X+Why member Shooting Starz is a community sports club founded by Luke Craig and Yusuf Jimacale. The pair met while training together at Chelsea FC and formed Shooting Starz in 2013 with the goal of supporting and encouraging the participation of young people in sport at all levels. They believe that children learn best through guided discovery, and create fun and challenging activities to encourage learning, development and teamwork.
X+Why member Shooting Starz is a community sports club founded by Luke Craig and Yusuf Jimacale. The pair met while training together at Chelsea FC and formed Shooting Starz in 2013 with the goal of supporting and encouraging the participation of young people in sport at all levels. They believe that children learn best through guided discovery, and create fun and challenging activities to encourage learning, development and teamwork.
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What is the Shooting Starz mission statement?
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To create a positive impact on community using sport as a vehicle to bring people together. Sport is powerful in the way that it can connect people from all walks of life, and we are servants in the role that we can play in this part.
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Tell us a little more about your role within SS
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I’m Luke and I’m the co-founder and director. We started the company in 2013 while working at Chelsea FC; we felt that we were doing some great work on behalf of the club and wanted to make it more personable - which is what gave birth to Shooting Starz.
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Why are you passionate about community and connection?
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Creating a more cohesive community means there’s more opportunity for everyone, including the opportunity to understand each-other better and make the environment a more diverse place. There’s a much broader understanding of people’s cultures and upbringings. For us, the best part is the ability we have to allow people to connect and create such wonderful stories; whether you’re watching a young person moving successfully in the sporting world or someone growing into something, we’ve created a happy and safe place for them to do so, through sport and a love of the club.
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How have you adapted to the changes instigated by COVID closures?
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We were doing lots of online tutoring and training and tried to stay connected to the community. As soon as we were allowed to, we were back out there offering 1-1 sessions. It’s important to keep communication channels open and maintain a continuous dialogue.
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What advice would you give to other start-ups and businesses moving forwards?
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Love what you do and do what you love! We’ve had such great traction because of the genuine passion and care we bring to our sports coaching organisation. We’re more than a service, we’re an extended member of everyone’s family. Many of those we used to coach now work with us, and we’ve become a support mechanism in their own lives. This is what makes us proud and we feel privileged to be in a position where we are able to impact people’s lives in such a positive way. It’s what fuels us every day and makes us excited to get out there and be out of the office.
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When it comes to the boutique nature of your service, how has this impacted your vision for scaling and growth?
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We want to try and grow as much as possible so that we can have as much impact as possible. We know that in the world in which we work, it’s very much about relationships, and about your personal kind of energy and passion. We make sure that the people we bring in share this vision and motive, so that we can grow in a way and at a pace that allows us to maintain this level of service.
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What is your favourite interview question and how would you answer it personally?
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I usually ask what people’s long term goals and vision is for the future. Where do you see yourself in 10-15 years and where do you want to be? Personally I’ve never really had a plan and I just follow my passions and roll with it, I like to live for the moment. It’s important to look ahead so I realise why that question can come up quite often, but I don’t fix myself to targets or needing to hit certain milestones - there’s no bucket list as such, other than to have a positive impact, make people happy and be proud of being able to enjoy my work.
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What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned?
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Just to stay humble and grounded. Understand that there will be both great and not so great periods, such as with COVID, and just to appreciate what you have and enjoy the success and small wins along the way. Also not to lose sight of why you started, and to continue making a difference. In the past, we’ve been so focused on our mission we’ve often neglected the business admin side of things, so learning to better manage that has been a lesson we’ve tackled along the way. We try to find more balance by bringing in the expertise we need, which allows us to continue to be out there ensuring people are having a great time.
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If you were to do it all again, is there anything you would do differently?
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We would probably have an office team in place to start with, along with a great financial team around us to shape our decisions along the way. This is something we’ve had to learn to get better at as time has gone on. When we first started and it was just us two, things were relatively easy - now that the club has grown to a decent size, we do have more issues and problems that crop up. Sometimes these issues can feel personal, and not everyone is going to love all the same things you do.
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We learned that we operate a service around which people have expectations that they expect to be met, and not everyone is going to be happy all the time. It’s important to be able to take in those critiques and try to be sure it does reflect the variety that people want. The key is to work hard, be honest, listen to the families attending the sessions and how they feel, and continue to collaborate with the community so that they have their say in how the company grows and is run. We do this for the young people and it’s important that we ensure we are always delivering to the best of our abilities which will allow them to grow, have more social support, and improve their confidence and mental wellbeing.
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What’s the smallest change that’s given the biggest return?
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Just putting a smile on someone’s face. Small things like just seeing people be happy to be around you and the company are more satisfying than someone winning a trophy - bring a role model to young people is a powerful and self-rewarding thing. We’re not from finance or business backgrounds we’re local community guys and sport was our happy place, now we get to share that with others.
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What are your strengths and weaknesses?
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We are strong at being able to deliver a level of service that shows authentic care for every young person we take under our wing. My work phone is my personal phone and it doesn’t stop ringing. In terms of weaknesses, this means we can often lead ourselves into some difficult situations by being a bit too open and friendly. For example when a parent comes to the club they want their child to be in the best category possible and it’s difficult to balance being honest, encouraging and positive with managing personal expectations. We’ve learned to be more tactical with feedback in this sense.
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There shouldn’t be any pressure to perform, we just want everyone to enjoy it. London can be quite a competitive place and it’s important that when the kids come through our doors they can leave some of that behind and enjoy a sense of freedom. We’re here to provide structure and facilitate drawing the best out of them, but in a meaningful and fun way that allows them to play without too many rules or boundaries. This allows the creative mavericks to think for themselves, instead of being so used to being told what to do.
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Creating a positive and supportive environment is the main thing - everyone will have peaks and troughs and you can’t expect people to be growing and improving all the time; it’s natural for people to not always be happy and that can affect performance. Understanding this is a normal part of the developmental journey for young people allows us to handle it sensitively.
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How has what you do changed you as a person?
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It’s made me more aware to the real diversity that exists in life. I come from humble beginnings and grew up on a counsel estate in Ladbroke Grove, I always saw this as relatively working class but now I know just how many people there are in worse off situations. We want to be able to give them a foot up the ladder towards being happier. The magic of sport is that it allows you to connect people from all walks of life and hopefully that journey incentivises people to want to achieve what they want to achieve and to work together. There is such a divide in London between the affluent and the less thriving, I grew up by Grenfell Tower and this divide became very evident around that time. It’s opened people’s eyes up to how different the lives are, being lived in the same areas, and made people more willing to talk about that.
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What is your vision for the future personally and professionally?
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Keep doing what you’re doing, make further impact on a wider scale, and to do it in other areas not just West London. To keep doing what we do for as long as possible!
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Is there anyone or anything that you draw inspiration from?
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Mainly my inspiration comes from life and my own experiences, but I also really admire Jamal Edwards. He went to school with my co-founder Yusuf and started off in local areas filming young people singing and rapping. He now has an MBE and is all over London but he’s still very grounded and in touch with his roots, he walks through the same streets and coffee shops, and is still a very connected part of the community.
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What do you love most about X+Why?
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The spirit when you walk through the doors. Everyone is always welcoming, happy and smiling. It’s a very driven and supportive place, where there’s a continual dialogue with a diverse array of people running other businesses. I love the overall positive energy that stems from bringing people together who are on the same mission but achieving it in their own industries. It feels homely and warm, we have our sporting community and now we have our business family too.
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