These are excerpts from students emails about their experience of meeting EiRs during their stay here at Lancaster

Hi Fleur,

Matt Jackson: Matt was really easy to talk to and meeting him was a great experience. During our discussion he was able to offer superb insight into the markets I am targeting, and also offered some contact details that I could use.   It goes without saying that I am extremely grateful for Matt’s advice and I am sure we will keep in touch in the future.

Colin Aimers: My discussion with Colin was excellent. His background enabled me to approach my dilemmas from a different perspective, and has allowed me to further develop my plan going forward. He even gifted me a book which I found tremendously helpful.

Matt  Macdonald: Matt was able to inspire social entrepreneurship not only for me, but my entire class as, we had the opportunity to have him hold a lecture for us. Many of us wanted to do something within a social context, and Matt certainly showed us that there is a way. In my personal meeting with Matt he introduced me to some funding databases for startups.

Chris Cox: My meeting with Chris was really informative. He touched on a few things within his business, but the one that stroke out the most for me was his understanding of the importance his employees have. He even shared a few occasions where his employees actively helped him with business dilemmas. 

 

Loukas

I had a really good interview with Alan. It has helped me to finalise my data collection and it was interesting to hear the ways Alan feels he has learned during his time as an entrepreneur. Alan commented that the interview was useful for him as well, so it was good to hear that we were both able to benefit from the experience…..

Jenni

 

My name is Kasmaruddin Che Hussin, PhD student within Management Science Department, Lancaster University Management School.
I would like to express my gratitude for giving me an opportunity to meet with Entrepreneur in Residence ..each time they come to Lancaster University, especially to ESI department. To be honest, I got a massive benefit from this EiRs scheme. This opportunity also provided me such a great platform to develop my interview skills in collecting the qualitative data for my research.

To be specific, last week (week 19) I have met with Philips Coates, MD of Boatbridge. He was a great guy who really receptive, friendly and helpful to share his great experience in business. At the end of interview session, he also eager to share with me a few contact from his business networking that might be able to help me to find more data for my research. I would say, this is awesome and fantastic.

…I also visited Mark Woodward, MD of Printed Cup Company in Clitheroe. (See attached picture taken during my visit). I have received very warm welcoming from him and we have a very fruitful discussion. He also friendly and helpful guy, which contribute a lot to my research.

As overall, I would say, this EiRs program was very great platform for doctoral student like me to engage with friendly business people in UK. It is also important to mentioned that, these EiRs people also appreciate the ideas and insight from the finding of my research where they see it as the great potential to improve their business performance. So I would say that, this collaboration as win-win situation between student and EiRs.

I would be very grateful if I can meet more EiRs in future to get more data for my research.

Thank again.

Kasmaruddin

…I just wanted to say a formal thank you for all of your help over the last couple of days helping fit some time in for me to interview the entrepreneurs in residence for my dissertation. I had my first with Anshul this morning and it proved really interesting and provided insight into areas and impact of technology that I had not considered before that I can now use to inform my future interviews. Anshul is a really friendly and approachable guy with great experience to draw from.

I must say I have been impressed with the variety an of EIRs we have available to us and the ease with which we can get in contact with them is a credit to the ENSI department and management school.

Many thanks,
Georgia

Joe Towers – really good engagement with students, the students loved the experience of working on Joe’s business and Joe gave some excellent background information and rationale in the pros and cons of the ideas that students came up with.

Bill Lewis – fabulous session with students on learning, really thoughtful insights, the students loved it – I received several e-mails saying how good the session was.

Joanne Larty (Senior Lecturer LUMS, Entrepreneurship, Strategy & Innovation)

Mark Woodward kicking off the new year and new term enjoying an “EiR – Student lunch”

“We had an amazing time today, having the lunch the EiR. We learnt a lot of interesting things, the most important being planning; Mark told us that in order to succeed and to be an amazing entrepreneur you must make a plan well structured. He also told us that, communication is probably, the most important feature in a business and the most important lesson of all of these is that “practice makes perfect”. Therefore, “the younger you start, the better”. In conclusion, I believe that these is one of the most important experiences the university can offer and I would definitely encourage everyone to go to at least one meal with an EiR.”

Kind regards, Liviu

“Thoroughly enjoyed my time last week.

Huge thanks for all of your work, time and prep. It was a brilliant couple of days and if it’s inspired any students then even better!

Really grateful for all of your support Fleur.

Best, Oli ”

Len Rainford (Week 16)

‘The meeting with Len was extremely useful. I am actually at a point where I have a choice to make between expanding the Kale business to other restaurants or to go through the supermarkets route and Len gave me his opinion based on previous experience. So overall it was really great!’

 Alex 

It’s fantastic to get access to so much knowledge from people who have been in business for many years, our degrees teach us the academic research around our subject however these meetings give real life practical use particularly if you have business ideas that you would like to bounce off someone who has been in that industry.

What I would change:

If possible maybe create a fast way for students with business ideas to pitch their ideas to EiR’s and pitch for funding/ mentoring for their idea. Also maybe connect like-minded students (maybe with a similar idea) together to meet an EiR in small groups.

Could small groups of students go into an EiR’s business for a few days maybe?

What I will take away:

The best meetings I have had have been when the EiR has been open and honest about when they have failed in their career and that these failures are something that is needed in order to realise and appreciate success. 

It is also really important to have a plan of what you want to talk to the EiR about in order that you get the most out of these meetings. 

Matt Taylor who has met a few of the EiRs also provided  useful feedback about the meetings.

Mike Gray Week 10 2018:

“He had great advice and knowledge of business start-up and also working at the top of corporate organisations. He was also very honest and open about ideas that would work and ones that may struggle for certain reasons. Very insightful!’   Matt Taylor

“My meeting with Mike was very useful, cool guy. We spoke about a variety of different topics ranging from recruitment, to team management, growth. Huge breadth of different things which I have taken on board. He has connected me to a friend of his that runs a recruitment company and has sad to drop him a line if I need any help in the future. For me I think the meeting format and content was perfect as we got along quite well also . I particularly enjoyed that it was 1 on 1 so we could talk not only purely about my project but also about Mikes various past ventures and experiences. Wouldn’t change anything about the meeting apart from maybe book out the pod as we had to kick a guy off a table sitting next to a power outlet.’   Charles Rogers

“I did find the meeting with Mike quite useful. I had looked him up prior to our meeting and wasn’t sure there were any overlaps. He also seemed a bit surprised to be meeting me. Because he didn’t know anything about me or my business goals, it gave me the opportunity to talk about my business with someone who wasn’t in the same industry. That meant connecting some of the dots and/or explaining things that might otherwise be understood. It was a useful reminder that even when I’m applying for funding, I can’t assume the person reading the application is interested in or familiar with publishing, writing, etc…It was useful to hear about Mike’s business experiences and what he has learned a long the way. In the end, he reminded me that it’s people that we do business with. So, I followed up in person with the Lancaster City Museum and we’re now scheduling an appointment for me to pitch a proposal.’  Yvonne Battle-Felton