Jean Malissard is a 19 years old undergraduate from Warwick University studying international business and Spanish.
Jean who has been living in the UK now for 14 years said “I consider myself more British than French ;) “.
A creative, committed and energetic student, jean has been named the delegate of the second year students of the business school for the second time in a row.
He is also the Co-founder of Uni4ya and Creativia
"He said he came up with the idea for uni4ya at the start of his first year, but it took 9 months to put the website online. Their precise timing enabled them to launch it for the fresher's week of 2009.
"Uni4ya.com is the first and only interactive student directory where local businesses promote themseleves to the student community. We have 15 categories going from night clubs, to restaurants, driving schools and many others such as hair and beauty categories. Together with the website we have launched the Uni4ya discount card giving exclusive student discounts in local businesses. As a result, thanks to the combination of the website and the card, the students can know where to go and where to save!!"
He also said “
As you can understand since we are students and the idea is new we wanted to start small and see how it goes. We are offering this service for students from both Warwick and Coventry universities. However, we are soon going to launch it in other British universities. When I say soon, it’s in few weeks time!!! “
Jean stated that he simply came up with the idea when he realised as a fresher that many students found it tough in getting information about local businesses because living on campus and not in the city itself they couldn’t know what were the latest offers and the events taking place around the university.
On the business side, they realised that it was also difficult for them to fight competition and reach the student niche.
He said “I came with the idea and quickly found two partners Simon Cohen and Sasha Kasloff”. Moreover, since we also realised that there was a lack of a “community atmosphere” in the university we put in place on the website a community part with a market place, a forum and photo galleries where students can interact!
Jean and his 2 business partners have been in touch with all local businesses of the 2 cities surrounding their campus. “We started during last summer. It was very tiring! To give you an idea, I called 2200 minutes just in June when I was calling prospect clients”
He quickly told us what he has learnt as an entrepreneur “I’ve learnt so much to be honest! Well the first thing is that starting a business is not like a game, you have to take everything seriously! You always have to expect the unexpected and sometimes the consequences can be disastrous unless you stay focus! We experimented with this in some of our programmers who acted unprofessionally and it turned out to be tough to recover for us! Luckily enough we managed to solve the issues and get the business is back on performing tracks. Another thing is that customer relationship is the key to success because at the end of the day a business without cash inflow doesn’t last long! (From my own perspective) “
They are
Also getting partnership offers from several companies which he said will be clearer in few weeks!
Jean talked about his second company: Creativia ltd
Creativia ltd is an out of home advertising agency that strives to bring creativity in the way advertising messages are communicated. Creativia delivers a direct and effective medium for conveying advertising messages to an initially profiled target audience. We advertise products, services or solutions on insulating take-away cup sleeves.
He said he got the idea during a business model where he got the chance to present to people in the dragon’s den type and after his teacher advised him and his partner Dobbie to concretise it in real business.
They are offering this service to universities, company cafeterias and event organisers. What is important is to differentiate the partners who are the ones accepting to distribute these take away cup sleeves and the advertisers who are the ones promoting their products and services through this medium to the end users, the potential customers.
Why are they offering a new communication media i finally asked?
As every business, our client’s goal is to make their products, services or solutions accessible to a larger base of consumers (B2C) or customers (B2B). Quality of our clients’ products/services is one aspect, price is another one, reputation also helps but information and awareness to our clients’ market is probably one of the most important success factors. The options offered by ‘Out of Home Advertising’ currently make it one of the most cost efficient and effective methods of advertising. It becomes paramount to look different than your competitors, to show some differentiation factors and to connect with customers.
Check out his websites and remember to leave your comments below.
www.uni4ya.com
www.creativia.co.uk
