Q & A Entrepreneurial
spirit A
ged just 26, technology entrepreneur Nick Holzherr is the co-founder of Foodient, a
free online service that allows people to choose recipes and purchase ingredients (the company is currently hiring graduates). He was named ‘emerging entrepreneur of the year’ by Insider Magazine in 2010 and recently appeared as a contestant on the BBC show The Apprentice.
After leaving school did you decide to take the traditional academic route and go to university? After my A Levels I wanted to go travelling so planned a round-the-world trip with my friend. I first worked six months at a data company then travelled through 21 countries including India, Thailand, China, Australia, Peru, Bolivia and the USA. When I came back from travelling I was ready to put my head down and study. I chose to study international business and modern languages at Aston University because of the work placement it offered and the fact that Aston University has a good reputation for business.
What inspired you to start your own business and was it something that you always wanted to do? I only really considered starting my own business after co-founding a student society called SIFE at Aston University. We ran projects in Birmingham aiming to help support and develop the local community. It included things like teaching business skills to children and teaching homeless people employability skills. It was pretty similar to running a business, because we needed to use our own initiative to work
16 |
GradJobs.co.uk | Summer 2012
out what we needed to get a project off the ground. My grandmother was shocked when I told her I’d be turning down a job and trying it on my own.
Nick Holzherr
great mentor called Simon Jenner who advised us on how to make our business scalable and ultimately, how to make money from it.
What qualities do you think are important in running a successful business? Most of the people who do well in running their own business have common sense. They may not all be geniuses but they tend to focus on the simple things, such as ‘how much do you sell things for?’ and ‘how much do you buy them for?’
Do you see your current role as more of a vocation rather than a job? I do read that some entrepreneurs say that their job is more of a vocation. I think there’s an element of truth in that, but actually, starting your own business is just as much a job as working for a bank or something. There are parts that I absolutely love – talking about big ideas, having exciting meetings with new clients or partners, hiring people, watching profits go upwards, etc. However, making a business work requires hard graft too – sifting through excel spreadsheets, calling hundreds of potential clients – everything you get in a graduate job. The difference is, you do it for yourself.
How easy was it to set up your own business, did you get much help or support in the beginning? There is a lot of support out there for graduates interested in starting a business. Aston University gave me and my friend (who I originally went into business with), a lot of support in the beginning. They let us pitch our first coffee unit on campus and allowed us to use the lecturers for guidance and advice when we needed it, so we were grateful for that. The Birmingham Science Park in Aston runs a programme called E4F which we also joined. We received free office space for six months and had a
What advice would you give to graduates who are fresh out of university, with little or no experience, but who are keen to set up their own business? The best advice is to make sure you have a business model that works. Are there businesses out there already who have a similar model and make money out of what you’re proposing? If there are then you may be onto a winner. Pitch the idea to people such as ‘angel investors’, not for money but for advice. I’d also say try your business on a small scale before committing 100 per cent to it. Having said that, I dived into it head first and in the beginning it didn’t work out, but because I had fully committed to it I didn’t have much choice but to make it a success. Good luck everyone!
Nick will be speaking at The National Graduate Recruitment Exhibition on Saturday 9 June at 1pm.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43