A group of York students has won the opportunity to have their very own I-phone application developed after winning The App Challenge final, held at the Ron Cooke Hub on Wednesday, January 18.
YUSU Welfare officer Bob Hughes has warned students to be vigilant after a student loans phishing scam has been revealed.
Her Majesty the Queen will be visiting York on Maundy Thursday, 5th April, as part of the 800th anniversary of York’s Charter for the traditional “Royal Maundy” ceremony.
A flood caused by a heating system “failure” forced the university IT services to shut down many essential systems on Sunday night, causing problems for many students on the eve of their exams and assignment due-dates.
The CPD event, organised for business leaders at the Science Park, was tailored more to an older generation of entrepreneurs but still contained information useful for students.
Mike started off with a short description, taken from his and Chris West’s book ‘The Beermat Entrepreneur’, about the stages businesses go through as they grow.
At the start, they are ‘Seedling’ businesses with about 1-6 employees, basically a bunch of friends who have had a great idea and are starting to make it happen. As the business grows, they become ‘Sapling’ businesses with between 7 – 30 employees, still with the laid-back attitude of the Seedling business but with a larger operation.
His premier bit of advice, a useful tip for future business owners, is the next stage. Once a business moves past 31 employees it becomes a ‘Mighty Oak’ and the transition into this stage is particularly painful.
The vastly expanded operation simply cannot run effectively under the laid-back attitude of the earlier enterprise, forms start to appear for everything, and a serious review of the business needs to be undertaken to make sure it can expand.
His advice was to plan this process as carefully as possible so as to avoid any pitfalls. In his time he’s observed many businesses fail at this stage because they could not cope with the changes. The murmur of agreement in the room confirmed his pronouncement.
Mike then moved on to his keynote speech, which is based on the success of the Beatles and the lessons we can learn from them.
Below is a summary of his key points:
Finding a Foil: With the start of a great business idea the most important thing to do is find someone with the opposite set of expertise to yours. Hence, if you’re an extrovert and love selling things, find someone who’s more introverted and loves going over details. By finding the right ‘foil’ you’ll ensure that between the two of you you’ll cover all the essential basics of starting a business.
Sales, Delivery and Finance: The next key thing to do when you’re starting a business is to make sure you have these three bases covered. You’ll need someone who is good at sales, pitching to customers, and getting traffic for your business. Aside from this you’ll need someone who is good at organising the business, making sure your products or services are delivered on time, and that everything runs smoothly. Last but not least, you’ll need a member who’s good with figures, someone who can record all your transactions and make sure you’re making a worthwhile profit from your enterprise. Without one of these key areas covered, it is likely that your business will not make it.
The Elevator Pitch: When promoting your enterprise, the majority of the time you’ll be doing this is on a one-to-one basis, as you meet people who could be interested in what you’re doing. Therefore, to make sure you get it right, remember the five P’s.
First up is Pain: your enterprise should be solving a pain for customers, this is how you sell your product/service. Start off by saying something like “you know how it is becoming harder and harder to get fresh orange juice locally for your children?”
Next is Premise: what your organisation does. You’d say “I’ve started a company that sources oranges from the surrounding area, presses them, and then supplies the juice the next day to primary schools in the area”.
The third P is People: Once you’re talking to someone who may want to go into business with you, you’ll need to briefly go over who you have in your organisation and what their roles are.
The fourth P is Proof: You’ll need to be able to prove customer satisfaction, or show how large your enterprise is e.g. “we now supply all the primary schools in the York area”.
The last P is more personal, it’s your Purpose: Why do you do this? What is your drive behind this?
Personal and Business Branding: Your personal brand and the brand value of your business are incredibly important. A person or business could make a lot of money, a huge pile of cash, but this does not mean that they are wealthy. As all entrepreneurs experience, money comes and goes in their line of work, what is more important is your wealth. Your personal wealth, and that of your business, is what opens doors for you. For your business, if you treat your customers well, if you treat those you are in business relationships with well, you’ll find that they recommend you, that they help open doors for you. Even more importantly, if your business does the opposite, you’ll gain a very bad reputation very quickly, and in most cases fail. The most important advantage gained from treating people well, helping people, and being honest with people, is that once things go wrong you’ll find people will help you back because they think you’re worthwhile. Personal and Business Branding is incredibly important.
Specifically for Young Entrepreneurs: You’re young, try everything! This is a great time to learn a lot of things and make a lot of connections that will help you in the future, so make sure you make the most of it. Once you find a project you really want to progress with, make sure you find a mentor.
A mentor is someone who will give you a whole load of tips on how to shape up your business; they’ll open doors for you; and they’ll keep you in line if your success goes to your head.
If you are a budding entrepreneur looking for some help, Mike has teamed up with 79 other business leaders to set up Yoodoo, a website dedicated to helping entrepreneurs from the very bottom up. No matter what level of knowledge you possess about business, this will help you start out.
The Yorker caught up with Mike to ask him a few questions about how students themselves could improve.
Here is a summary of the advice he gave us:
Make sure your members are doing the job they love. If they signed up for something, they’re probably doing it because it interests them. If not, then find out what would best fit their personality and go from there. You need to make sure they find it fun and interesting to ensure they stay motivated. Use the skills people have already.
The book is essentially a novel based on three friends who write up a business idea on a beermat and go from there. It covers the basics of setting up a business, finding your foil, making sure you have all the right areas covered, and covers all the problems that start-ups face in detail.
Learn stuff from the course to apply everywhere. Having a university degree essentially means you have an organised mind, make sure you do get one! Also, make sure you keep an eye out for people you could work well with. University is one of the best opportunities to build your network, so make sure you make the most of it!
Definitely. Your personal brand opens doors for you, gets people in to work with you, helps you find work when times are tough, and opens up support for any enterprise you start.
First off, check out “Social Media Marketing – A Thirty Minute Day”. This will give you the basics you need to know about using social media to the advantage of your enterprise. There are several social networking sites available to entrepreneurs, but the best one for developing your personal brand is Facebook. Facebook is aimed at the younger generation and was originally set up to connect people at university, so it’s perfect for building a worthwhile network online.
Find a foil. Whether in dating or in business, a foil will balance you out and make sure you have all the best chances of achieving success.
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