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.

Yesterday saw me take a road trip up to Oxford to hear Richard Reed, one of the founders of Innocent Drinks speak at Oxford Entrepreneurs. As a true fan of Innocent I wasn’t disappointed. For those of you reading this who have had a smoothie or two but not ‘joined the family’ Innocent have an amazing way of doing things differently. Whilst other smoothie companies have come and gone in the last 8 years Innocent has gone from strength to strength not sacrificing on quality building an amazing business.

The Story began with 3 men with an idea; to make it easy for people to do themselves some good. In the summer of 1998, they bought £500 worth of fruit, turned it into smoothies and sold them from a stall at a little music festival in London. They put up a sign saying, ‘Do you think we should give up our jobs to make these smoothies?’ They had two bins, one saying YES and the other NO and asked people top put their empty bottle is the right bin. The next day they had all resigned from their jobs.

What I like about Innocent is that they don’t take themselves too seriously and as a brand they are constantly re-enforcing their message over and over again from quirky jokes on their packaging to their recent invitation for people to apply to join them at their AGM!

They make me smile, and feel good A couple of things I took from the night were Richard’s thoughts on Entrepreneurship with thinking big, but starting small! Having been running studentbeans.com since 2005 we started in Birmingham small and now all across the UK. I think so many people have ideas but never start because they don’t have this in mind and think what they want to do is just impossible.

One final thing was the reference to Richard and other senior team members being Chief Squeezers who are involved in the final stage interview process of applicants to work a fruit towers. I guess that makes me a Chief Bean! Not sure if it’s got the same ring to it?!

Sooner than expected after my last judging experience only a few weeks ago, I pulled out my Dragon alter ego after I was invited along to consider the university students who had reached the final of this years Students! Make Your Mark Challenge. The 2007 challenge, ‘Make it pay in a globalocal way’, was designed to get the teams thinking about solutions to the world’s social and environmental issues.

The teams had to come up with an idea and develop a business and marketing plan to show how it would be successful, and then pitch their idea to a panel of judges including:

Entrepreneur Seb Bishop, who starred in Channel Four’s Millionaire’s Mission

Levi Roots, the entrepreneur who made his name by winning the investment he needed for his product Reggae Reggae Sauce on the BBC’s Dragons’ Den

Matt Littler, the actor who plays Max Cunningham in Hollyoaks.

And me – Co-Founder of studentbeans.com. It was a fantastic day and great to see so many ideas being presented.

For the announcement of the winners, once the judging was over I found myself at the front of the room sitting sandwiched between Levi Roots and MOBO award-winning hip-hop artist Akala who hosted the finals.

As an entrepreneur it is fantastic to see so many other students following their ideas and developing them. Speaking to so many students – a lot of people perhaps don’t develop their ideas as they do not think it is an option. Make Your Mark as a campaign is fantastic in bringing like minded people together and helping them to build the foundations that really can make the difference between ideas that are just a thought and then helping people take those ideas and making it happen!

What idea do you have and what are you going to do about it?

Matt Littler from Hollyoaks on stage announcing one of the awards alongside Akala

So as Enterprise Week 2007 came to a close I met some fantastic people who all contributed to making this week a success. Tuesday at Thames Valley University saw me being interviewed by the FT so a short video for their website click here to view it. Enterprise week was all about encouraging people with Ideas to Make them happen - and if you didn’t have an idea to start to think what might be possible.

On Friday morning I was invited to the launch of The Make Your Mark Tool Kit in central London. It was a fantastic event with people from all different parts of Business - MPs, PR and the media. The highlight for me was hearing Eugenie Harvey speak - Co-Founder of We Are What We Do the organisation behind the book Change The World For A Fiver a brilliant book, you might have guessed, that costs £5 - and has 50 practical Tips on what you can do to Change the World. By each of us doing our bit we can all make a different. I came across the book shortly after it was originally launched in 2004 - they hope to sell their millionth book by the end of this year. Hearing Eugenie speak was inspiring, her energy and passion for the movement they have created and the impact they are having. Click here for a recording on Delicious Ambitious to hear Eugenie for yourself.

What are you going to do to make a difference?

The fourth annual Enterprise Week starts today, with over 5,000 events and activities taking place throughout the UK across the week – a massive 61% up on last year. It has involved a massive collaborative effort with 1,893 different organisations officially registering events, with support from many more.

So what are we doing to Make our mark? On Tuesday I’ll be a Judge at Thames Valley University along with Alex Tew who set up www.milliondollarhomepage.com and another fellow entrepreneur. This should be a great day with local students having to pitch their ideas to us to be in with a chance of winning £150. The winners will go forward to a national final, where they’ll compete to win £2,000 plus a package of Microsoft products to help them get their business underway.

Wednesday I’m down at Brighton University speaking at Beepurple’s Enterprise Week event Reality Cheque running interactive Q & A sessions along with Speed Networking which is a bit like speed dating for those that have been!

Friday sees me do an assembly for a school in North West London – so why is all of this so important? Well, being an entrepreneur is probably one of the most varied and challenging experiences you might choose to do. So many people end up working in jobs they don’t enjoy and let their dreams disappear - you have a choice and the question is what are you going to choose?

As a team we are creating something new and different, it is fantastic to look back over the last year and see how much we have grown as a business whilst there is always so much more we want to do. If you’ve got any ideas of what else you’d like to see us to let us know!

Having an idea and making it happen is what Enterprise Week is all about – celebrating innovation and people that are making a difference. What are you doing? What can you do to make your mark?