Green Oil UK鈥� a company started by University student Simon Nash鈥� featured on BBC Breakfast this morning.
The theme of the broadcast is to highlight student business start鈥搖ps during a job starved recession鈥� and it is reported by BBC Breakfast鈥檚 Tim Muffet.
Simon Nash (BA Philosophy and Politics, 2006; MSc Strategic Entrepreneurship, 2008) set up Green Oil UK, a company that makes eco-friendly bicycle maintenance products, around the beginning of the recession, incorporating the same year that Lehman Brothers collapsed. Despite the economic down turn, the company has grown and thrived.
Green Oil UK started up using prize money from winning the Enterprise Boot Camp competition, a joint project run by the universities of Southampton, Southampton Solent, Bournemouth, Portsmouth and Winchester. A further start-up fund of 拢800 from the University helped with marketing.
As a student, Simon was part of the entrepreneurs鈥� society Fish on Toast. 鈥淭he society provided various talks and activities, which were immensely helpful 鈥� especially for press release writing: we had Bill Clinton鈥檚 former PR worker to teach us,鈥� he says.
The company鈥檚 eco-friendly ethos was reflected in its first premises: the businesses started out in an 鈥榚co-cabin鈥� (garden shed) with a small solar panel on the roof that powered a radio and bottling machinery for up to six hours in the summer. Green Oil UK now has a factory in Wales from which it supplies products to 150 bike shops across the UK.
Green Oil UK has won product awards from several magazines and Simon was selected as a 鈥榬ising star of 2010鈥� in the Institute of Director鈥檚 Director magazine. A bank loan last year enabled the company to commission 100 per cent recycled plastic bottles 鈥� a first for the bicycle maintenance industry 鈥� with the plastic sourced from UK recycling bins.
Simon鈥檚 advice to anyone considering setting up a new business is: 鈥淛ust go for it. Don鈥檛 think you are too young, too old, too nice, not qualified etc. The time is now. The University offer lots of support for enterprise activities, even after you have graduated.鈥�
If you feel inspired after watching the broadcast, visit
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