Enterpreneur

StudyStash delivers an AI-powered web-app which promises to empower students through their GCSE’S, A-Levels and at University. The business is founded by Computer Science finalists Ben Ward and Jonathan Graham.

Running your own business comes with some incredible aspects too. My personal favourite is running and having the responsibility of looking after a team of 10. It's great to see everyone working together towards a common goal; to empower students to do well in their exams.

StudyStash - Overview from StudyStash on Vimeo.

My advice for anyone thinking of starting up? Just jump! What's the worst that's going to happen. Releasing, setting deadlines and just doing it is the best advice we can give to new start-ups.

Weeb Express is an anime merchandise business, founded in July 2021 by Materials Science Graduate, Heidi Leung. On 21 - 23 July, Weeb Express attended Hyper Japan London - the largest Japanese culture festival in the UK, centred around Japanese cuisine and pop culture such as gaming, anime, manga, music and more!

Heidi: Hyper Japan was our very first convention in London and our third convention ever since we started two years ago. I am so glad that everything turned out alright in the end. Despite the train/tube strikes affecting sales, we still managed to make a small profit!  London has proven to be a suitable place for Weeb Express, and we're eager to attend more London conventions in the future. 

Weeb Express is more than just making money. It's about bringing happiness to anime fans in this country, including myself! I love anime, and it's fulfilling to work for what I enjoy.

Running a convention stall like this enables me to meet wonderful, like-minded anime fans in this country.

I'm also grateful that the Elevate Programme gave me the opportunity to employ Ash and Fiona as student interns. They have been a great help! It was my first time undertaking the hiring responsibilities, including crafting job descriptions, conducting interviews, and maaging the interns. I've learned a lot from it, and I'll use those lessons to make things even better next time!

Ash: During my internship with Weeb Express, I found it interesting to witness and be a part of two distinct aspects to retail: an online aspect, in which I spent time discussing and strategising potential social media campaigns in order to improve customer retention, as well as a physical aspect, in which we sold merchandise at Hyper Japan, a massive festival in celebration of Japanese culture.

I learned the importance of building a loyal customer base- the more people following us means the more people that will have a look at buying from our store.

To this end, together with the rest of the Weeb Express team, we planned and executed said strategies such as collaborating with university societies and anime groups that would be interested in buying from us. They get a discount, we get advertising, a win-win situation.

Above: an example of a promotional voucher we created as part of a collaboration with anime societies

Speaking of which, next came Hyper Japan itself. Weeb Express primarily focuses on selling anime merchandise, and at Hyper Japan we had plenty of customers interested in our stand. The one big difference between regular retail opportunities, and working at a stall at a festival, was the level of presentation that needed to go into the stall. I found that our Ichiban Kuji was a big draw to people at the festival, as it was unique and made customers curious to have a try at our lucky draw.

Fiona: As part of my internship with Weeb Express, I was responsible for the company’s social media advertisement. At first, I wasn’t sure what kind of expectations I should have nor how to go about designing the marketing posts, but was provided with apt assistance such as previous examples and suggestions of design tools such as Canva.

I quickly grew accustomed to utilising graphic design techniques to ensure Weeb Express’ posts looked as professional as possible, and ensured that all captions were formatted uniformly and correctly. I learnt how to track product stock, practised my translation skills and learnt more about how the business generated profit, all while under a relaxed work environment.

The part I enjoyed the most was definitely being able to work at the Hyper Japan convention in-person; it was a remarkable opportunity which I will remember for years to come. It is the largest exhibition celebrating Japanese culture to be held in the UK, hosting thousands of visitors in London!

All in all, I found working for Weeb Express and learning about its business practices a pleasant and recommendable experience, especially as I have of common interests with Heidi, the owner. 

Recommended blog: The anime inspured start-up (Weeb Express)

Written by Heidi Leung, Ash and Fiona Zhang.
Added by Bob Lee

The start-up is founded by Applied Linguistics graduate Ian James and based at the university's incubator UoB Elevate in Centenary Square. Hex Mad value sustainability and inclusivity, and plan to give 10% of their profits to charity.

When COVID-19 hit I was living in China, teaching English at a university in a ‘small’ coastal city of 6 million people. I was alone and the lockdown rules on campus were very strict, meaning I went close to 6 months with little to no social contact. This experience taught me two things: 

1. Always grow your hair and/or beard long during a global pandemic. It might be the best chance you’ll ever have to see if you can pull off Jesus-chic.

2. Even if you’re a massive introvert like me, spending time with people is essential for one’s mental health, I went full-on Cast Away and made friends with a shield bug!

Whether it’s board games, Dungeons and Dragons or Nintendo, games have long been a centre-point for my social life, and I think this is true for many. They help bring people together and connect over a shared experience. 

I’ve always struggled with social anxiety to varying degrees, but I’ve found that when I’m engrossed in a game any anxiety I’m feeling fades. 

So, stuck in a small flat with only Miguel the shield bug for company, I started designing games that I hoped would capture those social gaming good-feels I was craving.

I eventually came back to the UK to do a Masters in Applied Linguistics at the University of Birmingham, during which I had the idea for Curse Words. 

I used corpus analysis techniques learned during my MA to help determine the game’s letter distribution and point values based on letter frequencies (while I should’ve been doing my dissertation, naturally). 

Then, when I heard about the support the university offers for start-ups, I decided it was time to give releasing games a shot. I knew it would be difficult and might not work out, but if I could bring a bit of humour, anxiety-relief and togetherness into a few people’s lives I felt it’d be well worth it.

The university helped me a great deal. First off, I received £500 of funding thanks to the B-Enterprising Startup Fund, which went a long way towards getting Hex Mad off the ground and even more importantly, gave me the self-belief (and belief in my idea) that I needed to take the plunge.

Secondly, we were lucky enough to get a place at UoB Elevate, the university's start-up incubator run by the fantastic B-Enterprising team. This has given us access to learning and guidance from business experts, mutual support from the other founders on the programme, and a swanky office space at the Exchange building in central Birmingham, all of which have been invaluable.

Thirdly, we’ve been able to recruit two interns from the B-Experienced programme, as well as two MSc Marketing students from the Marketing Project, to advise on how to better get the game out there, something I’m not great at!

We recently exhibited at UKGE, the UK’s biggest board games convention (2-4 June at the NEC) and the interns’ help here was vital.

The best part about starting your own idea I would say is the freedom, scope for creativity, the challenge and sense of achievement, learning loads of new things, and meeting some lovely people you wouldn’t otherwise meet. 

The more challenging part is that you are always busy and never able to fully switch off, as there’s always more you could and should be doing. Having spoken to a few people who’d already set up board games companies, this is something I already knew, but it really is a lot of work.

There’s so much to do behind the scenes, all of which seems to take up more time than you’d expect, and often you don’t have much to show for it. This is not to put anyone off – it can also be extremely rewarding – it’s just to say don’t do it unless you’re really passionate about the organisation you’re creating. 

Your biggest takeaway from your experience?

Go for it! Apply for that start-up support, go to that event, do that scary thing. If you can bear to, give it a try. You might succeed, you might fail, but you’ll definitely come out wiser/more experienced, and you might make a few friends along the way.

I’d love to hear from any tabletop games lovers at UoB! We run occasional board games meetups and may have future internship opportunities available. And of course we’d appreciate any support - look out for our Kickstarter campaign and Instagram page.