So get on over to The University of Southampton Entrepreneurs now.

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 You be pleased to know that Fish on Toast won SUSU's "Best Society" at the EVAs last night for our achievements in the last year. Proud would be an understatement.

Thank you to everyone who has helped make Fish on Toast great this year.

First, to our sponsors: Microsoft, The Utility Warehouse Business Link, Coverzones, Venture Finance and Huddle. They have donated their money and time for us to run some fantastic events and competitions this year. 100 T-shirts, 140 pizzas, 75 cookies and 100 bottles of water weren't free you know! Most of all they have facilitated epic expansion of our membership, and our reputation on campus. Thank you.

Second, our guest speakers. Every one of you donated your time and expertise for the benefit of all the Fish on Toast members. Loads of lessons were learned and get contacts and connections made. Thank you.

Third, the committee who gave up huge amounts of their time for free to make Fish on Toast a success from the Bunfight all the way through to the AGM.

Fourth, the staff members who have helped us this year (There are loads more who we can't fit here) particularly;
Helena Schulze - Student Enterprise Officer, offering fantastic council, funding and great ideas;
Janice Rippon - Head of Student Services, who made entrepreneurship a real concept for the careers service; and Debra Humphris - Pro-Vice Chancellor, who has promoted Fish on Toast and SIFE to the upper echelons of the university management. Thank you.

Finally to the members that make Fish on Toast what it is. You are inspiring, exciting and intelligent people and I know that I've met individuals who will change the world for the better. Thank you all.

It's been a great year and I've really enjoyed it - I hope you did too!

All the best in the future,

James

--
James Cornelius Pipe

Outgoing President - Fish on Toast: University of Southampton EntrepreneursClick to add a comment on this post.

Just back from a great weekend at the first annual National Student Enterprise Conference, organised by NACUE and held at University College London's Engineering Building. I met some fantastic people and the whole event was inspiring to say the least! I'm annoyed that I had to miss the second day.

Victoria Lennox kicked the event off in trademark style - a brief but hard hitting message about embedding entrepreneurship in education.

Julie Meyer
She was followed by Julie Meyer (Ariadne Capital, First Tuesday, Entrepreneur Country, BBC Online Dragon). I personally think Julie is brilliant. Always a little bit controversial and a great speaker. She talked about a concept she calls 'individual capitalism'. Basically that the internet has enabled anyone with sufficient ambition to set up a business and begin creating wealth. The first dinner party atmosphere killing fact for you:

"6% of individuals running fast growth companies in the UK are creating 54% of the new jobs"

One of her most interesting points was "Challenge the Mainstream Media". The argument was that as the established media focus their coverage on the corporates, not only does business seem boring, but they hide the exciting world of entrepreneurship from the general public.

She also seemed pretty adamant that the public sector is bloated and doesn't reflect the changes that all other business entities have had to make throughout the credit crisis. This point received a pretty strong reaction in a later panel session when Richard Leyland (Worksnug) argued that the government had done pretty well to protect public services in light of "Entrepreneurialism gone wild". Personally, I'd side with Julie on this one - I think it was a lack of accountability in big banks plus the exploitation of the financially desperate that really tipped it.

Julie's final message was a great one, and it was that Britain has shown time and again that we can handle big. We just need to "Suspend our disbelief", be personally accountable and... "Follow the Entrepreneur".

Oli Barrett took over at this point with a charismatic introduction to speed networking and some inspiring words of wisdom. A high five to Monika Gierszewska, Frances Brown and Florian Jenson who I met in 12 minutes! Next up was the...

Internet, Software and Mobile Technology Panel

(images stolen from Linkedin)
Richard Leyland - Worksnug (Founder and CEO)
David Bozward - NCGE (Director of Technology and FlyingStart)
Alistair Mitchel - Huddle (Co-Founder and CEO?)
Paolo Barone - Microsoft (Software Evangelist)

All interesting speakers - the first I had seen of Richard Leyland - after an impassioned defence of government, he recommended that we take the long shots and contact people way out of our league for help. Dr David Bozward surprised me by having the most ridiculous amount of experience I'd ever heard and a PhD in 3G mobiles! Ali Mitchell revealed that he had the idea for Huddle whilst sitting on the loo, looking at a BT billboard. The legendary Paulo Barone gave us the quote of Saturday:

"76 million people use Farmville and it's the most boring game ever!"

Most of the chat was about Crossing the Chasm - and to be careful of getting stuck in the Techcrunch world - away from the public at large. I think it was Paulo who recommended we "Speak to our mums" then make something she would use, not just our friends, if we wanted a product to have mainstream appeal.

Over lunch, I had a look in on the Enternships networking event with Raj Dey. He was on great form as usual, Enternships seems to be going well and he pointed me at an interesting and fast growing startup called My City Deals. Definitely worth a look for graduates wanting exciting experience. Huddle.net are also looking for interns this summer so everyone get on over there too. I've been up to their office on Burmondsey Street twice now and I've never met a more welcoming bunch of people.

My afternoon was jam packed with meeting great people, the Clean Tech and Green Business Panel and the Finding Funding Panel. I'll write those last two up later, but for now I'll just spew out a list of interesting people that I met or caught up with during the day, in no particular order, so you can find them too!

Adnan Ebrahim - President, UCL Entrepreneurs Society + Founder of CarThrottle
Andre Campbell - Ex President of Kingston Entrepreneurs and Founder of Enthuse Youth
Lucian Tarnowski - Founder and CEO of BraveNewTalent.com
Christian Bush - Co-Founder of Sandbox Network
Oli Barrett - Networker and Entrepreneur
Victoria Lennox - Founder and CEO of NACUE
Matt Smith - Groups Director, NACUE
Anthony Francis - Co-Founder and President at South Bank Entrepreneurs
Richard Leyland - Technologist and Founder of Worksnug
Raj Dey - Founder of Enternships
Jamie Broadey - Beem Mobile Money
Victoria Atherstone - Founder of Urbanites and Scooters
Ali Mitchell - Co-Founder and CEO at Huddle.net

People that I'm particularly gutted to have missed out on talking too by dropping out of the second day:

David Langer - Co-Founder and CEO, GroupSpaces Ltd
Hermione Way - Founder of Newspepper and Techfluff.tv
Penny Power - Founder of Ecademy
and the estimated 150/200 other entrepreneurs I failed to chat to!

Check out #nsec on Twitter for some of the weekend chatter.

Thanks NACUE!

JamesClick to add a comment on this post.

Just a quick one today!

I've spent the last couple of hours at the 3 Market event that's being run at the University of Southampton. It's great networking for social entrepreneurs and their keynote speaker, was Wayne Hemmingway. (Big Brother, Gadget Show, http://www.hemmingwaydesign.co.uk/)

Initially I was dubious because I didn't know much about Wayne. It turns out he's a brilliant speaker and has been involved in loads of great social projects and businesses since selling Red or Dead in 1999.

Most interesting for me was his KisosKiosk project. It allows Entrepreneurs in the creative industries a planning permission free store front that is mobile enough to be placed in high footfall areas really easily. It was launched in London with the help of Boris Johnson a year or two ago and is now in Nottingham nad Manchester.

I think it would be great to bring the concept to Universities accross the country so that Students starting businesses can sell direct to the rest of the student body, rain or shine! I'd love to hear what you think, drop me an email James {at} jamespipe.com or comment below.

Thanks!

JamesClick to add a comment on this post.

I often talk to people who think they have a fantastic idea but wont tell anyone. The usual excuse is that "someone will steal my idea and take it to market before me".

This is ridiculous. The fact is, there are no new ideas, just different execution. If you've thought of something that is easy to implement, and completely obvious, then someone else has too. I'm afraid it's a sad truth but you and I are not as great or unique as you we think we are.

Not even asking your friends to give you feedback is stupid. Personally, I am fantastic at selling myself my own ideas. If I only asked my own opinion I would have made a whole heap of crap decisions by now. Giving yourself constructive feedback is not possible so stop wasting your time.

Multi millionaire Chai Patel told me that he always broadcasts his new ideas. This is for two reasons:

1. Because your friends and contacts will offer to help you out ONLY if they know you need their help. You will get new ideas for your product, marketing and customer service for FREE.
2. Because if you tell everyone about your new business they will keep you focused. Every time you meet you'll be asked how it's going. Peer pressure is a fantastic motivator.

David Langer (founder of Groupspaces.com), Alastair Mitchell (founder and CEO of Huddle.com) and Peter Czapp (Founder and Director of thewowcompany.com), have spoken on different topics at Fish on Toast - The University of Southampton Entrepreneur's Society. All of them have concluded with the same mantra: "Ideas are worthless. Execution is priceless."

There is however one exception that I know of to this rule. This month, Fish on Toast are running a business idea competition. We will be giving out ten prizes of £100 to the best business ideas then give you free time with a lawyer, accountant, web design team and professional sales coach. For more information check out our website and sign up to our mailing list now.

So I have a final thought for you: Stop looking for that unique idea that you'll never find. Start looking for proven business ideas and work out how your going to do them BETTER!

Here is my 5 step idiot proof business idea generation system...GO!

1. Think of anything that annoyed you in the last month. You have found "the Pain"
2. Think about how many other people might also get annoyed. This is "your market"
3. Think about how you could do it right and get paid. This is "a business idea"
4. Write it down in 100 words on a computer of your choice. "This is a 100 word business idea"
5. Now, if it's not yet the 22nd of Feb 2010, submit it on the Fish on Toast website!

Good Luck!

James

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Microsoft UK have teamed up with NACUE to provide a ground breaking sponsorship opportunity for UK Entrepreneurs Societies with Sponsorship. Following a 1500 word pitch that I wrote a couple of weeks ago, this week, Brad Fitchew (Fish on Toast Post Graduate Officer) and I visited the beautiful Microsoft UK campus up in Reading. Our aim? To find out how we can help them increase the reach and effectiveness of their student initiatives; The Imagine Cup, Dreamspark, StudentZone on Facebook and the Studentzine Newsletter.

It was a great day out. There were about 10 societies represented and loads of great ideas generated. We played on the Microsoft Surface and touchscreen Windows 7 machines, toured the New Technology Centre and saw the trailer for COD4 and promo videos of project Natal on XBOX360! They also told us what they were looking for in their Grad scheme interviews and applications.

A big thanks goes to Victoria Lennox of NACUE, and Lars Lindstedt, Ed Dunhill, Sarah Melrose, Paolo Barone, Bindi Karia of Microsoft for making it happen. I've included a list of opportunities available to students through Microsoft below...

The Imagine Cup

The Imagine Cup is what happens when student teams from around the world compete to solve the UN's Millenium Development Goals to free a major portion of humanity from the shackles of extreme poverty, hunger, illiteracy and disease. They established targets for achieving gender equality and the empowerment of women, environmental sustainability and a global partnership for development.

The Imagine Cup is also the world's premier student technology competition open to all students over the age of 16. Key competition categories are Software Design, Embedded and Games Development. Software design is the biggest competition with teams of up to four people; the best teams are mixed discipline with developers, entrepreneurs and domain experts. We don't have long left to promote the Software Design competition as the round 1 deadline is 16th December by which time teams must have submitted a proposal document via imaginecup.co.uk.

To find out more visit The Imagine Cup Homepage and use the promo code: IC0014

DreamSpark - FREE MICROSOFT SOFTWARE!

DreamSpark is a software access programme for all students who can verify themselves using their .ac.uk email address. Click through to free access to Windows Server, Visual Studio, Expression Suite and more.

StudentZone Facebook page

Microsoft UK have recently established a Facebook page which aggregates a bunch of great content for students interested in technology and business into one place. It also gives students a great platform to interact with Microsoft and find out more. Visit the Microsoft UK Facebook Fan Page now!

StudentZine Newsletter

Each month we send a newsletter out to 10k+ UK students. If you are looking for a career in technology, or are hoping to found a tech startup, you should be one of them. Subscribe now!

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What we do...

This year I'll be president of Fish on Toast, the University of Southampton Entrepreneurs. I'd like to tell you a little bit about us as a group and our plans for this coming year.

We are, quite literally, the most inspiring club that students can join at uni. Together we will learn the secrets for business success.

Most people will not have thought about what they want to do after graduation but that doesn't matter. If they're simply looking for something fun to fill their Thursday evenings with or want to start a business next week, Fish on Toast is what it's happening.

Fish on toast is an group of like-minded individuals up for changing the world - literally. We're about getting inspired by each other's enthusiasm and that of our incredible visiting speakers, running our own businesses, and entering business competitions. Every week we buy pizza for all our members so everyone can network after our guest speaker presentation.

I'd also like to introduce you to the rest of the people running Fish on Toast this year. Click here to find out more about the committee.

To sum up, I've mashed up a quote from one of my heroes, Doug Richard:

When you first join Fish on Toast, you might be wondering: 'Can I be an entrepreneur?'.
When you leave you'll be asking yourself: 'How can I not be?'.

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