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Young Enterprise - more info?

Has anyone done this? I hope to do it next year and would love to know a bit more about it before I get started.

Just what the roles are, what marketing is involved, product recommendations, how to manage accounts etc. etc.

Some advice, basically. Thanks

Reply 1

qwerty3

6

Well i did do it but i felt it was a total waste of time heeh i would only suggest you do it if you think there are enough people in the group for it to work and make sure there are girls in the group :P there are all the usual roles like finance director HR director etc and they do what their job title suggests. accounts can be run how you like your advisors will tell you how they want you to do it.

And make sure you have good products :P

Reply 2

LoZEr

14

^ disagree.

Its not a waste of time and having girls in your group shouldnt make a difference.

You just have to stay focused throughout the whole year and create a company that will produce a good turnover quickly. Dont have too many people in your group since otherwise there could be a lack of decent communication amongst members.

This advice is coming from someone who came 2nd in the national finals =D

Reply 3

scotlandlover

i did young enterprise and i toofound it tobe a waste of time. i was the finance director and little work is needed in that department all i ended up doing was putting money in the bank and takin it out again. at the end of it all it was not to bad as everyone in are group got £60 pounds each as we made a fair bit of money.

Reply 4

vector

15

Yep - complete waste of time. I was MD and me did absolutely nothing.

Reply 5

SouthernFreerider

12

im doing it! woopwoop cant wait

Reply 6

alex_hk90

19

I did it and it was incredibly hard work, mainly because I was Managing Director for the first half of the year (until I gave it up to concentrate on A-levels), and wanted us to do well.
But we did do pretty well and had a lot of fun, especially at the European Trade Fair in Bucharest (we were one of only 5/6 companies in the UK who got to go).
If you want product ideas and stuff, you might want to have a look at our (now defunct, but still online) website: http://www.dimensionye.co.uk/
Oh, and Trade Fairs are much harder work than they seem like; there's a lot of organisation required to make sure everything and everyone is there at the right time.

Reply 7

Andrew_2006

15

Y.E is a waste of time. You learn very few transferrable skills and if you want to do it well it takes up far too much time. Added to fact, that not everyone in the group is always going to be 100% committed and the fact that a team ran away with 500 quid at my school, I have reason to be sceptical about the whole affair.

Don't bother - concentrate on your academic studies. If you really want to do it thought, set up your OWN business outside of school hours by yourself. These days sites like Ebay make it so easy for people to dabble in a bit of entrepreneurship/.

Reply 8

AIUK

I did it to put on my CV and personal statement. If you have a sort of minor job its okay

Reply 9

ebam_uk

20

Well although it wasn't a waste of time in my opinion. We wasted a lot of time in our YE group which was something you can work on. Time management etc.

To me personally the point of young enterprise was about presentation of the company. Company report, Presentation Evening etc. rather than making money as anyone can sort of sale through ebay

So some useful advice is to build innovative and creative ideas because you can sell anything.

Reply 10

vector

15

You do get a couple of certificates for it...

Reply 11

Andrew_2006

15

sort of sale through ebay

That's simply not true. Ebay is so competitive, hence you have to come out with something at a very low price or innovative if you want to do well. Ebay also teaches you how to run a business as you have to respond to communications, printing packing slips, fill in tax forms (if you're doing it legitimately)

I'm not referring to someone who just sells Dad's old shoes and socks or the likes, but someone who actually sets up a proper ebay shop, with some sort of business strategy.

Reply 12

vector

15

Meh, it's not that hard to do reasonably well on eBay just reselling stuff from a wholesaler :smile:

Reply 13

ebam_uk

20

Andrew_2006

That's simply not true. Ebay is so competitive, hence you have to come out with something at a very low price or innovative if you want to do well. Ebay also teaches you how to run a business as you have to respond to communications, printing packing slips, fill in tax forms (if you're doing it legitimately)

I'm not referring to someone who just sells Dad's old shoes and socks or the likes, but someone who actually sets up a proper ebay shop, with some sort of business strategy.

Lol i have been running a semi-successful ebay shop on ebay for the last year and a bit. Just gotta get some automation + organisation and its like 24/7 shop always open in the end and niche market the place.

vector

Meh, it's not that hard to do reasonably well on eBay just reselling stuff from a wholesaler :smile:

Also most things sell on ebay just gotta find the right price and not overload the market.

However ebay is more an individual exploit for me, in Young Enterprise - it is a group thing so tactics that work for the individual have to be done through team work etc.

Reply 14

vector

15

Team work was the downfall of our YE company :sadnod:

Reply 15

theGAPkid

We did it at our school, Completely pointless, The group crumbled within weeks, By the end of the year there was 3 people doing all the roles (myself included) Despite that we managed to return everyone 150% of their investments AND finish off with a £50 return EACH (the three of us tht is) NOT the other 7 who ditched us - although they still got the certificate,
I was not best pleased :mad:

Reply 16

alex_hk90

19

We managed to keep the team together (with a couple of exceptions) all the way through the year. At the end we had 12 members, each receiving returns of around 500% on the initial investment.

Reply 17

buggars belief

for YE, do you have to be original or can you just sell something you buy from a manufacturer, basically so far I've only seen groups doing printed stuff, overpriced printed tracksuit bottoms, tops, knickers, rugby shirts, polo shirts and bags. How many do you know who provide really original ideas or do something more service-orientated?

Reply 18

CommunistHamster

They recommend making your own stuff, but think outside the box. Our business bough and hired in coin operated foosball and pool tables into the annex. They took in £130 a week on average! At the end, everyone got £45, which I guess could have been better, but we made a few mistakes.

I would recommend doing YE, don't listen to the ones who had a bad experience with it.

Some tips: Don't get too many people into the group as directors if you can avoid it. Our business ended up with a core of about 4-5 people doing the work and the others not really anything after they'd contributed their share and loan money [which is also important, but team morale begins to suck when you have a few people doing everything and others doing nothing. It wasn't their fault, we simply had nothing to assign them to].

When giving your interviews and describing your business to the judges at the end, USE TECHNICAL LANGUAGE. It gets you big points.

HSBC sponsor the thing, and I think our MD went to them and got a free bank account.

We had everyone in the group buy £10 of shares and give an extra £10 as a loan. You need £80 for the insurance, and then some money for your first moneymaking things. Start as soon as possible, otherwise you lose time which could be making money for you.

Anything else you need to know, just ask :biggrin:

Reply 19

lapsaJ

4

It was a waste of time really, and the competition side is a joke. People got through for saying: "we learnt time management skills" and "we took minutes at meetings"

We had a professionally designed product and took sales - the perfect combination...yet didn't go through. (We made tutorial-type DVD's for gcse subjects)

Young Enterprise - more info?

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