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The Engagement Appeal x Niam Patel: From Card Trader to Business Advisor

By Emmeline Armitage 

The meeting point of art and commerce is ever-changing and hard to define. What place does art have in the world of finance? How can young, savvy individuals learn to secure their footing in the world of work through smart investment? What advice do successful entrepreneurs have for the youth of today about finance, culture, and belief in the self? These are all questions ‘Art and the City’ seeks to answer, by interviewing some of the brightest and boldest minds in both the art world and the city.  

This week’s episode of the Art and the City podcast features young entrepreneur and member of The Engagement Appeal’s informal committee Niam Patel. Niam is a former student at Cambridge University, who chose to pursue his passion for business and investing by co-founding his own two projects, Circular Regeneration and Card Culture. His self-taught know-how in tech, new asset classes, and sustainability makes him a key contributor to strategy and development at The Engagement Appeal, and he is only 23! 

Niam spoke to us this week about how his gap-year gone wrong lead to a career in business. At the age of 16, he managed to make a profit by buying and selling tickets to local festivals, and so in 2020, during a year stranded at home due to COVID, he chose to make the most of his time once again by buying and selling sports cards on eBay. He quickly saw returns from trading niche and rare cards, and developed a passion for business strategy and money making, before he even began his further education.  

4 years later his business continues to grow, where he still adopts those early philosophies learnt from trading sports cards as a teenager. When asked about what advice he would give back to himself or others looking to start their careers in business? Invest in yourself! Niam admits that skill-sharing and educating yourself in monetizable ways (eg/learning how to build websites) is one of the smartest things a young entrepreneur can do. 

When asked ‘what’s the one change you’d like to see in the city?’, Niam also admits he would like to see more diversity of social circumstance, adding poignantly that diversity isn’t always measured by things which are visible. 

Check out the episode here: Art x City feat. Niam Patel

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