Raising Entrepreneurs

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Young entrepreneurs making their mark with a tenner.

Entrepreneurial school students are getting a leg up with the relaunch of the Make Your Mark with a Tenner campaign.

The national enterprise competition, which will loan 20,000 young people £10 each, was launched outside the Bank of England in blizzard-like conditions last week. Attendants included Michelle Dewberry, former winner of The Apprentice.

Oli Barrett, entrepreneur and founder of Make Your Mark with a Tenner, said: “As the snow falls over Britain, I’m expecting a flurry of activity from everyone taking part in Make Your Mark with a Tenner. If I was starting today, I’d be wondering how I could save time and energy by running errands through the snow.  On a lighter note, I might be tempted to set up a snowball equivalent of a coconut shy and charge players 50p a time to win something!”

The competition challenges participants to make as much profit and social impact as they can in just one month with their £10 loan. Once the students have repaid their loan, they can choose to re-invest any profits into their business idea, give them to a good cause, or just keep them for their own use.

The competition is supported by the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA) and funded by entrepreneurs Peter Jones and Michael and Xochi Birch, the founders of social networking site Bebo.

Source: Startups.co.uk

Young entrepreneurs have discovered that stress is the key to success – by selling relaxation aids.

Pupils at Lincoln Minster School have set up their own firm called Bubble.

Their product range includes scented soaps, stress balls, wheat and lavender infused neck warmers and relaxation CDs.

The company was one of seven which set out their wares in Lincoln’s Waterside Shopping Centre on Saturday during the Young Enterprise Trade Fair.

“We all sat down to decide what products we’d like to sell and as we had exams coming up we thought products to relieve stress would sell well,” said pupil Ben Matthews (17).

“There is stress in everyone’s lives whether you’re at school or at work.

“We were amazed when we sold out of neck warmers and stress balls at the Christmas Market.”

The fair offered the companies a real taste of the challenges of selling goods to the public.

“We’ve discovered that there is a fine line between badgering people and allowing them to browse,” Ben said.

Deputy Mayor and Mayoress of Lincoln, David and Sandra Gratrick, officially opened the fair, which forms part of the Young Enterprise experience of year 11 and 12 pupils running real companies for the academic year.

During the year the businesses compete in area finals, with the aims of reaching the county, regional and ultimately the national finals.

Source: The Lincolnshire Echo

Avril Pevers, Orla Hurley, TV3 broadcaster Collette Fitzpatrick and Amy Culloty at the Young Entrepreneurs Programme Business Boot Camp.

Some 650 young people heard from leading Irish business figures at the second annual Young Entrepreneur Programme Business Boot Camp.

The boot camp is spearheaded by businessman Jerry Kennelly, the founder of Stockbyte, the Institute of Technology Tralee and Shannon Development.

The students from senior cycle secondary schools and the Institute of Technology will present their business ideas over the coming months, with help from local business people, to win a trip to San Francisco and Silicon Valley along with their teacher.

Cathal O’Connell, founder of Paddy Wagon tours and owner of Paddy’s Palace Hostels, said his business was thriving, up by 20 per cent in January alone.

“When you have a recession and no job, you may as well backpack around the world,” he said.

Hotels were cutting rates to lower than a hostel could afford but he was staying ahead by offering free bus rides from Dublin airport or a free extra night. “Do something different – that’s the main thing,” Mr O’Connell said.

When he started out he found his idea for bus tours was dismissed .“In the good times the investor should be cautious and go for it when people are scared,” he said.

In an interview on stage with TV3’s Collette Fitzpatrick, managing director of The Irish Times Ltd, Maeve Donovan, said the biggest transformation in the newspaper industry had been the internet. The Irish Times was one of the first newspapers in Europe to go online, she said. While there had been concern that online publication would kill circulation, it could actually drive circulation, because the paper reached a wider audience.

Essentially, The Irish Times was about being an honest, reliable and trusted news resource for its community in an age where news came from myriad resources.

One of the keys to success was not so much inspiration as hard work and application, Ms Donovan advised.

“The more doors you knock on, the more product you will sell,” she said.

“Time ends all recessions,” she reminded the young audience.

Read the full story in The Irish Times.

Ryan and Ashton Clark spend a lot of time churning out ideas for Web-based businesses.

In the past seven years, the 20-year-old twin brothers – both juniors at the University of Illinois – have formed more than a dozen such ventures, with products ranging from online music to sports apparel to parking-place reservations.

“Since I was very young, I’ve been passionate about starting something from nothing,” said Ryan Clark, who’s enrolled in the UI’s Hoeft Technology & Management Program with his brother.

So far, the Clarks’ most successful enterprise has probably been 247mixtapes.com, a site that enables access to “mix tapes,” music compilations released to promote artists before their albums are in wide distribution. That site gets 55,000 to 60,000 unique users a month, Ryan Clark said.

Another popular business, started while the brothers were still in high school, is Ludakicks.com. Ryan Clark described it as a footwear and apparel “superstore” with 50,000 products available. It’s an “affiliate transfer” Web site for shoebuy.com, Ashton Clark said.

The brothers also launched AlphaPMS.com, which promotes the AlphaPMS project management system, and they have two other Web-based ventures in the pipeline.

Ryan Clark said he and Ashton started Ludakicks when they were about 16. It had an 800 phone number so customers could chat in real time with staff members, he said.

When the brothers decided to come to the UI from Flossmoor, they changed the structure of Ludakicks because it took 10 to 12 hours a day to run the Web site, he said.

“Coming in as freshmen, we decided we needed to focus on school,” he said.

Still, operating the businesses requires a juggling act.

“It takes a lot of time management skills,” Ryan Clark said.

“If one of the Web sites is down, we’re notified by text message or phone calls. We step out, fix the issue, then come back. We pretty much just do what needs to be done, no matter what it is.”

Today the business is just the two brothers, along with Web designers and programmers who do contract work for them.

Rhiannon Clifton, assistant director of the UI’s Technology Entrepreneur Center, said she’s seen several students with one or two Web-based businesses, but never as many ventures as the Clarks have.

“It seems they have a new idea they execute every few months,” she said. “The sites certainly keep them busy. One of these days they’ll have a major hit.”

Ashton Clark said both brothers come up with business ideas, with Ryan dreaming up AlphaPMS and Ashton originating the ticketing system idea.

Ryan tends to handle marketing, online collaborations and partnerships with other companies, Ashton Clark said. Meanwhile, he concentrates on adding new features to the Web sites, automating them and making them more user-friendly.

Read the full story in The Chigaco Tribune.

Image: Brennan Cauron, The Daily Illini

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Young entrepreneur, Gerald Roseman.

For most 12-year-old boys a bit of an adventure might involve staying at a friend’s home or a camping trip with the Scouts.

Not for Gerald Roseman. His idea of an adventure is to embark on a pre-secondary school gap year that has already involved bear-watching in Canada and trips to the great cultural capitals of Europe.

Gerald also intends to visit Russia, Germany, Italy, France, Nepal and Bhutan before starting senior school in September.

And, just in case he finds time weighing heavily on his hands, he can always put in a few extra hours crafting necklaces, brooches and cufflinks for his  jewellery business. Gerald has already repaid the 500 pounds of start-up capital he borrowed from his parents, and is happily pocketing his profits.

He said: ‘I’ve been incredibly lucky to have a gap year so young. My favourite places so far have been Prague, because of all the history in the buildings, and Canada, with its wide open spaces.

‘It is such a modern country in comparison to ours. Over there, they think a building is old if it is more than 15 years old.’

Gerald’s gap year, accompanied by his parents Caroline and Joe, became possible after he was moved ahead a year in his prep school.

He then passed the entrance exam to £5,899-a-term Malvern College but because of his age was advised by the school to wait until September so he could start aged 13 like the rest of his peers.

Mrs Roseman, 42, of Tenbury Wells, Worcestershire, said: ‘I wouldn’t have been comfortable with Gerald starting school early as going in at the same age as his peers is important.”

Read the full story in The Daily Mail.

Watch the BBC News story on video.

Happy travels, Gerald – and may your business ventures thrive and grow!