Posted by president on November 25, 2011 under News, People | 
Nowadays, people are producers, not just consumers. They have mountains of digital content – images, recipes, blogs and photos – to be shared and remembered.
That explains the plethora of content-sharing sites out there. Facebook shares connections, Twitter shares opinion, YouTube shares videos, Flickr shares photos…
And so Jack Lenox realised — hello! – What about writing?
If you were to survey the items on the average person’s bucket list, they would go something like this: run a marathon, learn a language, fly first class, fall in love, start a business. But the most common item is to write a book.
When it comes to writing a bestseller, the traditional route to market is thorny, with the off-putting submission and rejection merry-go-round.
Even so, the landscape is beginning to change. Sites like Lulu and Amazon’s CreateSpace allow new writers to self-publish, by producing print editions of their books without the hassle of multiple rejections and the grind of setting up a publishing business and dealing directly with print-on-demand publishers.
But, self-publishing is limited. Yes, it’s possible to make it into print or digital format, but without the backing of a publisher, it is difficult to find an audience. Promotion is the key.
Ultimately, self-publishing continues to be seen as a last resort. It’s still better to get your book published and distributed at someone else’s risk and expense. But it’s difficult to find a publisher to take that risk. And so publishing continues to be a vicious circle.
Jack Lenox has come up with an idea to break it.
He says, “When it comes to sharing writing online, there is no real household name like a Flickr or YouTube.” Maybe Jottify, the online community for writers, will be it.
Jottify allows members to write, upload their work and share it with the community to receive constructive criticism and ultimately get noticed. The site converts material into iPad and Kindle formats so that members can sell their finished work in the store.
The biggest benefit is that it also serves as a platform for publishers and agents to discover new talent. Jack is currently working on deals with independent and bigger publishing houses. He says, albeit early days, there is already serious interest in one work published on the site. It looks like Jottify could be just the platform to bridge the gap between traditional publishing and self-publishing.
Amazingly, the company has only been in existence for 2 months! It has evolved from its forerunner “eNovella”, which was a rudimentary creative writing community without a commercial element, to a thriving business. Jack was commended for his “outstanding entrepreneurial business idea” at the Santander Universities Entrepreneurship Awards, beating other UK entries to win the top prize of £5,000. And he received great PR when recommended by one of the foremost Twitter influencers, Stephen Fry.
Jack is no stranger to the internet. His drive and vision started as early as his first year at secondary school, when, inspired by the dot-com era, he began designing websites. Having designed a number of commercial websites for small businesses, he moved on to building and selling computers on the internet and through eBay during sixth form. During a gap year between school and university, he also set up a browser-based online game during a gap year between school and university.
Having cultivated his online expertise, he looked to media while at university. Despite still being an undergraduate, Jack founded two companies, Bold Media, a media development company, and The Founder, the independent student newspaper of Royal Holloway University.
And with the experience of setting up a number of businesses under his belt, Jack also founded Royal Holloway Entrepreneurs (RHE), holding the position of Sabbatical President for the academic year 2009/2010 with the aim of helping students launch their own businesses.
For your chance to hear how Jack has tapped into the Zeitgeist, he will be speaking at both Warwick and Coventry on Friday 18th November as part of the SVC2UK events.
Source http://nacue.com/2011/11/jack-lenox-tapping-into-the-zeitgeist/Written by Caroline Dean
Posted by president on July 20, 2011 under News, People |
Last Thursday, NACUE’s Founder Victoria Lennox became the first Canadian and on
e of the youngest ever recipients of the prestigious Queen’s Award for Enterprise Promotion. The award was presented by Business Secretary Vince Cable and Business Minister, Mark Prisk MP at a ceremony at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. Victoria and one of her Nominators, Matt Smith – a NACUE Founding Member and current Policy Director – then attended a reception at Buckingham Palace where they met the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh.
This is a tremendous achievement for Victoria and for NACUE that recognises and rewards the effort that has gone into building a national and international grassroots network over the past two years. It is also a wonderful recognition of the valuable work that enterprise societies and young entrepreneurs within theNACUE networks are delivering across the country.
Congratulatations to Victoria on her amazing achievement and we hope that she is the first of many NACUE’ers to go on and win the Award in the coming years. To read Victoria’s account of the past week visit: www.victorialennox.com
Posted by hilary on July 19, 2011 under News, People, Royal Holloway Businesses |
Jack Lenox has been commended for his “outstanding entrepreneurial business idea” at the Santander Universities Entrepreneurship Awards. His website, jottify.com which he dubs the “flickr for writers”, enables budding authors to post their work online where members can add comments and rate it and publishing companies can sign up to scout for new talent.
A total prize fund of £44,000 was on offer for undergraduate and postgraduate students who submitted the strongest entrepreneurial propositions, providing them with the means to develop their ideas further.
Jack impressed judges with his online community for budding writers, beating 47 entries from universities across the UK to first prize and earning him a £5,000 grant.
Posted by John King on June 23, 2011 under People, Royal Holloway Businesses |
Louis Mech, a social entrepreneur and member of Royal Holloway Entrepreneurs, had the opportunity of meeting Richard Branson at the Virgin entrepreneur’s expansive estate, as part of the Fast Track 100 conference.
The event began with an afternoon conference where guests heard from a range of speakers including Mike Clare, founder and president of Dreams, Keith Abel, co-founder and chief executive of organic vegetable delivery company Abel & Cole, Nick Jenkins, founder and chairman of personalised greeting card company Moonpig.com, as well as meeting Richard Branson himself.
Louis said, “Getting to meet Richard Branson was a major high point. He was an incredibly down to earth guy that just loves any new fun business idea, he is very inspirational. The reason that I joined Royal Holloway Entrepreneurs was because I had a passion for a business – however I was not sure how to take the next step. RHE have provided me with a safe environment to talk about my business ideas and, after winning the RHE Dragons Den, provided me with enough start-up capital to transform my idea into reality. My company, VEO Eyewear is a social enterprise glasses company. Every time someone purchases a pair of VEO glasses, VEO donates a pair of prescription glasses to a person in need.”
Posted by John King on March 29, 2011 under People |
Surinder Arora, Founder of the Arora Group of Hotels and one of the UK’s most successful businessmen, has become a Patron of Royal Holloway Entrepreneurs.
Surinder founded Arora Hotels in 1999 which has since become one of the fastest growing independent hotel companies in the UK and the largest hotel company at Heathrow and Gatwick airports. The primary focus of Arora Hotels is the design, construction and operation of luxury hotels.
At The Kia Oval, Arora is currently working in partnership with Surrey County Cricket Club on the development of a 168-bedroom luxury hotel and is also preferred partner for the new 212-bedroom Royal Ascot Hotel opposite the world famous racecourse.
Surinder has supported Royal Holloway Entrepreneurs since its inception in 2009 and has featured in our events several times. He will join Sir Alec Reed CBE as a Patron of our organisation and we gladly welcome him on board.
Posted by John King on March 27, 2011 under People |
Jess Ratcliffe, Royal Holloway Entrepreneurs Events Coordinator 2009-10, features alongside Prime Minister David Cameron and top global entrepreneur Richard Branson in a new campaign, announced during the 2011 Budget speech.
Startup Britain (click the middle dot on the right hand side to see Jess) is a high profile scheme aimed at aimed at boosting entrepreneurship which is backed by the Government, successful businesses and more than 50 large businesses. It will be publicly launched by David Cameron at 10.30am on Monday 28th April 2011.
Jess first came to the public’s attention via BBC TV’s Dragons’ Den, where she presented GaBoom, her game exchange website. GaBoom is now successfully helping thousands of users to swap their used computer games.
Jess developed GaBoom during her time at Royal Holloway, where she acted as Events Co-ordinator for Royal Holloway Entrepreneurs, helping to inspire other students to launch their own businesses.
A live blog of the launch event is available at the BusinessZone website.
Posted by John King on March 18, 2011 under People, Photos |
Sir Alec Reed CBE, founder of Reed Recruitment and The Big Give and founding patron of Royal Holloway Entrepreneurs, awarded this year’s Enterprise Minigrants at a truly special ceremony at Royal Holloway’s Founder’s Building.
Giving a hilarious and insightful speech, Sir Alec told an avid audience about his early days as an 8 year old ‘slave’ to his elder brother’s business ideas, his strong and supportive mother, his early passion for business and the confidence that was the key to his success.
He awarded the 2011 Enterprise Minigrants to:
Overall Winners – £2,000
Opera Holloway
Student Shops (Anna Bruce)
Winners – £1,000
Terrho (Nathan Nasrallah & Crystal Ho)
Paulius Satkauskas
Passengerfilms
Patricia Perez
Potters Lane (Anna Bruce)
Runners-up – £500
Neda Milanova & Elizabeth Nalumansi
Lauren McIlroy
Sir Alec was thanked by the Principal of Royal Holloway, Professor Paul Layzell, for the support he has given to the College over the years, and was presented with ‘Paintings from the Reign of Victoria’, the book which accompanied the Royal Holloway Collection tour.
For downloadable photos from the event visit http://picasaweb.google.com/rhentrepreneurs/SirAlecReedCBE17Mar11
Posted by John King on January 5, 2011 under People |
Royal Holloway Entrepreneurs’ founding patron, Professor Alec Reed CBE, was made a Knight Bachelor by the Queen in her New Years Honours.
Sir Alec (as we will be affectionately calling him) received the prestigious honour for his services to business and charity. He founded The Big Give, an online donations site supporting 7,681 charities, in October 2007 to help proactive philanthropists donate intelligently. A generous philanthropist and entrepreneur, Sir Alec previously founded the Reed Foundation which funds The Big Give, making it free to all users.
Sir Alec is also the Founder of Reed Specialist Recruitment, one of the largest recruitment solution providers in the country with over 400 branches and reed.co.uk, Europe’s largest commercial job website.
Sir Alec will return the Royal Holloway on 17th March 2011 to speak at our Get Inspired event. If you’d like to meet him (he is very friendly) then just come to our event which begins at 6pm!
Well done Sir!
Posted by Florian Jensen on November 22, 2010 under People |
Royal Holloway Entrepreneurs sent off a selected team of ten students to compete in the national Million Makers competition.
Million Makers is a national campaign to raise the £1million towards the £40 million this year that The Prince’s Trust needs to continue its work with some of the most disadvantaged young people across the UK.
Take a minute to meet our team and when you see them around campus, you can support them, their projects and the cause.
Cristina Lopez Stahlie
Hello there my fellow businessmen and women!! My name is Cristina Lopez Stahlie and it is my first year here at Royal Holloway. I currently live in Madrid, and have recently graduated from Leysin American School in Switzerland. I am currently a foundation student, studying psychology, economics and business and wish to continue studying psychology at Royal Holloway for my undergraduate degree. Through being part of the Royal Holloway Entrepreneurs committee, I currently hold the role of project director,and saw it as an opportunity to take a lead and generate business opportunities for both students and myself. As projects director, I took on the Million Makers project as I saw it as a challenge for myself and thought it would appeal to others as I feel it is a good opportunity to delegate as a team, take on roles and responsibilities and raise money for a worthwhile cause. As director of this project, I have taken on the role of the secretary to ensure that the team meets regularly, and co-ordinate the events to make sure all actions from our weekly meetings are implemented. I so far have found the competition very exciting, and feel that I am working with a very motivated and dedicated team.
Art Ophat Manosilapakorn
My name is Art Ophat Manosilapakorn. I am currently pursuing my MBA in International Management (Marketing). My main responsibility on the Million Makers Team is in the area of Public Relation and Marketing communication. Personally, I am passionate about the entrepreneur field and always on the lookout for humanitarian projects. Prior to my postgraduate studies, I worked in the health care and biotechnology industries. Being chosen to represent Royal Holloway in the Million Makers project is truly a great honour. Additionally, by working for charity I will be exposed to personal challenges and experiences that I would not have otherwise encountered. I also enjoy meeting open-minded people and make new friends.
Jean-Paul Talamoni
My name is Jean- Paul Talamoni. I am 19, half French and half Italian and currently studying in Royal Holloways UFP programme, studying Business, Economics and Mathematics and wish to continue studying Management and Mathematics at undergraduate level. I joint Million Makers as a challenge for myself as well as work within a team. The competition instantly appealed to me as very challenging and interesting, and I’ve found myself working with people from many different cultural backgrounds with different opinions. I saw Million Makers as a great opportunity to test my business acumen and raise money for charity.
Olivia Brocklebank-Fowler
My name is Olivia Brocklebank-Fowler, I’m 18 years old and I’m from London. I Joined Royal Holloway this year and am studying BA History which is good so far! I decided to join the ‘Million Makers Team’ because I’m very interested in business and how it works and may potentially want to follow a similar sort of career. Another reason for joining is because we are working for charity, a good cause, and I believe it will be very satisfying to see our hard work make a positive contribution to amazing work of the Princes Trust. The competition not only offers these given benefits but less obvious ones such as developing teamwork skills and meeting new people. On top of all of this if we raise the most money overall, there are many exciting sort of prizes such as 3 weeks work experience with a top corporate firm! The role I’m going to be taking specifically within the team concerns Public Relations. I volunteered for the role because I am a good communicator and am confident enough to approach people and get my point across effectively (hopefully!). I think I can contribute a lot to the team as I am bright, full of ideas and am good at identifying what consumers are missing (I can be quite skeptical myself) and therefore understanding what sort of events would be successful, worthwhile and fun. I am really excited about this competition and the plans we have already come up with and can’t wait to see what the result is!
Mina Le Vigoureux
My name is Mina Le Vigoureux , I am 18 years old and from France. I currently study Business, Economics and Media in Royal Holloway’s foundation programme and I am working with the team as PR officer. As I also wish to continue studying media in university, I thought this competition would be a good opportunity to gain experience with public relations and publicity of which I believe could be applied in future. I personally wanted to join the Million Makers team because I enjoy challenges, organizing events and working as a team. I also think it’s wonderful to support The Princes Trust and help young people in need.
Brian Donatiello
Hello, I am Brian Donatiello and hold the treasurer position on the team which involves financial control, record keeping and cash flow monitoring which is vital to the success of the project. I am currently studying in Royal Holloway’s foundation programme, in the following courses: mathematics, psychology, English and drama. As I am highly experienced in the economic field, I am very familiar with accounting processes and business in general, as I have an accountant high school diploma I really understand how to approach the competition from the economic perspective, applying my knowledge from my five years of studying economics, and now business. I decided to join Million makers to challenge myself, and work with a team under a strict time frame. I also admire how the overall outcome will be donated to charity, which has given me the enthusiasm to motivate the team and myself. In addition, I feel that this is already an amazing opportunity for future work experience, and a huge opportunity to learn from others as well as myself to apply in the work place in future. I feel the challenge itself is seen as beneficial to everybody in the team, especially as we are helping people in need. I am honored to represent Royal Holloway in this competition.
Xiaorui Wang (Tina)
I come from Beijing, China. I am currently a Pre-Master student in Royal Holloway International Management, and will study MBA International Management next year. I like sports, so I am a team member of RHUL BEARS Badminton. As a fan of Latin dancing, I joined RHUL Balads (Royal Holloway’s Ballroom and Latin American Dancing Society). Being a member the team of “Million Maker”, I am currently a PR officer on the Million Makers team of which involves research into local media opportunities, as well as distributing and delivering publicity materials.
Michal Porvaznik
My name is Michal Porvaznik and I am 18 years old student from Slovakia. Currently, I am studying at Royal Holloway University of London’s Foundation Programme. As for my role in the team, I am occupied with creating ideas for persuading people to take part in our project at the moment. I joined the team mostly because I like to get involved and spend my time creatively for the right purposes. I am student of mathematics and I believe that my analytical skills can contribute to the success of the team. I hope that this competition will improve my skills in multiple domains, especially teamwork.
Elizabeth Tanya
Hi my name is Elizabeth and I am currently studying the UFP in Royal Holloway. My responsibilities on the Million Makers team are to assist the secretary in keeping record of all information. I am also responsible in compiling proposals and business as plans as well as proofreading and overseeing all documentation before presentations and final draft completion. Helping the community has always been a passion of mine, and I believe this competition gives me the perfect opportunity to do so. I also believe that being a part of this project is playing a part in helping change and influence young lives. Giving one person an opportunity can influence the lives of many generations.
Posted by John King on September 14, 2010 under People, Royal Holloway Businesses |
Jessica Ratcliffe, a founding committee member of Royal Holloway Entrepreneurs, recently faced tough questioning from angel investors on the hit BBC TV show, Dragons’ Den.
First broadcast on BBC Two on Monday 13th September 2010, Jessica pitched for investment for her game-swapping website, GaBoom.co.uk. A passionate gamer and entrepreneur, Jess has been working tirelessly since January 2010, to develop and launch her dream game-trading platform, GaBoom.co.uk. “We have developed a safe, easy and unique way of trading games online; providing users, not only with our automatic user-matching system but two secure and insured postage options to take the hassle and risk out of trading their games online.” says Jess.
Jess told the Dragons the support she had received at Royal Holloway, one of the UK’s top destinations for student entrepreneurs, had been a critical factor in helping her to build her business. As a committee member of Royal Holloway Entrepreneurs, the student enterprise society, she has also inspired other students to follow their dreams.
Jess believes that pre-owned games will remain the choice of many gamers across the UK. “With approximately 12.4 million people in the UK currently buying their games second-hand, it is going to take something massive for all of them to switch to only buying their games brand new,” she says.
Doug Richard, who featured as a Dragon in the first two series of the show, thinks the current Dragons made a mistake by not investing. He told the BBC that GaBoom presents a “clear and wonderful opportunity… Jessica, wherever you are, there’s one ex-Dragon who believes in you.”
You can watch Jessica’s performance on BBC iPlayer here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dragonsden/entrepreneurs/jessicaratcliffe.shtml
Gamers who wish to swap a game can do so now at www.gaboom.co.uk.
For more information about Royal Holloway’s services for student entrepreneurs, visit http://www.rhul.ac.uk/careers/students/entrepreneurship/home.aspx.
