Rory Sadler, Founder of BuzzDose, is a Westminster student and entrepreneur! Kindly offering to share his experience of studying and working in entrepreneurship, Rory gives great advice for anyone thinking of taking this alternative route:

Meet Westminster student and entrepreneur, Rory Sadler

So, my name is Rory Sadler and I’m studying Business Management with Entrepreneurship BA (third year). Why did I choose Westminster? In part, because of its location. If you’re going to study business there’s no better place to be. It’s the hub, where everything’s happening, especially on the startup scene. I had the choice to go to Bristol, but I just love London too much, there’s so much going on. After coming to one of the Open Days and meeting Module Leader Jane Chang, I chose this course because it offered the best of both worlds, a mix of business and entrepreneurship. I always wanted to do business studies – I did it at college, loved it and that’s what I was always very good at, but I also had a bit of the entrepreneur in me as well. I had two past ventures and was starting a new one as I went to uni, so this course really suited me.

When did your entrepreneurship journey start?

I was always into business. When I was in school, I sold sweets to friends. I actually did this so well that the school put up a shed that turned into a tuck shop for me to operate! I would say that’s where it began. My next, slightly more serious venture was an events company for nights out. I called it ‘Host London’ and by the end I employed 10 people, which was really good experience. It was great, really successful, but it just got too busy and I had to put my studies first, so I decided to sell it my friend. It was a good three years while it lasted though!

What do you think it means to be an entrepreneur?

To be an entrepreneur is partly being a jack of all trades. If your business is in the app industry for example, you’ve got to be able to know how to code, at least a little bit, and you’ve also got to be able to network, to lead, to manage people, to do numbers, to market etc. I think you’ve either got to know how to do them all a little bit, or know what you’re good at and when to delegate. It’s also about having the eye for opportunity – the confidence to take an idea forwards and to take on risk and accept failure. I think most successful entrepreneurs have failed more times than they have succeeded and it’s just part of the entrepreneurship journey.

On the subject of failure…

Handling failure was something I found difficult at the beginning of this year. We went straight into starting our own businesses (for real), and because it was assessed and you had that pressure, I really didn’t want it to fail. But as soon as I started having failures without expecting them, I started to realise that I was overcoming them almost subconsciously. I realised that this was where I was learning, this was where I was gaining the most. As an entrepreneur you have to understand that the whole world is uncertain (especially the business world), and so to overcome the fear of failure has to be a priority. On this course, you’re learning by doing but there’s always a safety net, which means that you can test an idea and get a flavour of what it’s like to start your own business without risking everything. You’ve got the support from Module Leader Jane Chang, and from friends. You’ve also got resources and networks on hand, so it’s a great environment to start out in.

How does the Business Management with Entrepreneurship BA work?

The Entrepreneurship pathway only kicks in in second year and so the first year you study HR, Marketing, Organisational Behaviour, Finance, and other topics on the Business Management side. Then in second year, it’s kind of three quarters Business Management and a quarter Entrepreneurship. In the Entrepreneurship part, that’s where we studied Entrepreneurial Leadership, and learnt the difference between Managers and leaders and entrepreneurs. We also studied another Entrepreneurship module, where we had zero budget and had to raise money out of nothing. I used my old business, organised a night out and raised £350 for Unicef. It was a great opportunity to utilise the Bird In Hand principle, which is essentially using who you know around you, and identifying free and accessible resources. By third year then you’ve learnt most of the main theories and principles and so it’s time to put everything into practice – turning a business idea and plan into the real thing.

What have been your highlights?

As well as starting my own business, I would say that the Entrepreneurial Society has definitely been one of the highlights of this year. I joined the Entrepreneurial Society through my colleague Danny. I started as Treasurer but because of my experience in Event Management, have ended up as Head of Operations. We’ve put on five events called Live Talks and it was great to see how successful they were. The best one was ‘How to Build a Brand’, which featured four or five amazing speakers and attracted 350 people! We made sure every event was sponsored and have attracted industry specialists and experts, which has really boosted our confidence. When I think we’ve had a Brand Manager from Google, Piers Linney from Dragons Den, the Founder of LastMinute.com to name just a few, it’s really been a phenomenal experience.

On the course side, I’ve loved Jane’s whole development of this Entrepreneurship pathway. It’s been great the way that we learn by doing and the way in which the process grows over the three years, from raising money out of nothing to developing a business plan to implementing a business. You’ve actually got to do it and there’s no bluffing it – it’s a completely different type of assessment compared to anything I’d ever done before. It was really exciting, really challenging and I learnt so much from it. Despite being in a learning environment, it’s really shown me what being an entrepreneur is all about. I would also say that learning with Ioannis who teaches Strategy has been a breath of fresh air. He turned material that could have been slightly boring (it’s very theoretical) into exciting lectures – he really brought everything to life and just showed us that he cared, which was such a nice thing.

What skills have you learnt?

I’ve definitely built up my confidence throughout this course and I would say, my independence. When you come to university you’ve got to do everything for yourself, whether it’s getting that first, making friends or joining a society, it’s up to you. I’ve become a lot more motivated to go forwards and do things that I wouldn’t normally do. My networking skills have also developed. When I joined in first year I just didn’t see the value of speaking to seemingly random people or going to events that I didn’t have to go to, but by third year I’d seen what you can gain out of them – the people you can meet, the contacts that you can make. I really believe that it’s all about who you know, and that you can go so far from just using the people around you.

Can you tell us about your start-up, BuzzDose?

I had identified two major difficulties that the clinical industry faces: reliability of results (patients who go on clinical trials don’t always take their medication on time or at all) and not getting enough patients (sometimes people find it hard to find trials in the first place). My solution to this was BuzzDose – the first patient enrolment, engagement and management app for the clinical trial industry. Essentially it puts the power into the patients hands and provides them with lots of features, such as easy access to booking appointments.

I used my course to help facilitate my idea, and when Jane arranged a session for us with Angel Investors, I knew I wanted to have a prototype of my app, and the design work done so I could pitch it properly. I soon found out that this would cost me £1250 and so I decided to crowd fund. This was an idea that Danny and I brought to Jane and I’m pleased to say that through my crowdfunding campaign I managed to raise the full amount. This was mainly through friends and family but I also had some random people donate, which was really good as it showed me they must believe in the idea. To provide an incentive I used a reward system for those who donated – again, using the Bird In Hand principle to do this.

Do you have any advice to anyone thinking of studying entrepreneurship?

If you’ve got that underlying passion for entrepreneurship, you’ve just got to go for it. There’s no better place than to test your ideas and abilities than at university. There’s always this invisible safety net, there’s always people around you and the networks and contacts you build here will help you so much. There are endless materials, contacts and resources here, so take advantage of them! Even if you don’t end up doing entrepreneurship in life, what you learn by studying entrepreneurship is invaluable and will help you whatever you decide to do. Did you know that Westminster is offering a new Entrepreneurship BA starting in September?

What are your plans?

I want to travel, I’d love to live in France for a while, I’d also like to live in Australia, but in between all that I want to try out a couple of ventures. First of all I want to see where BuzzDose goes. It’s looking quite promising at the moment and my Mentor is speaking with investors which is exciting. There are a couple of other ideas that I have but I’ll stick with BuzzDose for the time being.

If there was one word to sum up your experience at Westminster what would it be?

I would have to say, invaluable.

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Jeni Stokes

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