Contributed by Konstantinos, former 3rd year medical student
My name is Kostas, I am a medical student at King’s. 2018 was the year I started my own business called Student Essentials.
Don’t get too excited it doesn’t involve machine learning or artificial intelligence. It is a super simple business, yet it offers great convenience to our customers. We deliver all the essentials (like duvets, pillows, towels, kitchen items) to students when they arrive at their accommodation. It saves them time and money.
Looking back, I started from just having this idea and now my business is a recommended supplier of Bedroom and Kitchen Packs for King’s College London. I vaguely remember the period when I had just a couple of orders to having hundreds of orders going through our website. The reason for this is because it went by really fast, just a matter of a few days/weeks. I was the happiest person in the world when I received the first batch of samples from my suppliers. I had all different types of pillowcases, colours, pillow fillings etc on my hands to choose from. The only downside was my storage capacity, as I lived in en-suite single bedroom at great dover street apartments so all my friends started questioning how I was going to do this.
But that didn’t stop me from pursuing my goals. I knew this business had great potential and that students would benefit from this service. A few weeks later when I started getting hundreds of orders, it became apparent my bedroom could no longer be the place I store the orders. So I ended up renting a room at a big storage company and that changed everything. Things became much easier to handle now I had all the space I needed! Getting all this stock out in time for the student arrival was one of the biggest challenges. Luckily, I had the support from my two best friends that helped in delivering hundreds of bedroom packs to the students!
Although it is just me behind the business, I wouldn’t have been able to be where I am now without the incredible support from my family, friends and King’s College London. Kings’ strategic vision for 2029 is to foster the entrepreneurial spirit and that means I am (and even you if you want to become an entrepreneur) in the right place at the right time. Something that stood out to me, which you do not see often, is how willing the staff at King’s College London are to foster entrepreneurial ideas. I have had managers from residences spend hours with me discussing how best to launch my business, which is invaluable.
King’s Residences is a great place to start your entrepreneurial journey and I am thankful of the support King’s College London provided me with.
Amazing, I work at kings uni.