After more than a thousand unsuccessful job applications, a young entrepreneur in Plymouth turned his frustration with everyday barriers into a business designed to make information more accessible.
Brandon Hulcoop was born blind. According to the official 2026 Pride of Britain Awards profile, he spent 16 months unemployed and applied for more than 1,000 jobs. His experience was difficult, but it was not the only problem he wanted to solve.
A simple question about everyday independence
Reading a birthday card or ordering from a restaurant menu should not mean relying on somebody else. Yet many everyday products and services are still designed without blind and partially sighted people in mind. Brandon understood these barriers personally.
With mentoring through The King’s Trust Enterprise programme, he founded All Things Dotty. The company develops Braille menus, greeting cards, games and other accessible products for people, families and organizations.
Making accessibility a practical business
Instead of treating inclusion as an occasional accommodation, the business works to make accessible products part of normal commercial life. A Braille restaurant menu, for example, can mean ordering food with greater privacy and independence; a tactile card can make a personal greeting something its recipient can read directly.
Brandon’s work has also extended into advocacy and mentoring. According to the award organizers, he founded the UK Sight Loss Collective, mentors young people, speaks in schools and offers free Braille tuition for some people on low incomes. Published sources do not establish how many people have used those services, so this article makes no claim about their total reach.
National recognition, and bigger ambitions
In October 2026, Brandon received the King’s Trust Young Achiever Award at the Pride of Britain Awards. He hopes to expand the business’s accessibility work beyond the UK.
His story is not a claim that entrepreneurship is an easy answer to discrimination in hiring. Rather, it demonstrates what can happen when a person with lived experience of exclusion gains practical support to build something useful for others.
Sources: Pride of Britain official 2026 winner profile; All Things Dotty — founder’s story.
Featured photograph is illustrative and does not depict Brandon or his products.
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