Two years ago, Nikolay invited me to talk at his student entrepreneurship event in Manchester. Unipreneur was his side project (next to the startup he cofounder called rarepink) to help students validate business ideas as rapidly and cheaply as possible.
During my talk I spoke about how we tested multiple business hypotheses rapidly at ektagon and how we were seeing great results from what would become included.co. Rarepink has also grown from strength to strength, going on to successfully crowdfund £120,580 last year.
Since then, me and Nikolay would have several conversations about his event and how it could be extended to help even more students discover alternatives to grad jobs at large corporates. Whilst we could agree that there would never be a perfect time for us to launch this, with so much going on at our own companies, it always been a shared belief that one’s uni years are perfect for exploring entrepreneurship.
And then at the end of last year it happened! We finally found some time to put aside over the Xmas break, to step away from our growing businesses for a moment to sketch out what a larger unipreneur project could look like and how it would work.
Whilst we’re still roughing out the details, we are looking for uni societies to partner with for our pilot sessions in the 2015/2016 academic year.
Unipreneur will remain a non for profit project supported by both rarepink and included.co and a handful of fantastic partners. (Want to join as a partner reach out here)
Here’s to helping societies give more entrepreneurial experiences to students!
Keep the passion,
Hector