Business students brave the Dragon’s Den
Stanmore’s intrepid business students embraced the opportunity to pitch their pioneering business proposals to our fearful Dragons, Lorna Elliot, Director of Human Resources and Stephanie Chittenden, Head of School, on Thursday, 26th May. The Director of Marketing was on hand to check if they had given due consideration to all the elements of the Marketing Mix.
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Despite the fearsome dragons’ hurling challenging questions on cashflow forecasts, projected costs, pricing strategies, distribution network and legislation, our impressive young entrepreneurs held their ground. The students displayed remarkable resilience and responded with a wealth of knowledge, gusto and solutions that revealed the fantastic job that Sheeba Faisel, Curriculum Manager – Business, and the College’s Business Teachers have done this year in delivering the subject knowledge.
Twelve pitches in total, some from individuals and others from small groups of students were heard and the array of innovative ideas would have impressed the BBCs’ Peter Jones, Deborah Meaden, Steven Bartlett, Sara Davies and Touker Suleyman not to mention our very own dragons.
Stanmore’s budding entrepreneurs had 20-30 minutes to pitch their business ideas before being questions about their ventures.
The final decision on which ventures our Dragons would invest in was a difficult one due to the high standard of pitches and, after some discussion, it was agreed that there would be three winning pitches and prizes would be shared equally among all three.
Congratulations to Mohamed Basiouny who was first to brave the Den, delivering his presentation on MDSC (Mo’s Drop Shipping Company) – a venture for the provision of goods made in China without the use of a third party. Mohamed’s preparatory work was incredibly detailed and no stone had been left unturned; he delivered his pitch with confidence, clarity and maturity.
Group of four students ‘Guarded Chain’, Asal Safari, Hetvik Zalavadiya, Ben Hershkovitz and Aleja Abrera, also gave a winning pitch on their idea of safety key chains to make individuals, not just females but males too, feel safer. The group had researched growing crime rates noting 70% of victims of crime in recent times in the UK had been male. The devices on their key chains were part of their ‘usps’ (unique selling points) with ideas not currently on offer by competitors; we will refrain from giving too much information at this time in case they wish to patent it! Well done Guarded Chain!
The third winning pitch for us to congratulate was ‘Pasta Volace’, Shaina Mistry, Jamil Mohammed, and Peter Moneta, whose branding was outstanding and proposition unique; again, the detail will not be revealed herein as there is no doubt it would be a viable venture!
All our winners were presented with ‘love to shop’ vouchers in addition to certificates.
It should be noted that the standard of pitches was incredibly high and all those who participated are to be commended and certificates were given to all the students who did so.
The project and all the work that it entailed forms part of the business students’ final assessment for Unit 19: Pitching for a new business which will be graded. Based on what we saw at this event the future looks bright for all our Stanmore College Business students.