I felt lost after school exam results, now I run my own business

Luke Chapman now sees his GCSE disappointment in a different light: as an opportunity

If your exam results do not go the way you want them to, there is still hope for a bright future. Three people who were in that situation recently, and who are now thriving in spite of it, have told us how they did it.

'Find what you enjoy doing'

Luke Chapman says he spent most of his school life at the back of the class cracking jokes.

He says he got in with the "wrong crowd" and became more disruptive, and his worsening behaviour eventually saw him kicked out of mainstream education altogether.

Luke found himself studying for his GCSEs from behind the barred windows of a pupil referral unit, and sitting his exams, he felt his school years had been "a massive failure".

"When you're sat in that exam room with your paper open, you literally think: 'If I don't get this question right, that's it, my future has gone down the gutter.'"

When results day came around, Luke got his results - four Fs and an E.

"If I'm honest, I think I just wanted to cry," he says.

Luke, from Fordingbridge in Hampshire, says he always had a keen interest in computers as a child.

But feeling "completely lost" after his GCSEs, he began a plastering course at college under the encouragement of his family.

He says he soon realised, though, that it was not the path he wanted his life to take.

"I finally put my foot down and thought: 'I'm going to do me now,'" he says.

So Luke dropped out of college and started sending off dozens of job applications, which led to his first role, selling solar panels over the phone.

Luke's next job in telesales introduced him to a new boss, who he says was so impressed by his work that he took him under his wing - ultimately setting up a comparison website business together.

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Finally able to pursue his lifelong passion for computers and tech, Luke, 24, went on to set up his own business - Earth Broadband, which he says has previously been valued at £5m.

He is now seeking to raise investment at that valuation with crowdfunding firm Seedrs.

That success means Luke now remembers the disappointment of his school exams in a different light: as an opportunity.

"You don't need to panic," he says.

"It's not the end of the world if you don't get the grades you wanted. Find a niche, find what you enjoy doing and just go out and get it."

'I wanted to prove them wrong'

Like Luke, Chidozie Obasi struggled to have his ambitions taken seriously by those around him.

Finding life difficult at school in his native Italy, he recalls classmates laughing as he told his teacher that he wanted to work in fashion.

"I think to an extent that actually helps you, because it teaches you to think: 'I really want to prove them wrong," he says.

Chido moved to Hull as a teenager after scoring "average to low" results in his initial high school exams.

Chidozie Obasi moved to Hull from his family home near Venice when he was a teenager

But he says his move to St Mary's College was a "godsend", resulting in a triple distinction* in his BTec in art and design.

At college and university, Chido combined his love of fashion with his writing skills - going on to successful internships writing for titles like Marie Claire and Italian Vogue.

Now 25, he is "really proud" of his work - as an editor and journalist at international fashion magazines Office and Le Mile. He has also been to fashion weeks in Paris, Milan, London and New York.

"A grade should not define the talent of someone," he says.

"Go out of your comfort zone and just try things - be curious and have an emotional drive too, because that's what's going to take you far."

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'It's OK to be different'

Lydia Jones, from Widnes, Cheshire, says she had "no big plan" when she dropped out of school at 15, part-way through her GCSEs.

Looking at her grades before then, she says she "wasn't particularly good on paper".

"When I was younger, when they would put the results on the board I would want to hide at the back of the class or go to the toilet," she says.

Lydia Jones now runs her own international company

Before long, Lydia says she hit a "brick wall", feeling so unhappy that she could barely get out of bed to go to school.

She says it was her sister who encouraged the family to help her turn her hand to things she was passionate about from home instead.

So Lydia taught herself to code online, and developed her own social media platform dedicated to what she enjoyed - fitness and working out.

She learned to market her business by sending branded merchandise to people for them to post pictures of online.

Using those tricks she learned from the tech world, 24-year-old Lydia now runs Housemates, an online platform designed to help university students find housing, from offices in the UK, Ireland, Australia and soon Canada.

Lydia says the key is to "find what makes you tick".

"It's OK to be different," she says.

"Just keep on digging until you find that thing that keeps you up at night."

Update 25th September: This story was originally updated to clarify the £5m valuation of Luke's business, and included details of the company's current finances from Companies House. However these details were incorrect and so have been removed from the story.