How the Amazon Innovation Accelerator gave Lucy new connections and the capital to keep innovating

Lucy Essex co-founded her puzzle business, Elena Essex, in 2020 with a £5,000 investment and two products. Five years later, she is an Amazon Innovation Award winner with over 70 products, selling across the US, UK and Europe, and a turnover approaching £3 million. The Amazon Innovation Accelerator turned out to offer more than she had anticipated.  

How it started 

Lucy started her business with her next-door neighbour during lockdown in June 2020. By 5th November of that same year, they had sold their first puzzle and delivered to both the US and the UK. They very quickly sold out. Today they have over 70 puzzles, journals and greeting cards and are hitting £3 million in turnover. 

A room with people who understood 

When Lucy saw the opportunity to apply for the Amazon Innovation Accelerator, she knew it could open new doors. 

You have to increase the surface area of opportunity. Any chance to meet other business leaders, Amazon sellers, people at Amazon, take it! You never know where it might lead.

What she found surprised her. She’d had little connection with other Amazon sellers before, and meeting them turned out to be one of the most valuable parts of the experience. 

Meeting the other Amazon sellers was really useful. It's a very lonely world, and you don't really get to meet other Amazon sellers unless you go to these big events. 

Being in that room, connecting with people who understood exactly what she was going through, was something she hadn't been able to access before. 

The methodology that stuck 

The programme introduced Lucy to Amazon's working backwards process. For her, it clicked immediately. 

We had a goal in mind, and we worked backwards from it. We're still using that method to this day. 

Hearing that Amazon used the same approach gave it new weight. 

It really solidified how we work as a company. To hear it validated externally, and to know that Amazon uses the same methodology to innovate was really interesting.

A surreal moment that set off a chain reaction 

On 05 November 2025, exactly five years after selling their first puzzle, the team attended the Amazon Innovation Awards ceremony. They won. What followed was a cascade of connections. Lucy was introduced to John Boumphrey, Amazon's UK Country Manager, who connected her with a similar business in Brighton.

Further meetings led to a connection with one of the biggest names in the games industry. Through the programme, Lucy was also introduced to Peter Kyle, Secretary of State for Business and Trade, and shortly after the ceremony her team went to meet him in person. 

It provided this whole cascade of amazing situations — not only the win itself, but getting to meet our local MP.

Solving the number one customer complaint 

The prize money is going into something that responds directly to the most common complaints from puzzle lovers: missing puzzle pieces. 

The £30,000 prize is going towards an AI-powered app and scanning system that identifies missing puzzle pieces and replicates them using laser-cut printing. A real customer problem, solved through innovation. 

It always comes back to innovation and having the customer at the heart of everything. 

Thinking about applying? 

Lucy’s advice is clear:

"Without a doubt, do it. You have no idea where it's going to lead. It's opened so many doors for us and I don't regret it for a minute."