Hi, I’m Tom Knowles, Managing Director of Blu-Genic, a Young Enterprise company from The Chase Technology College, Malvern.

We would like to share with you the stages of development our company has gone through to reach our current position of success & profitability. We've learned that building a company is a bit like growing from a baby to an adult. Yes, we now sell environmentally friendly, re-usable, jute bags very successfully; but on the journey we did a lot of other stuff too, and learned an awful lot.

In our baby phase: young, lively and full of enthusiasm, we wanted to do something new, exciting, different and innovative…… so we ended up washing our teachers car!!!!

Not glamourous but we were making use of the limited resources we had available to us to generate capital to build our business. The lesson here for anyone reading this is that, if you think outside of the box (and don't mind getting your hands dirty!), anyone can find a way to raise capital to start their new business venture.

We now moved into our toddler stage: excited and full of creative energy; so we carried out market research to find out what people wanted.

We built relationships with companies on Malvern Science Park, selling them personalised Christmas Cards with superb photos of Malvern. We learned the importance of customer relations, organisation and meeting deadlines and dealing with problems when some of the cards had to be reprinted.   However we secured a decent profit and received compliments on the quality of the cards. The lesson here, find out what your customers would like and provide it in a friendly, businesslike manner, and you will make money

The "Terrible Two's!!" Young toddler taking their first steps more often than not have a few tumbles. For us this The Worcester Christmas Fayre. We hadn’t decided on product and had our dis-agreements. But, tantrums over, we dried our eyes, pulled ourselves together, carried out more market research, found a local supplier for Christmas decorations and cards, made it to the Fair and started to sell!

We needed to get people in a Christmassy mood, so we went all out with mistletoe and festive costumes; priced our stock fairly but at a a profit, and set challenging sales targets.  

The girls’ talent lay in attracting attention to our stall, so they went scouting the freezing cold streets of Worcester for potential customers; handing out leaflets and vouchers for a 10% discount. The boys talent was in charming people, especially the little old ladies!!. - they would come along just wanting a Christmas card and lave 5 minutes later 2 Christmas cards, 3 tree decorations and a mood ring.

We learned how to approach and deal with customers at the Fayre and by the en of the day our planning paid off. Not only did we sell all of our stock but we also sold our display stand and our festive hats; although we stopped short of selling our clothes, as it looked cold outside.

Despite our initial challenges, the Christmas Fair was our first real taste of success.  None of the other companies sold more on the day than we did. The lesson? When you are faced with challenges build a plan and work your plan, things will come together.

Leaving our toddler years behind us, we started school. Our idea, to invent an innovative Bluetooth device that could be attached to a purse, keys, anything really – a wireless key finder device. The concept was that it would work from an application installed on your mobile phone. If you lost a high-value object with a device attached to it then your phone would find it for you.

We had countless meetings with Engineers at Qinetiq, one of our sponsors, but despite this the prototypes were not looking good. Some of the team even spent two days with the Electronic Engineering Department of Birmingham University, but even this did not result in a prototype we were happy with.

Teenage tantrums are a part of growing up: you feel lost, frustrated and just do not know what to do with yourself. This was us after the failure of our bluetooth idea. So we sat down and made some tough decisions. At this time our original MD resigned and Ton Knowles was elected in their place, but importantly we became more focused and motivated as a group. We learned that we needed to pull our fingers out and really find something that people wanted to buy, whilst making sure that people in the team were allocated roles compatible with their skill-set, aspirations and interests.

So the market research of Malvern started again! But not only did we research what people were saying they needed we also looked at topical items in the local press and caught onto malvern Council's plan to make Malvern ‘plastic bag free’. We attended meetings with the Town Council to discuss the idea of creating a Eco-Friendly Jute bag, however, if you’ve ever been to Malvern you’ve probably noticed that things don’t always happen very fast. So, we took matters into our own hands and got connected with Barry Turner, the owner of a company called Jutexpo with whom we negotiated business terms and agreed on a ‘Point of Sale’ contract. This is something that he had done only with Debenhams prior to this, so not only had we hit the big time but this proved to us that we were still thinking outside of the box many people adopt in business.

As young adults we started with boundless enthusiasm. We started preparing for the Spring Fair and spent time thinking about what had gone well and not so well at the Christmas Fayre; we sorted out our display and worked on our "guerilla sales" tactics. We dressed people up in plastic bags and sent them out around Worcester Centre offering 10% discounts to customers giving us their plastic bags to recycle.  Not only did we turn a few heads but our sales were excellent, earning us the prize at the fair for Best Sales and Marketing. Again no other company sold as much as we did on the day. The lesson? If you have an idea don't wait for others to catch up but run with it, draw attention to your cause and offering sales incentives.

We believe that Blu-Genic, as a Young Enterprise company, is performing well. We have appeared in local papers and created a great deal of interest in our re-usable, eco-friendly, Jute bags. Not only have they sold well at the Young Enterprise Trade Fairs but we have also proven that they sell in the harsh worl of reality being taken up by both normal consumers and businesses alike. But we haven't stopped there. We have attended a Flea Market at the Three Counties Showground to further expanded our sales and selling skills and are developing a number of contacts who were interested in us supplying them with bulk orders of personalised bags. We have meetings of traders from the Barnards Green area and garnered their support in making Malvern a greener place, and are currently negotiating a bulk order to supply personalised jute bags to the Barnards Green Trader’s Association as part of the “Bag Free Barnards Green” project. The lesson? Involve others and get them excited in the product you have.

We plan to continue trading for as long as possible, and our future as a company looks very promising. We have exciting projects lined up which will make a healthy profit for both ourselves and the environment. We’ve also realised how important good administration is to the smooth running of the company, and how important it is to communicate efficiently with everybody.

We are pleased with the current success of Blu-Genic; we have learned the importance of working as a team and have a fuller understanding of the workings of a business. Most importantly, Malvern is on the way to becoming plastic bag free and we’re playing our part. If you want to go bag-free, our bags are on sale just contact us to find out how you can receive yours