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When Phil Groom sought to expand his PaddlePod swimming school and leisure hub endeavour, he turned to the Scaleup North East programme, which matches owners’ growth ambitions with the knowledge, expertise and insight of entrepreneurial partners. Here, he tells Steven Hugill about the impact of the RTC North-delivered venture on his business, which, having gone from hiring pools to having a cluster of purpose-built venues, is ready to further extend its market presence.
Sometimes, it’s the moments we’re least expecting that shape our futures.
Just ask Phil Groom.
While delivering swimming lessons to youngsters, a parent approached for a quick chat.
This one, though, would prove seminal.
“I remember it like it was yesterday,” says Phil, who swam competitively in his younger days.
He says: “I’d been teaching at local pools for a number of years and had a full roster of lessons, and then a parent, completely off the cuff, asked if I taught anywhere else across the region.”
The routine query had a catalysing effect, stirring Phil’s ambitions to create a new venture that went far beyond everyday tuition.
The result was SwimNE, which launched in 2006 and has since helped thousands of children and adults flourish in the water.
He says: “I started at Kenton School, in Newcastle, with my sister and a next door neighbour who taught swimming.
“And we grew quickly; we did two days a week and had 200 children,” adds Phil of the business, which is a two-time Swim England swim school of the year.
However, while the appetite was overwhelmingly strong, the means by which to nourish such hunger were becoming harder to source.
With pools’ ageing infrastructure affecting opening times and others forced to permanently close, Phil recognised his vision would only be truly realised with its own sites.
He says: “We switched to Fenham after a couple of years, due to Kenton pool closing, and more than doubled the number of swimmers there.
“And, as the years progressed, we picked up other pools and worked with other venues.”
“But we also experienced three pool closures and were often never sure if a site would be open week-to-week,” says Phil, who had now complemented Swim NE with Nemo Swimming, which teaches babies, toddlers, pre-schoolers and juniors.
To eliminate such uncertainty, Phil leased an-ex forklift truck repair centre, on Camperdown Industrial Estate, near Killingworth, and additionally took on an old Clark’s Bakery unit, on Shiremoor’s Algernon Industrial Estate.
The buildings were transformed into PaddlePod-branded venues in 2021, with Killingworth fitted with a 25-metre pool and Shiremoor – split into two during construction to accommodate a separate gym operator – furnished with a 15-metre pool.
The focus, though, extended beyond the water.
Phil says: “Everyone has their own story of learning in freezing cold pools.
“Ours, though, are always set above 30 degrees, and are the same depth.
“But we also wanted to tackle issues beyond the pool.”
“We knew parking was a big pain point, so we ensured sufficient numbers of spaces,” says Phil of PaddlePod, which runs a third site in Whitley Bay and whose bases welcome more than 4000 swimmers each week.
He adds: “A national swimming survey also suggested one of parents’ biggest worries was accessing a good cup of coffee, so we added cafés with barista-style coffee, cakes and fresh baking to our venues.
“And we addressed another big area of concern, around occupying a child while another was in a lesson, by adding play areas and sensory and activity rooms.
“They have all diversified our offer; we now have hubs for friends to meet and children to play, as well as pools for lessons.”
The multiplicity, though, is set to grow further, with a day care nursery at PaddlePod’s Camperdown site.
Phil says: “We’re partnering with a provider, which will see us deliver lessons to its children.
“It will be another USP for us, and for the nursery too.”
The expansion will be underpinned by knowledge accrued from Phil’s time on the Scaleup North East programme, which delivers support events and connects entrepreneurs with dedicated partners – who have decades of business experience – to help map out growth plans.
For Phil, it meant the expert counsel of Tony Brooks, who grew a two-person electrical engineering firm into a multi-million-pound, blue-chip contract organisation.
He says: “There were times when I felt like I’d hit a roadblock, but Tony was always there, providing pearls of wisdom and, at other times, acting a little like an agony aunt.
“More than anything, though, he taught me diversity was crucial, as was keeping things simple and understanding – and then fully utilising – what we were good at as a business.
“That attitude and support stretches right across the Scaleup North East team; their passion for business is huge, and it leaves you feeling reinvigorated.
“It’s the same with Scaleup’s events programme.
“I suffer from imposter syndrome, but the events allowed me to rub shoulders with like-minded people and see my worries and pains – be they staffing, training, funding or cashflow – were exactly the same as any other business.”
And with such experiences to lean on, Phil says PaddlePod is primed to continue its growth, which, in the process, will extend a proud history of inspiring the next generation.
He says: “I didn’t set out to create the next international swimmer, it was more about creating a platform for people to swim for life.
“From that, we’ve got people that learned with us – who I taught as children – who are now our teachers and lifeguards, and others that have founded their own schools.
“And I take real pride from that closed circle, because it shows we’ve done our job over the last 18 years.”