With the new Entrepreneurship BA due to start in September 2016, we thought it would be a nice idea to share some of the entrepreneurial stories within Westminster Business School. One of these stories is Danny Lowney, currently a third year Business Management with Entrepreneurship BA student who has his own startup, KnowWhatSupp.com and works for Sup, another London, technology based enterprise. He’s also currently twelfth place in the Virgin Media Business competition and is in with a chance to pitch Sup to Richard Branson! Here’s what Danny had to say about his experiences during his time at Westminster:

Meet student & entrepreneur, Danny Lowney

Hello! My name’s Danny Lowney, I’m a third year Business Management with Entrepreneurship BA student. I live in London but am from Brighton. I actually did my first year in Bournemouth University (I wanted to find somewhere with a beach), but decided it wasn’t for me and so looked to transfer to another university. I knew by this point that I wanted to be in London and as Westminster allowed me to transfer without doing my first year, I came here. I have to say I wasn’t really looking for entrepreneurship – my plan had been to choose marketing, but I changed my mind as soon as I saw what was involved on the Entrepreneurship pathway. As the founder of an online business (KnowWhatSupp.com), I decided this pathway would really facilitate what I was doing outside of the curriculum – and would help me to be really efficient with my time. How do I define being an entrepreneur? Entrepreneurship is about discovering, or creating another opportunity, providing value to solve the problem presented by that opportunity and then capturing that value in terms of profit. Why do I love it? There’s nothing more satisfying than coming up with an idea, seeing it through and then having other people comment on it as a separate entity to you – especially your brand. Hearing people talk about what you’ve done externally is very satisfying.

A day in the life of a Westminster entrepreneur

By the time you get into the third year you don’t have many timetabled sessions on the Entrepreneurship pathway, and if you’re bad at managing your time you find you can get very busy despite not being in lectures. A typical day for me would be getting up, going straight to university, I’d have maybe three hours of lectures/seminars, and then I’d probably go into the Sup office for the second half of the day. That would take me to the evening when I come home and then go back to my uni work. It’s quite a mix, but for me, there’s probably about 2-3 big things going on in a day. I really like the variation because it keeps me on my toes.

I’ve really enjoyed this course because it gives me autonomy over my learning and how I spend my time. Everyone learns differently, and I really value this approach and the independence and focus it gives me. This campus is always open, it’s always in the centre of London, so if you need it, it’s always here and easy to get to. Plus you’ve also go the amazing opportunity of the city of London.

One of the most enjoyable part of this university experience has been running the Entrepreneurial Society at Westminster. I spoke earlier about how it’s satisfying to create something and one of the most satisfying things I’ve done is creating/hosting these events, where we bring really intelligent people into speak  and we see 200-300 students/people joining us for the event, engaging with us and having a great, productive and inspiring time. It’s been great to watch the growth of the society.

The balance between theory and action

It’s easy to be skeptical about theory and I think I can be too skeptical of it sometimes, especially in a subject as ‘soft’ as entrepreneurship (as in it’s not a hard science), but when you see the theory working and you see how it does apply to real life, that’s really interesting.

My course has taught me the importance of action, of being practical and actually just doing things. In my second year, my classmates and I had a habit of getting together and just speaking about ideas. Now I’ve learnt to not just sit around and talk a lot, but to act upon these ideas and just try and learn, and perhaps fail, but then learn from that experience and try again. Action is definitely one of the things that Jane (Module Leader for the Entrepreneurship pathway and Course Leader for the new Entrepreneurship BA) has really instilled in her students.

It’s been challenging balancing my university life with my my online business, Sup, and the Entrepreneurial Society, but it’s been a very enriching experience and one that I know will help me in future.

My online company, KnowWhatSupp.com

After school I had a great gap year where I got a good position with a sports nutrition company. After two months of working there, I became the Marketing Manager! That was a great experience and it made me realise that there was a need for a supplement comparison website. I started developing the idea – KnowWhatSupp.com and it’s still running today! I work with a partner, which is great because it’s a massive job and alongside my uni work, it’s quite a lot to manage.

The challenges of starting up your own business

The most challenging thing was getting other people involved and contributing as much as I wanted them to. I was pretty young when I started my business and I didn’t have much experience of managing people or relationships. Initially we went through Developers like there was no tomorrow because I just didn’t know how to communicate with them. I found it quite hard to be stern with people and direct with people and so I struggled with taking on too much myself and didn’t delegate enough. One of the main things I’ve learnt both from my experience of KnowWhat’Sup.com and from my course, is how important it is to get others on board and to find personnel who can offer their expertise. My course really gives you the opportunity to experience things in the real world, and through doing that I’ve learnt to communicate better and manage people better as well. To have someone from a technical development side of things would have been great from the beginning, but I’ve learnt from that and I know for next time.

Sup and pitching to Richard Branson!

I currently run the ‘growth’ for a startup called Sup, and as soon as I finish my course I’m planning on going full-time with them. Sup is a great app, which helps you to know when your friends are near by – so you don’t miss out on seeing them. I’ve been working with them for the last few months and whilst it’s been a huge challenge balancing everything, it’s a great opportunity and I love working with the team. We’ve recently entered the Virgin Media Business competition #VOOM and I’m hoping to get enough votes so that I can pitch the business directly to Richard Branson. If you would like to find out more and support me in this, please click here.

Thinking about becoming an entrepreneur? Here’s my advice:

Speak to as many people as possible – meet new people, network with them, find out how you can help them and then how they can help you. Don’t just tell people about your ideas, start working on them! There’s a balance of feeling you’re being productive and getting the benefit of making yourself accountable. Just make a start! You won’t know anything until you succeed or fail. There’s nothing wrong with failing when it comes to business ideas – you learn from your mistakes! You should also take a look at the new Entrepreneurship BA, which is all about supporting you to create your own startup!

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Jeni Stokes

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