After repeated requests from non-students for their own deal and discount service. We have been busy building a site to satisfy their needs and also to provide a home for studentbeans.com members once they graduate into the big wide world.
The new site is under going testing and we hope to launch it soon.
Watch this space for more information.
Saturday saw me take the day out and drive up to Warwick university for the Young Entrepreneurs Forum. A gathering of like-minded people interested in being an Entrepreneur or finding out more information and what it’s all about. I was there to deliver a talk ‘Behind The Beans’ giving an insight to how we got started and what it takes to be an entrepreneur.
It is great going to meet aspiring students full of drive, enthusiasm and self-belief about their ideas. Whilst there are those that have their idea already, others are still searching for that light-bulb moment. What I think they all have in common is they all have the opportunity to make a go of it.
Not every idea is going to work but a common phrase that is mentioned is that if not your failing you’re not trying hard enough. It’s true as well you learn far more from your mistakes than you do from getting things right all the time. It’s not just about new ideas or reinventing the wheel but it’s about doing something slightly different, or better than anyone else – with the fantastic customer service in the UK I am sure everyone reading this can think of an experience they’ve had with a company in the last week that could be improved upon by another business.
Another speaker that seems to be getting it right a lot of the time was Edinburgh schoolboy Fraser Doherty of SuperJam. He went into the jam‐making trade at the age of 14, after his homemade preserves sold well locally.
Now at nineteen, Fraser has won a number of prestigious awards and been the focus of a great deal of media coverage. The product is a range of no added sugar ‘super fruit’ spreads. These are made from the most nutritious fruits around such as blueberries and cranberries and are sweetened with grape juice rather than sugar or sweeteners. Amazingly Fraser went into an industry that existed for hundreds of years and has been able to do extremely well selling over 500,000 jars in the last year. It was great to hear his story first hand along with the creation of the SuperJam foundation which is about to launch it’s first tea parties for the elderly all supported by Waitrose his first big national distributor.
Overall it was a great event, not only to share our experiences and help to inspire others but to meet students and other speakers a like - not to mention studentbeans.com fans that share their favourite offers with us.
Feel free to contact us if there is any event you want us to speak at.
The last few days I’ve been away in Dubai attending this years Kids and Youth Marketing Summit. Following an invitation to run a workshop on digital and online strategies it was a fantastic opportunity to represent studentbeans.com - experience a different culture and share our expertise in the market place.
Dubai is an amazing place full of opportunity with a huge amount of growth and development occurring everywhere you look. The weather predictably was blue skies however as it was a conference, the most part of the 4 of the 5 days I was there was spent inside a hotel which could have been like any other 5 star hotel in any other part of the world.
My Workshop: With an audience from countries including Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Dubai, Kuwait and others it was a challenge to ensure the information was pitched at the right level and I was able to engage with delegates.
The topics covered included:
- Optimising your media mix with the most applicable new technologies to maximise revenue for your brand and target market.
- Identifying which key channels you need to be using and how you can transmit your message.
- Developing long-term brand values by ensuring your messages are seen and used in youth-friendly media.
The workshop ran for the whole day providing participation and interaction throughout – The session I ran was received extremely well and I got some fantastic feedback so I was really pleased with the outcome of the day and overall experience.
Other speakers at the conference included Ahmed Nassef from Maktoob the largest social networking website in the region, Michael Brown – the exclusive agent for Crocs in the region, LG Electronics, HP amongst others. A representative from Ski Dubai, a local attraction was also speaking, an amazing attraction that has real snow in the middle of the desert! I managed to experience it one evening a very surreal experience and a lot of fun!
One of the highlights was hearing Abdullatif Al Sayega speak the CEO of Arab Media Group. An amazing person on of the regions most influential business leaders he has been involved in launched MTV Arabia television channel as well as a partnership with Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Radio International radio station, Virgin Radio Dubai.
He spoke about the excitement and opportunity that needs to be embraced. Whilst he also commented that the developments in the region are not that people locally are becoming westernised, but that they are becoming modernised. It is leaders like him that are doing such brilliant things and looking to the future to embrace development and not shy away from the way the world is developing.
Overall it was a fantastic few days and interesting to see and experience a country with so much development and opportunity. If you’ve not been I’d definitely recommend a trip whether it be for business or pleasure, for desert safari, skiing, the 7 star hotels, beaches, shopping malls bigger than you can imagine – it really has everything and more you could ever imagine.
