Interview: Raex Philip Winner in Aberystwyth’s InvEnterPrize Student Ideas Competition

Raex Philip, a Business & Economics Undergraduate at Aberystwyth University won a £3,000 Engineers in Business award with teammate Callum Payne, a Computer Science Undergraduate for their innovation, Satellite Media.  Raex shares his views on what he learned by taking part in Aberystwyth’s InvEnterPrize Student Business Ideas Competition. 

Why did you take part in the competition?
As a freelance creative with a few years of experience, I quickly noticed a gap in the marketing and creative sector in Aberystwyth upon moving here. I realised that there was an opportunity and felt I had the right tools and knowledge to fill that gap. I was made aware of the competition by AberPreneurs. I believed it would help us critically analyse our business strategy and provide valuable insights from industry specialists into how best to proceed.

What three things did you learn from taking part in InvEnterPrize?
The most important thing I learnt is that in order to create the perfect product, it is paramount to comprehensively examine the problem, as opposed to just the product itself. What exactly is it that clients or the target audience identify as a problem? What would be the optimal solution for that exact problem, and how does it fit into their own business strategy? These were considerations that I had a surface-level impression of before the competition. However, through mentoring from the panellists and AberPreneurs, I was guided to thoroughly conduct real-world analyses and gather further market data to interpret the problem from the buyer’s perspective. I found this to be invaluable in transforming my approach to business strategy and sales.

Secondly, participating in the competition helped us to clearly present to the panellists – and perhaps more importantly, to ourselves – our financial position and pricing models. Over numerous rounds of scrutiny from ourselves, mentors and finally the panellists, we were able to reduce inefficiencies and formulate an exact expenditure plan and revenue model. This helped us go beyond the basics in understanding our own cashflows, painting a clear picture of our operating costs, which allowed us to hone our financial strategy.

Lastly, I learnt possible ways to tailor our business strategy to meet market demands. Understanding that the methodical pursuit of the perfect product may be more valuable than the product itself helped me to broaden my understanding of the market and calibrate our strategy. A key takeaway from this, among others, was when our mentors demonstrated how mastering verticals and “niching down” to match the problem could be largely beneficial as opposed to building horizontally. Examining the impact of this on customer perception and retention was an eye-opening experience for me.

What elements of the competition did you find most challenging?
I found the practice pitch to be the most challenging part of the competition. Leading up to it, I was uncertain as to how prepared we were. Having had no formal critique or feedback on our idea and strategy prior to the practice pitch, I felt we had to over-prepare, think from all angles, and have an answer to every question. This led to our presentation branching out into tangents, which I later felt was diluting the quality of our pitch. It was only mid-pitch when I realised that the practice was for us to ascertain our strengths and weaknesses, identify what we may have missed and refine our pitch. The practice pitch turned out to be an excellent avenue for us to consider a different perspective on our presentation and make the necessary changes.

Would you recommend it to other students?
Yes. I believe that the InvEnterPrize competition is a fantastic avenue for entrepreneurial students to familiarise themselves with understanding a problem, finding a solution they feel fits best and receiving valuable advice on how they can best proceed. Building a business strategy and constructing financial models is also a valuable exercise that can lead to acquiring transferable soft skills for later pursuits.

What were the benefits of taking part?
I was gifted the opportunity to hear from industry specialists and learn from their decades of shared experience. It was also a great opportunity to network with like-minded students, which provided insight into other students’ areas of interest and problems or gaps they identified in varying sectors.

How do you think the skills you learned in the competition will help you in the future?
I believe that beyond practising soft skills such as time management, pitching, eloquence in writing etc, the InvEnterPrize competition allowed me to critically evaluate my own business idea and pushed us a little closer to refining our product. The benefit of formally structuring financials, crafting a business strategy and conducting market research for a product I am fully invested in is extremely valuable to me and to the growth of our business.

Has the experience inspired you to take your business idea further or to develop new ideas?
Yes. We have taken advice from our various mentors, kept in touch with panellists and continue to work on our idea. We have tailored it to suit clients’ needs better by adjusting our services and are working to keep improving our product.

Read more about Satellite Media.