Entrepreneurship talks inspire students

Global Entrepreneurship Week took over campus on the 16th of November, and unfolded throughout week 7. The event was organised by Warwick Entrepreneurs, a society supporting and developing entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial ability, by helping prepare students for a career in business or helping them start a business.

Having to live up to last year’s achievement (24,966 events and activities run in 77 countries, attended by more than 3.06 million people) this week’s events lived up to the expectations of participants on campus, making Warwick’s contribution to the global imitative successful.

“Those 60 minutes were the most productive in my life,” Leonhard Widrich, a first year International Management, and team member of Warwick Entrepreneurs, told the Boar. He was referring to two talks that took place before lunch time on Friday 20 November: “How to Launch a start-up in 30 minutes, From idea to market”, delivered by Iqbal Gandham, Serial Entrepreneur and Co-Founder of Net4India, and “Creating a product the customer needs”, delivered by Zebedee Franklin, Director of Spring Consultancy.

Gandham delivered a speech about how a business can be easily started with basics such as a pen, paper, a white board and an innovative idea. While money does play a significant role in the process, it is not the primary ingredient in a successful business initiative, he said. Passion and enthusiasm are far more important.

“You need to keep the passion and the momentum going” Gandham told students attending the lecture. “Getting a £30 deal is as exciting as getting a £3,000 deal” if one is just starting their business career, he argued, highlighting the importance of a first deal for any aspiring entrepreneur.

Speaking next, Franklin stressed the idea that we now live in a climate where people have become extremely risk-averse, and thus making a name for oneself in the business world is challenging. Nonetheless, starting a successful business can become a reality, if one has an original idea and manages to find a niche market and use that as a starting point, he said.

Also attending the events was Steve Barnes, co-founder of “e-resistible.co.uk”, an online takeaway website, with hundreds of restaurants in their database, aimed at making it easier to order food online. Having graduated with a degree in Management from the Warwick Business School last year, Barnes developed the initial idea for the business in his first year, being prompted by a project he had to do as part of a first year management module. Their idea was turned into a successful business that now caters to several cities across the UK.

Leonhard Widrich conveyed his enthusiasm for the initiative of the week, and argued that the importance of Warwick Entrepreneurs extends beyond the reach of this week’s events. He also stressed the importance of the International Digital Laboratory as a platform for the development of business ideas. It can work as an entrepreneurial hub, a “silicon valley”, for people with creative ideas and people with the appropriate technology skills, helping them come together and construct their business plans, Widrich told the Boar.