Before I jump into this blog - I want to thank the team at Oversubscribed for helping me pull these blogs together and support with my social content creation. If you are interested in raising your profile online, head over to Oversubscribed.
While I didn't document the business publicly (until recently), I did take pictures during the 5 years. A lot were lost along the way but here are 21 photos that tell the story of my first business.
Number 21 is my favourite picture. Don't judge my haircut in pictures 7/8 (it was early in the morning).
1. Where it all started
One of the first audio books I read that gave me the mindset that let everything that followed to be possible. I read this at about 18/19 years old. Previously to this I had read 1 book in my entire life...I soon learnt reading non-fiction was hugely important.
2. My first business
My first business I started with my sister was called UniHive - it was a daily discount website similar to Groupon but aimed at students. Unfortunately this didn't work but did show me that there was a market for The University Paper. So many lessons have since been learnt.
3. Focused on learning
Following this failure and ever since I have put a huge focus on learning. See my top books list. I read for one hour per day in the mornings. My book and audiobook collection has grown to over 300+. Reading books often gives me ideas that I can apply within the business or personally.
4. Research
Following the failure of UniHive, I started researching what features and content to include within The University Paper after seeing a gap in the market. I bought every magazine and newspaper I could find and pulled out the pages I liked the look of. This was on my bedroom floor.
5. My first office / bedroom
While this desk was 2 metres away from my University bed, it was the perfect work station for me to start The University Paper. On the wall are all the objections businesses could have given me when selling the advertising space. This allowed me to overcome them wherever possible. Early on I would call over 100 companies per day. This was the start of our sales process that attracted over £2 million in revenue. So much was learnt early on.
6. Our first paper design - Teaching myself to design a newspaper
Having no design experience I had to teach myself how to use indesign and photoshop - this was the first front page design. Nottingham Cars continued to be a monthly advertiser for 5 years.
7. First paper delivery
Our first paper got delivered and stored in our student house until being distributed the following week. Think I needed a hair cut.
8. Distribution and revenue started to increase
I continued to produce a monthly paper within Nottingham from my bedroom where I studied gaining more and more traction with readers and advertisers. All these papers were stored in our student house until the landlord put his foot down....a fire hazard apparently 😂 (he was probably right).
9. Distribution increased - staying profitable
By paper number 4/5 we were printing over 15,000 copies per month with revenues in excess of £7,000 per month. Throughout the first two years no money was raised and the business was profitable throughout.
10. Exclusive - focusing on the product
We managed to gain an exclusive with a Geordie Shore star which gave us a 30% increase in readership that month. This is when I realised I needed to improve the content of the publication.
11. Increasing to 30,000 papers printed
After running the business by myself for 1.5 years with the help of student journalists, I created a partnership with a friend from Bristol to create The University Paper in Bristol. Our print run increased in Nottingham to over 30,000 newspapers.
12. My first office
When it became too weird to invite journalists I knew to my 'office' (bedroom) I decided to rent a proper office from the university costing £180 per month. If only our rent stayed that low. This was my first office after the end of a long week of University work and newspaper deadlines.
13. Sacrifice
Running the business and completing my degree was hard work and took a lot of discipline. I really learnt the art of setting goals and time management during this period. Routine and setting goals made it a lot easier.
14. Investment and expansion
After graduating from University I raised money (making loads of mistakes) and expanded the business into 16 cities printing over 250,000 newspapers monthly with over 1600 distribution stands. Growing revenue from £100,000+ in Nottingham to over £350,000 the following year.
15. Switching from print to digital
After moving the two offices (Nottingham and Bristol) to London and growing the revenue to over £700,000 with a team of 20, we decided to switch from print to digital. We were struggling to scale the printed business model beyond this for a number of reasons. This was a hard period but so much was learnt about managing change.
16. Successfully switched from print to digital
After 3.5 years focusing on our printed newspaper, we successfully switched from print to digital with over 1 million stories read within a single month and over 500,000 unique readers (twice as many printed readers we had). However our web platform had a lot of problems that we needed to fix.
17. Launch of our job platform
We launched a job platform 4 months after we switched, working with some amazing graduate employers including GCHQ, RAF and PWC. Using networks we had over 7,000+ jobs live at any one time. The job platform gave us a whole new market to sell to.
18. Investment pitch at Google HQ
Once we had a Head of Operations and processes in place, I started to try raise the profile of the business by attending events and joining an accelerator program. A highlight was pitching the business to 5 investors including the COO of Google UK. We were raising money for the second time to improve our web platform and ad products.
I wish I had got out earlier and started shouting about the work the team were doing.
19. Growing client list
We managed to attract some amazing brands using our sales process. While we worked with some amazing national brands, we also worked with hundreds of local businesses and graduate employers. Our sales system and amazing team were to thank for this.
20. Gaining traction
This was a page within my final investment deck - we had gained 1,200+ clients by 2018 but had 900+ when this document was created. We'd attracted more than £2m in revenue to date. We had been profitably treading water for 6 months after 1.5 years of losses due to investments.
21. London HQ
This was our final office on Oxford Street London that we were in for about a year and a half. Quite different to my bedroom. We moved in with around 10 staff and grew to 20 within this office. It created a working environment that we had never had before in any of our other offices. It took 16 hours to put together all the desks, tables, chairs and phone systems with the help of my partner.
One of my favourite quotes that summarises the journey ...
I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work. - Thomas Edison
After 5 years of scaling the business and too many mistakes, I pivoted - unable to take it any further, I moved my focus to other media brands. The five year journey was one with a number of challenges and an unusual story. It was far from perfect with with mistakes costing us hundreds of thousands.
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