The third installment of our “Surrey Start-up Stories” features We Are Millennials (WAM), the platform dedicated to promoting millennial talent.
Name: Bayo Akinmejiwa
Course: Business Management 2013-16
Business: We Are Millennials (WAM)
Summaries your business:
My business is a platform to promote and share millennial talent. We choose a new millennial each week to promote as well as constantly supporting them through advertising on our social media and website.
The website is www.wamvoice.com
Facebook: WAM
Twitter: @WamVoice
Instagram: WamVoice
How and when did your business idea come about?
The Summer of 2015 whilst I was interning at Mass Challenge UK. MC is a business accelerator and on their cohort in the UK they had 90 different start ups working in the building in Shadwell. Being in this environment just made it evident that this is something I wanted to do and a running theme that I felt they all wanted to tap into were millennials and I felt that I had some insight or at least knew a good few amount of millennials too.
What (Student Enterprise or external) start up support did you use and how did it help?
I received mentoring from Travis Lee Scott (external).
How has your business developed and what are your ambitions for the future?
For the future we aim to establish a presence on YouTube and use this to help us trend. Beyond that we want to establish ourselves as the gateway to uncovered millennial talent and help integrate brands and resources with the correct millennials.
What has been the best/worst part of starting/running a business?
The best part is being able to see a vision you had in your head come to life and constantly been tapped into daily. The worst is when the business demands have no leniency on your personal life, e.g. exam period, so sometimes it is a stress to multi task.
Do you have any words of wisdom for budding entrepreneurs?
See it as an obstacle course, as things which can go wrong do often go wrong but everything can be overcome.
