Five Successful Entrepreneurs in Europe and the UK
Young people are more entrepreneurial than ever before. Here are five entrepreneurs who are showing the world how it should be done.
One of the biggest impediments to young people who want to be an entrepreneur is a lack of available role models. Seeing people who have been there, done that and been successful can be a great incentive. It shows you the route that you too might one day walk along. So, here are five people from across the UK and Europe taken a business idea from scratch and turned it into a thriving business.
Alan and Gary Keery:
A good rule of thumb is that if you find yourself craving a product there’s a good chance enough people will feel the same way. That’s what happened to twins Alan and Gary Keery when they found themselves out and about one morning after the night before.
Both were feeling a little hung over and both felt a craving for a simple bowl of cereal, but nowhere would sell any. The germ of an idea was born which would lead to the Cereal Killer café, London’s first café dedicated to selling nothing but cereal.
Opened in Shoreditch in 2014 the café caused something of a stir in the press, with some people complaining about the high price for a simple bowl of cereal. However, the idea quickly caught on. They offered a place where people could get everything from a simple bowl of cereal to nostalgic or hard to find cereals from all over the world.
The pandemic created problems for the company and they were forced to close the doors of their two London cafes permanently. However, they continue to operate online and say they hope to reopen once life has returned to normal.
DoNotPay
One business which has been booming during the pandemic is ‘DoNotPay’, the world’s first robotic lawyer which helps people get refunds, appeal fines and settle all sorts of disputes. Aged just 19, Browder launched a chatbot offering quick help to anyone who wanted to appeal parking fines and the idea quickly caught on.
He soon found himself the go to voice for people looking to appeal unjust fines. It quickly expanded into all sorts of other areas such as refunds for unwanted gym membership or cancelled flights.
Business has been good during the pandemic as holidays were cancelled, gyms closed down other services were interrupted. He saw certain disputes such as cancelled gym memberships surge by more than 30%.
His app is easy to download and costs just $3 per month to use. Last year, he announced he had raised almost £10 million from some of Silicon Valley’s names . He proves that solving a common problem for people can lead to big money.
Ali Rami, France
Mansa
The gig economy has exploded in recent years with the likes of Uber and Hermes. However, while this gives some people the opportunity for a flexible work based around their own hours it has also created an environment of low pay and volatile work.
Freelancers have never been well served by the financial sector and with many struggling to get paid on time, thousands have found themselves suffering financial hardship. Aged just 20, Rami has secured more than €20 million funding for his start up which makes it easier for freelancers and contractors to access credit. He also has an undisclosed credit line from Société Générale.
He has partnered up with companies such as WeWork and the banking app Shine to deliver its services. It has also used software which can assess intermittent payslips.
Scott Hiett
Edge
At the tender age of 17 Scott Hiett is still in High School. However, in between his studies he managed to found Edge, a payments and advertising platform for eSports influencers.
During the pandemic eSports have come of age. With people starved of sports for months on end during the first lockdown, interest in eSports which is effectively competitive computer gaming surged.
At the same time demand for ‘influencers’ on YouTube who provide content related to some of the most popular eSports also grew.
He has tapped into that enthusiasm with a platform which helps brands create campaigns, track performance and make payments.
He says he is focused on the next generation of computer science. He shot to prominence at the age of 15 when he scored a victory at Finastra’s FusionONE Hackathon for his AI product HYBER, an online foreign exchange app which allows users to grow their money before they go on holiday.
He is entirely self-taught having got started in coding with a ‘Teach Yourself Visual Basic’ book which he brought with a gift voucher for his birthday.
Canelle Chokron
Vybe
Young people have neve been particularly well serviced by the financial sector. In 2019, Canelle Chokron decided to put that right. She created Vybe which is best described as a ‘neobank’ for teenagers.
Using a card powered by MasterCard its users can get money off from certain products and an easy to access mobile money app.
Its secret sauce, she says, comes from the fact that it is a ‘neobank for Gen Z Built by Gen Z’. It is specially designed for teenagers and had built up a waiting list of 170,000 people by the time it launched. It began rolling out the first of its cards to this initial list in September last year.
She has so far raised €2.2million including from a famous angel investor Thibaud Elziere.
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