MeTeech - Learn smart not hard.
MeTeech is the name of my business. As of right now, it’s in the start-up phase. Here’s my little pitch, to explain what we do:
“At MeTeech we believe that students should learn smart, not hard. Think for a second: How often have you struggled to learn a subject because it wasn’t explained well enough? On the other hand, how often have you found just the right YouTube video and aced a test?
Our website allows students to share the best of the best in online resources. Users of the website will be able to post about an online resource that helped them. Other users will be able interact with the post using likes, comments and shares. The result is a searchable library of the most helpful learning content available! The MeTeech website is currently being built under the domain: meteech.com. Coming soon!”
Since I haven’t told the story of MeTeech on this website as of yet, I’ll start from the beginning.
***
Being a business student at Loughborough Uni, I was offered the chance to participate in a YIE or ‘Year in Enterprise’ in place of a normal placement year. Essentially this allows students to work on a business project for the duration of the year and report back with what they’ve learned. This excited me - The very reason I had chosen a business degree was to be in control of my own time. What better chance than now to jump into the deep end!
After pitching my idea in an interview with the coordinator of the YIE I was accepted into the cohort for the upcoming year. I was warned: This isn’t the easy way out and success may not come so easy. What’s most important is the lessons you learn.
July marked the first few training days with the cohort. There are about 20 of us who attended in person, the rest joined in remotely over MS Teams (a video conferencing app) totalling about 30 students. Each of us had our chance to pitch our idea in front of the group. Everyone there was really friendly and there was plenty of passion and ambition flying around too.
Here’s a picture of us at our last meet up:
Meet up with the YIE group, September 2021
Yep that’s me (in the mauve shirt.)
Those training sessions in July went through some of the more crucial parts of business: Risk Assessment, insurance, taxes and other business legalities, research, marketing, financial management, intellectual property and goal setting. We were also told what kind of documentation of our work was required for us to attain our DPS qualification at the end of this year.
That summer I mainly worked on market research such as looking into what’s available to students today and also looking into how to make my website a reality. I wrote blog posts on medium.com about my pursuits and I’d like to share those with you. Before we get there, I’d like to point out here that this is a time-capsule from when I had first started this journey - A lot of the details may be different but bear with me as I come out with these - This will be part one of a series of posts, so stay tuned.
That being said, here’s the first post I wrote. Enjoy.
Writing on medium.com - meteech.medium.com
“Last night, I registered my company with Companies House under the name Zensei Ltd.
I’m finding this to be a very important first step in starting up a business. Whether its setting up a business bank account or applying for grants, a lot of business activities seem to require that you’ve already registered your company. I’m now waiting around for confirmation of my application before I can do all that. Lesson learned: if you’re starting a company register it first and foremost.
How? Google it, you will find link to a government website.
For a business bank account, I’ve been recommended Mettle by NatWest and for a grant I’m applying for the Young Innovators Awards 2021/22 funding competition (which closes on the 28th!). This fund would give me £5000 plus living expenses.
As I’m doing this for my university placement year, I am required to submit various bits of paperwork to my ‘business manager’. This includes things like student declaration.
Other activities to be completed include a risk assessment of business activities, creation and updating of a business model canvas (on a website called validatestartup.com), and an excel profit and loss budget plan.
I’m keeping track of the things I need to do using an app/website called todoist.com. It has an excellent Trello-like interface that is very helpful for recording of tasks within a project. I’ve also been recommended to use a Gantt chart. From what I understand, this can be used to plan future tasks. I’m already a huge fan, I will be looking into it soon.”
Some Thoughts:
Back when this started, Zensei Ltd was the first name I came up with. Unfortunately, that didn’t pan out as I’d hoped (but that’s a story for another time.)
Unfortunately, I have not heard back from that funding competition but I can’t say I’m surprised. - At the time, I hardly knew much about the details of my business and I could not answer the application questions to the level of detail I believe they required. Looking back, I came across the competition at a bad time in my calendar. If I had more time, I would have thought about the questions and come back with stronger answers and as a bonus, I’d be more experienced in pitching my business. Not to worry, I’m looking ahead to some funding opportunities this year at uni.
I have yet to create a Gantt chart and I probably should for the sake of keeping track of tasks. But up until now, Todoist has been very reliable in tracking my day-to-day.
I remember how smug I felt when I started receiving mail from the government with ‘Zensei Ltd’ written on it. Even just looking at the name on my business bank card was a nice feeling. However, I was soon drowning in spam from companies selling services to start-ups. I guess being so incredibly famous has its downsides.
I plan to keep this story going so stay tuned for more updates coming soon.
