Recently, I met up with a cohort of 11 Duston School students who gave me a briefing on their business idea they are developing as part of a Young Enterprise initiative run at the school. They all study business or are interested in a business career, and work with Young Enterprise, a leading UK youth business charity.
Young Enterprise works directly with young people, teachers, parents, businesses and influencers to help build a successful and sustainable future for all young people. They run hands-on employability, enterprise and financial education programmes, resources and teacher training, It is a wonderful organisation that really does make a difference. Our country runs on entrepreneurship with people who take business ideas, form a company and make them a reality. The briefing was timely as I am currently involved in a House of Commons Education Select Committee inquiry on financial education and it proved quite useful.
This initiative was run under the Young Enterprise Company Programme. The programme guided the students to set up and run a student company under the guidance of an expert volunteer. They made all the decisions about their business, from deciding on the company name, managing the company finances and selling to the public.
With the inspirational Headteacher Sam Strickland
For Managing Director and Assistant Managing Director positions, students that were interested in the role had to perform a small presentation to the team, about why they would be the best for the position. Then the team had a vote on who they thought best suited the roles.
For everyone else they were allocated roles based on their skills and what they were happy with doing. For example, people who liked Maths were most likely to be in the finance team. People who did Media were in the marketing team. Additionally, the roles someone could choose from was either the Marketing team, Finance, Sales, Operations, or Product team.
"They decided their own roles, raised their own start up money and formed their own business idea and product."
Their product is called the Spike Shield. It is a silicone barrier to put on top of a drink in order to physically prevent it from being spiked. The team chose this product because spiking is an issue that has been becoming more prevalent in England, with spiking cases increasing. In a YouGov poll in December 2022, 10% of women and 5% of men said they had been spiked. Anybody can be a victim of spiking, but people in some groups are more likely to be victims like women. The police received 6,732 reports of spiking in the year ending April 2023. They see a gap in the market and are planning to sell this into clubs and bars in Northampton and across England.They even raised their own seed capital by holding raffles and other fundraising endeavours.
I was so impressed with their briefing and their sophisticated understanding of capital, marketing, branding and business planning. They decided their own roles, raised their own start up money and formed their own business idea and product. This is an invaluable experience for the students and will serve them well in adult life.