team and running out of space in his workshop.

“It’s been one hell of a challenge,” admits Oli, “we could have gone from heroes to zeros almost in the blink of an eye, but with the help of my fantastic team, we have all pulled together and really turned the business around. I am so proud of everyone involved with Ollywood and being shortlisted for this award and for two others in the past fortnight, is quite simply fantastic and we are all looking forward to the virtual final in September.”


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About OLLYWOOD

A creative team of Military Veterans providing a a full-service custom woodwork, installation, signage and graphics company based in Newport, South Wales


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