I've very gratefully been invited to speak at a variety of events over the coming months. I figured I should pop them onto the blog, incase you fancy coming along. Some of the talks are at conferences that you need to buy a ticket for.
28th January: 'Enterprise Spotlight' at the University of Hertfordshire, 6pm-8pm.
2nd February: 'My Life is my Business' event at Darwen Aldridge Community Academy, 11am-4pm.
3rd February: Strathclyde University SEN event, All Bar One, Glasgow, 7pm-10pm.
1st March: Disneyland Paris, European Study Tours, all day.
6th March: Scottish Youth Parliament, Lanarkshire
10th March: Use Your Loaf event, Durham, all day.
11th March, CIPD Conference, Perth, all day.
17th March, Philip Allen Updates event, London, all day.
24th March: San Juan University, Puerto Rico
25th March: Columbia University, New York City
30th March: West Cheshire College, Chester
16th April: Maastricht University, Maastricht, Netherlands
Last week, I was very kindly invited to speak to the pupils at a school on the Isle of Anglesey in Wales.
The pupils, aged 14-16, were working on coming up with ideas to set up their own small businesses as part of an after school group run by the "Mentermon", a government-backed organisation that aims to foster enterprise on the island.
I shared the story of how SuperJam came about and how we got the SuperJam Tea Parties off the ground. The kids were very enthusiastic and asked questions for about half an hour.
While I was on Anglesey, I got to stop off at "Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch", a small village that holds the Guinness Book of Records title of having the longest place name in the world.
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I was recently interviewed about how SuperJam came about by the fantastic website Smarta.com. They have interviews with all kinds of inventors, entrepreneurs and business minds; check it out!
In this interview with myself, the founder of SuperJam, we talk about my first ever business (a small scale chicken farm in my parent's back garden at the age of 10!), the set backs I faced in getting SuperJam off the ground and all of the people who helped me out. It is the same story that I have recently been sharing as a speaker at a lot of events at schools, colleges, universities and conferences across the country.
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Over the festive period, we have been having some really fun Christmas Tea Parties; with mulled wine, champagne and mince pies.
The guests have enjoyed the usual live music and dancing, as well as performances from local carol singers and at two of the larger tea parties in Edinburgh, we served up a whole lunch for everyone. As always, the events were completely free for the guests to come along to and really brightened up their days.
One of the tea parties, held at a sheltered housing complex in Edinburgh, was filmed by Channel 5 and Sky News and will be broadcast at some point between Christmas Day and New Year's Day.
Thanks a million to all of the people who gave up their holiday time to come and help out at the tea parties!
Win a case of 100% natural juice from our friends at Feel Good Drinks
We’ve teamed up with our friends at the Feel Good Drinks Co. and have 10 cases of their delicious, 100% natural Juice Drinks up for grabs! Refreshing Feel Good Drinks are packed full of fruity goodness, contain absolutely no added sugar and come in a range of gorgeous flavours! Find out more about them at here.
Ten of you guys will each win a case of their amazing drinks. For a chance to win, just sign-up for our email newsletters via the box on our homepagehere. We'll send you the occasional email love letter with news, jokes and all that.
t&c’s and blah blah blah's
1. Each prize includes 12x400ml Feel Good Drinks in a range of fruity flavours.
2. Prize will be delivered within 28 days.
3. Not open to employees or family of Feel Good Drinks or SuperJam.
4. Your details will only be used by Feel Good and SuperJam to send you email love; you can unsubscribe at any point.
Our Joe, seen here sporting a mustache-less face, has been working at SuperJam for a few months. His favorite flavour is Raspberry & Cranberry and the highlight of his job with us so far was meeting Sir Terry Wogan..
Joe has very courageously decided to grow a sponsored mustache throughout the month of November ('Movember'), to raise money for prostate cancer research. SuperJam is going to chip a few hundred pounds into his effort and it would be really wonderful if you could maybe donate a few pounds to the cause here.
Hopefully Joe will raise a lot of money for a really worthwhile cause and not too many people will laugh at his silly mustache.
(We'll post a picture of his mustache at the end of the month!)
Throughout November and December, i'll be sharing the story of how SuperJam grew from my Gran's kitchen to the supermarket shelves. You'll be able to come along and hear me speak at the following places:
SuperJam Wins Nectar Business 'Entrepreneur of The Year' Award.
This week, I was delighted to be told that SuperJam has been awarded the 'Nectar Business Young Entrepreneur of The Year Award'. There were a number of really great companies that were also up for the award, so it is a real honor.
Nectar Business said:
“We're delighted to announce Shiply.com, SportStars and SuperJam as the winners in the Nectar Business Small Business Awards. It's staggering to see how successful these three businesses have been in their individual ways. From, Shiply.com who have achieved incredible success in less than 12 months, to SportStars who spotted a gap in the education market to create a highly successful business, to young entrepreneur Fraser Doherty who set up SuperJam, the fast-growing jam brand in the UK - it's inspiring to see each of these three businesses leading in their field.”
“Everyone who runs a small business, especially in the current climate, has to work extremely hard to get it off the ground and make a success of it. The awards have represented a fantastic opportunity to celebrate great business ideas, business practice and people and I would like to congratulate all the small businesses from across the UK that entered.”
Thanks very much Nectar Business - it is a really wonderful pat on the back, encouraging me to continue to grow the business, as well as the SuperJam Tea Parties, as ambitiously as possible.
Some recent articles in the press (including this one in the Daily Mail) have been talking about the fact that jam-making has become 'cool', alongside knitting and other such things.
I'd like to say that its all down to me but it perhaps isn't.
I was very excited to be invited onto the Chris Evans show on Friday to talk about it. Maybe you heard our conversation. If not, you can listen to it here (at 31 minutes, 20 seconds).
A few years ago, when I was trying to get SuperJam off the ground, Channel 4 followed me around to make a 30-minute program about what I was doing.
As part of the program, I was given advice from the hugely successful Scottish entrepreneur, John Boyle, who built and sold Direct Holidays and then later set up Zoom airlines.
In the program, his advice was not to try to supply SuperJam to supermarkets. Of course, I ended up going against his advice and following my dreams.
The program was repeated on Channel 4 this morning and you can watch the entire program on 4oD online, here.
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On Sunday, as part of our sponsorship of The SuperJam Great British Race Day at Brighton Racecourse, we served up cream teas to the crowds.
We used Rodda's clotted cream and freshly baked scones and it went down a treat. The races on the day, which you might have seen on Sky Sports or elsewhere, were named after the flavours of our jams.
Over the Summer, we'll be serving up cream teas at events all over the country, so please do pop along and say hello. Next up is the Cockington Proms on 12th July, in Torquay, which we're also a major sponsor of.
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On Wednesday, I had the privilege of meeting HRH Prince Charles. He was a very charming man, as you would probably expect.
The event was a conference run by the Scottish arm of The Princes Trust, which is of course his charity that helps young people set up companies by giving them grants, loans and great advice.
I was supported by them when I was starting out and was invited to give the keynote speech, alongside Michelle Mone.
SuperJam Great British Race day at Brighton Racecourse!
Nice weather we've been having lately, eh?
We will be serving cream teas at all kinds of events over the Summer. The first event this year is at Brighton Racecourse this Sunday, the 7th June.
SuperJam is the headline sponsor of the SuperJam Great British Race Day at Brighton Racecourse this Sunday.
There will be six SuperJam races, Proms in The Paddock with The Sussex Band of the Royal British Legion, a 'Best Banger competition' and traditional seaside entertainment.
We will also be serving thousands of cream teas to the 8,000 people who're coming along, so come and say hi if you're in town!
If you'd like to come, you can buy tickets and find out more info here.
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If you happen to follow my Twitter, you'll know that a couple of weeks ago I was followed around for a whole day by a film crew from BBC Alba, the Gaelic channel.
We had a lovely day filming for 'Cuide Ri Cathy', with Cathy McDonald. We tried out a new jam recipe in the morning, visited the local Waitrose supermarket to see the products on the shelves and then had a massive tea party in the afternoon.
Don't worry; it is mostly in English and the Gaelic parts have subtitles.
You can watch the program on BBC iPlayer here, for the next week.
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On Monday, I was interviewed by Declan and Naga on BBC2's Working Lunch program.
I was the 'main guest' on the show and the interview was, according to some of my followers on Twitter, the best i've had in a long time.
You can check out the interview on BBC iPlayer here, if you wish.
There has been a flurry of orders on the website since the interview so it has been all hands on deck in Jam Land - which is why it has taken me so long to blog about it!
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We have teamed up with our friends at VisitShetland, Flybe and Northlink to offer a pretty amazing competition.
We're offering the chance to celebrate Spring in the Shetland Islands with a unique 7-night get-away for 2 with Shetland Lighthouse Holidays. Experience the fascinating and unique natural environment, an unrivalled cultural heritage and the friendliest locals you're ever likely to meet.
Travel to Shetland in style with a return journey for 2 from Aberdeen with a cabin and car, onboard one of NorthLink Ferries' beautiful cruise-style ships. Spend 7 nights self-catering in the Bressay lighthouse keeper's cottage, compliments of Shetland Lighthouse Holidays, and explore the beautiful island, just five minutes by ferry from Shetland’s capital, Lerwick.
Join Island Trails' for an "In Aboot da Night" evening of spellbinding storytelling and fantastic fiddle music; discover Shetland’s fantastic wildlife on a trip to the island of Mousa with Mousa Boat Trips; and enjoy a "Top of Britain" day trip to the island of Unst, the most northerly point in Britain, with Shetland Nature Cruises and Tours.
And with £200 spending money included, you'll be simply spoilt for choice!
For the chance to win this fantastic prize, click here to enter. We will also be sending a great Shetland Accommodation and Visitor Guide to every entrant.
This week, we made the rather exciting step of opening the first SuperJam retail outlet, in the Union Street Mall in Aberdeen. We are selling the full range of products, as well as oatcakes from our friends Nairn's and perhaps some other products later down the line.
This is a bit of an experiment at the moment; if it goes well, we may open extra outlets in other malls. It is a great way of giving people the opportunity to try the products and if it proves successful, will mean that we are going to have to take on permanent staff.
Of course, if you live in Aberdeen, and you don't have jobs to attend to please do feel free to stop by and say hello.
Today I came across a rather remarkable story. As you know, knitting is something that I write about a lot and we have a Tea Cosy of The Week competition.
You may already be familiar with Jo Eglen, who has been in the media a bit recently. She runs the 'Little Hen Rescue Centre', a home for 5,750 ex-battery hens.
A lot of the hens are bald when they get to her, so she came up with a novel and frankly brilliant solution; knit jumpers for all the hens!
The article in the Telegraph says: "The response was incredible and she has now kitted out 1,500 birds with woolly jumpers to keep the warm in the winter months.
"Some battery farms have up to 10,000 hens of the same age. They get quite thin and bald because of the stress and heat. About 60 per cent of the hens that come through are bald."
"We have patterns on our website that are straight-forward and simple. We've had 1,500 jumpers come through in just the past two months. So many different kinds - Christmas-themed jumpers, multi-coloured ones, some with bows and stripes."
Twitter is becoming something of a phenomenon and has been on the news a lot over the past few weeks.
One of the most famous 'tweeters' in the UK is Stephen Fry, of Qi fame. I've been following his tweets for some time and find it very amusing. You might have read a few weeks ago that he was stuck in a lift and his 'followers' were able to live the experience with him, through his regular up-to-160-character posts.
For those of you who don't know what Twitter is; it allows users to post about what they are doing, reading and thinking in real time, in short posts, sort of like text-messages. If you like, you can follow my updates by signing up to my tweets here.
Director Magazine, the monthly publication of the Institute of Directors, named me as their 'Director of The Month', which was jolly nice of them. They also wrote a wee article about SuperJam in their magazine here.
Previous 'Directors of The Month' include Maitland Mackie of Mackies Ice Cream, Shaks Ghosh of the Private Equity Foundation and Jeremy Leggett of Solar Century.
The SuperJam Tea Parties featured on The Five Thirty Show...
At our most recenttea party for the elderly, our guests enjoyed the company of a TV camera from STV, filming a feature about the Tea Parties project for the Five Thirty Show.
We've now hosted well over 100 Tea Parties all over the country and there were over 110 elderly guests at last week's Tea Party, at Meadowbank Sports Centre in Edinburgh.
You can watch the feature here, which was broadcast today, 27th January.
We've got a lot of Tea Parties planned for the coming months and the whole project is just growing and growing. The events are very well received by the elderly guests and, for some of them, it is the highlight of their week.
If you would like to get involved, click here to visit our Facebook group.
Tomorrow, Tuesday 27th January, at 9.30am on Channel 4 there is a repeat of the 'Tricky Business' documentary that followed the development of SuperJam for 6 months. You can watch the documentary online here.
It was an amazing and sometimes surreal experience being followed around by the film crew. Having them follow my progress definitely helped to motivate me to pursue my ideas and turn the SuperJam idea into a reality.
In this program, you can watch the ups and downs of setting up the business, finding a manufacturing facility, raising finance and the challenges we had coming up with label designs that everyone were happy with.
You may have seen this film in cinemas last year. It is about a group of elderly people in Northampton, Massachusetts, who have formed a rock band. They have a combined age of over 2,000 years.
They have grown in popularity so much over the past few years, especially after a film was made about their story, that they play to sell-out crowds all over the world.
MSNBC Says:
"Some of what they sing shouts the honest part of growing old. Their concerts are intelligent and deep. Ninety minutes nonstop, constantly shifting from laughter to tears.
"Nothing to do and nowhere to go,” they croon. “I want to be sedated."
It took standing ovations for director Bob Cilman to convince the chorus to sing the songs they used to tell their kids to turn down."
This is, of course, similar to the story of the British group 'The Zimmers', who shot to fame last year following the release of their single 'My Generation'.
These stories are inspirational because they demonstrate that, regardless of how old you are, you can still be entertaining, funny and try to improve how other people are perceived and treated in society.
Of course, through The SuperJam Tea Parties, I hope that we are able to bring fun and motivation to the lives of thousands of elderly people who are living alone, are housebound or who live in care.
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The awards, in their third year, were created by BT Business to celebrate the achievements of various entrepreneurs who have challenged the status quo in their industries. The competition was judged by Peter Jones, of Dragons' Den fame and James Hurley, editor of Growing Business Magazine, among others.
The prize for the award was a photo shoot with the renowned photographer Rankin, famous for his images for the Dove 'Real Women' campaign, the Queen and Kylie Minogue. It was a pretty fun day having my picture taken. I can honestly say that it was the first time I've ever worn make-up...
The overall winner of the competition, crowned 'Most Outstanding Entrepreneur' was Mike Welch, who is a very nice chap indeed. He runs BlackCircles.com, the biggest online retailer of car tires on the internet in the UK.
The photographs taken by Rankin of all of the winners will be exhibited at gallery@oxo in London's South Bank, starting from next Thursday, 29th January. Entry to the exhibition is free and definitely worth a look, the stories of all of the winners are fascinating.
I was recently invited to Palm Springs, California, for the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of The Year Awards.
The whole event was an incredible experience, with the best entrepreneurs from all manner of industries being recognised for the steps that they had taken to build amazing businesses, supplying ground-breaking products and creating thousands of jobs.
I met some very inspirational people who gave me some great advice and helped motivate me to take the next steps in growing SuperJam.
At the event, I was grabbed by Diane Brady, the Senior Editor of the massive Business Week Magazine, and fellow Scot, for a quick interview.
The SuperJam story was featured all around the world on Sky News this week, as a feature on 'the stories of 2008'.
You can watch the video on the Sky News website here.
It has certainly been an amazing year for SuperJam and, judging by the hundreds of emails from all around the world that have come flooding in after this feature, next year is going to be just as busy...
Apparently, i'm 'Scotland's Top Young Innovator', lovely!
As reported in the press today, at an awards ceremony in Glasgow last night, I was awarded one of the 'John Logie Baird Awards'. This was after competing in regional and Scotland-wide judging panels, which involved being asked questions by the leading minds in innovation in Scotland.
John Logie Baird is famous as the Scottish inventor of the first working television. Although his version of television is not the same as the type used today, he led the way in the development of what later became one of the most influential technologies of all time. He was a prolific inventor, with creations such as thermal under socks, 'rust-proof' glass razor blades and pneumatic shoes, all of which saw limited success, before creating television.
He even once shorted out Glasgow's electricity supply, trying to produce diamonds!
The John Logie Baird awards were created in his name and I am very proud to have been given one. It is really great for the innovative nature of SuperJam to be celebrated in this way.
There were many wonderful inventions on show last night, including the Walkodile, which helps keep groups of children together when taking them for a walk, in a fun way.
Given all of the doom and gloom in the media, it is great to see innovation being celebrated in this way. Arguably the best way for Scotland to get out of the current economic problem and compete globally in the coming years is to invest in the creation of new technologies and the products of the future. Scotland has a long list of successful inventions from past years and hopefully we can be as inventive in the future.
The John Logie Baird Awards go some way to encouraging me that we can!
You may have noticed in some of this weeks' newspapers that Orange are running an advert that focuses on my story and the people who made it possible.
I'm a big fan of their 'I am' adverts and you may have seen the one on TV that features Mark Beaumont, a fellow Scot who cycled all the way 'round the world in the fastest time ever.
As the ad says, I am who I am because of everyone. So, thanks for doing your bit in making me who I am!
I won the Glenfiddich 'Spirit of Scotland' Entrepreneur Award...
Last night, I was very gratefully awarded this very prestigious award. Thanks very much if you were one of the folks who kindly took the time to vote online last month.
It felt amazing even just to be recognised among the ranks of such incredibly talented, famous and successful people as Glasvegas, KT Tunstall, Mark Beaumont and James McAvoy.
To win an award, in the Entrepreneur category, was very touching - since the winner was chosen by the public. I didn't really know what to say when I was invited to give a speech. I thanked my family for being so supportive and, of course, my Gran for teaching me to make jam in the first place.
The overall winner of 'Top Scot' was Chris Hoy, the three-time Gold medal winning Olympian.
The Scotsman editor, Mike Gilson, who presented the award to me, said: "Fraser's fearless mix of Scottish home cooking and business acumen embodies the spirit of young entrepreneurship". Very nice of him to say so.
You can read all about the event and the other winners in today's Scotsman and the whole ceremony is broadcast this Sunday, St Andrew's Day, at 10:30pm on STV.
I need your vote in The Spirit of Scotland Awards!
I've very gratefully been entered into the Entrepreneur category of the Spirit of Scotland Awards and would, of course, be massively grateful of your support.
Alternatively, simply call 09016 560160 and follow the instructions or text SCOTA1012 to 81800.
There are lots of big names in the other categories, such as Chris Hoy, Sir Alex Ferguson, Mark Beaumont (who cycled all the way round the world last year) KT Tunstall and James McAvoy..
The winner of each category is selected by readers of The Scotsman and visitors to Glenfiddich's website. Everyone who takes the time to cast their vote will be entered into a prize draw to win one of twenty-one different Glenfiddich prizes.
A couple of weeks ago, I got to go to 'Kensington Roof Gardens', which apparently is owned by Richard Branson and is about 6 floors above Kensington High Street. Fairly fancy schmancy.... they even have flamingos in the bar!
Anyway, we went there to have our pictures taken for the front cover of this month's edition of Growing Business Magazine, which is the 'Young Guns' edition. I was chosen as 'the one to watch for 2009', so I better do something exciting next year, ha.
It was very fun and there are a lot of other interesting entrepreneurs in the edition, such as Tim Campbell who won the Apprentice, Fiona McLean and Clare Thommen who run the Scottish lingerie business Boudiche and Vincent McKevitt, who runs the chain of salad bars Tossed.
I've also been shortlisted for the Growing Business Awards, in the 'Young Entrepreneur' category, which is run by the same magazine. It is being judged by Duncan Bannatyne, Surinder Arora and various other entrepreneurial heavyweights. I have to give a presentation about my business next week... perhaps I'll buy a tie.
The award was won last year by a very nice chap called Dan McGuire, who runs a business called Broadbean and a project called The Two Hour Initiative, which encourages business people to spend two hours per quarter promoting entrepreneurship to young people.
I'm becoming something of a regular on BBC Scotland these days.
You can listen to a nice little chat we had this morning about motivation and achieving what you want in life here. . The part where i'm nattering is about fifteen minutes in.
I think that the entrepreneur's ability to motivate themselves to get up every morning and bash on with their idea is one of the big factors that separates the ideas that work from the ones that don't. It took Dyson hundreds of attempts at building the dual cyclone before he eventually came up with his now world famous vacuum cleaner. A lot of people wouldn't have been able to motivate themselves to get up every day and think about vacuum cleaners.
I've managed to motivate myself to get up every morning for almost six years and think about jam; mostly because I love the stuff and also since I have been able to always think in terms of where i'm aiming to get in the long run. It doesn't matter if today doesn't work out too good, as long as everything on the whole is moving towards where I want to go; transforming the world of jam!
There has been a 'SuperJam' group on Facebook for some time, created by one of our most adoring fans.
I decided that it would be good to create an 'official' SuperJam page on Facebook, for our fans to show their love and for us to be able to keep everyone up to date with our upcoming events (like SuperJam Tea Parties), competitions and news.
You can upload your own pictures with your favorite SuperJam in an exotic place, comment on ideas for new products and encourage your friends to become a part of the SuperJam movement!
To have a look at our Facebook page and become a fan if you are a user of the site,
As part of it's 'Scotland; A changing Nation' exhibition, the National Museum of Scotland has used the SuperJam brand as an example of innovation from the Scottish food industry in the 21st Century. We are showcased alongside icons such as Tunnocks, Irn-Bru and Baxters. Pretty cool.
You can visit the exhibition anytime over the next couple of years and read all about the political, cultural and economic changes that Scotland has gone through over the past century. There is also a cool video that is on display in the exhibition and also online here , describing what makes my home country so great, but also talking about some of the problems it still faces.
There are a few familiar faces in the video, including my friend John, winner of Celebrity Big Brother Hijack. He's standing up for a lot of important issues concerning young people in Scotland and in particular our hometown of Edinburgh.
The whole exhibition is definitely worth a look and, of course, it's completely free.
Talking about jam on MacAulay & Co. on Radio Scotland...
It is now the season when folks start making jam at home. Obviously (other than SuperJam..) nothing tastes better than homemade jam. I went on BBC Radio Scotland's MacAuley and Co. show this morning to share my tips for making your own tasty jam at home. You can listen to the broadcast here. Feel free to fast forward to 1:04:00, where the jam chat starts.
I shared my recipe for Raspberry & Cranberry jam, which the Beeb kindly popped on their website here.
The co-presenter Kim had a shot at making the recipe at home but, thankfully, Richard thought the SuperJam version tasted best...
This was fun. Jason made a jazzed-up version of Arctic Roll for his dessert in the competition. Of course, he was going to need to find out how to make the best jam possible. Only one man could help him. I 'taught' Jason how to make SuperJam so that he could use it in his recipe.
The jam we made at his house tasted darn tootin' and he decided to make Raspberry & Cranberry SuperJam for his dessert. The judges loved it.
You can watch the program here. If you don't want to watch the full program, you can fast-forward to my bit which is 18 minutes in.
Be sure to keep on clicking for us in the Britain's Best Awards, we're second place at the minute and there's 1% in it! hahaha: click here.
Please Vote for SuperJam in the Britain's Best Awards
This is a bit of a cheeky post so I appologise.
I've been shortlisted for ITV's Britain's Best Awards and in order to do well in the competition, we have to gain votes on The Sun website. There's a nice article here and you can cast your vote by clicking a link half way down the page on the right.
The other kids in the competition are amazing so I won't be hurt if you want to vote for one of them instead. There's an olympian, the main actor out of Skins and a couple of other really cool folks - i'm looking forward to meeting them at the awards ceremony.
P.S. You might like to watch me cooking jam on The Great British Menu at 6:30pm tomorrow evening on BBC2. I guess it'll be available on catch up TV for a while if you miss it.
Lorraine Kelly wrote in her dieting blog on The Sun website today: "I had some wholemeal toast today with that new 'SuperJam' created by a teenage entrepreneur in Scotland. He has made a range of healthy jam with no added sugar that tastes brilliant. My favourite is the rhubarb". Mine too.
Last year was quite an amazing year for SuperJam. Over the past nine or so months, SuperJam has launched in Waitrose and Tesco across the country, been the focus of a huge amount of media coverage and we've now sold the best part of a quarter of a million pots!
It has been an amazing adventure for me and I have met some very interesting people, visited other countries and been asked about my views on all kinds of things in the media. I have loved sharing my story with tens of thousands of young people at large events and, most of all, had a lot of fun playing around in my parents' kitchen with different kinds of fruit!
Anyway, BBC's 'Breakfast' show made this little video about what I have been up to over the past year...
Last night I was amazed to find out that the SuperJam story has made it to pretty much the antipodal (furthest away) point in the world: New Zealand. The footage used by Five News and Sky News in the UK (and elsewhere in the world) was used by New Zealand's Channel 3. You can view the video here.
I've also found out that the story was covered this week on Hong Kong, Malta and in Spain. There'll also be a feature in one of the Norweigan papers in a few days so: hello to the international visitors to the site!
Strathclyde University's 'Brightest Young Business'
I am a student at the University of Strathclyde (in Glasgow) and, as part of their many excellent enterprise activities, was invited to the annual 'Enterprise Awards'. There were a variety of prizes for the social entrepreneurs, spin out companies and enterprising staff of the University. There was also a 'Strathclyde Supernovas: Brightest Young Business Award', which I was delighted to be awarded.
The prize is a one week course at MIT University's Sloan Management Business School (worth over $8,000), to study Strategy. I'll be going over in June to do this and will be sure to post about it afterwards to let you know how I get on.
I don't mean for this to be another 'I got an award' post but this is a story I really have to write about. On Wednesday, I went over to Chicago to the 'Global Student Entrepreneur Awards', having been chosen to represent the UK (and the University of Strathclyde). I won't write about all the details but basically I had to give a 20 minute presentation to a bunch of very successful entrepreneurs about my business, what I wanted to achieve, my ethics and so on...
Originally, over 700 students around the world were nominated to enter the competition, then 26 were picked to go to Chicago and then they picked 6 based on the presentations. I got to present again and also watched some of the other five guys talking about their businesses and ideas. All of the 26 young entrepreneurs in the competition had incredible businesses, one of my favourites being Ten Minute Media - this guy, Brendan, makes websites for people like Mick Jagger and Natalie Cole. There was also a Swede, Erik, who made software for McDonald's.
I had never met such passionate and driven people my own age - we all shared an enthusiasm for ideas and enterprise and got on very well with oneanother.
Anyway, I ended up winning the competition and also got a special 'Social Impact' prize. It was a really cool few days and
Firstly, I've not grown a beard. I'm still as fresh faced as ever. This is a picture of James picking up 'The Young Entrepreneur of The Year Award' for me from Adrienne Lawler off the news. Sadly, I wasn't able to go along to pick it up myself since I was on my way to Chicago.
Anyway, the prize was given to me as part of the Startups Awards . There were all sorts of cool other entrepreneurs there and the Young Entrepreneur category was open to anyone under the age of 30. I was delighted to get a prize, obviously.
As reported in today's Edinburgh Evening News , SuperJam has been named 'one of the country's best start-up companies' after being shortlisted in the Startups Business of The Year Awards.
I am up for the "Young Entrepreneur of The Year" category, alongside three other very interesting start-up companies. There are sixty-two companies going along to the 'awards luncheon' so I am looking forward to chatting with a wide variety of entrepreneurs about how they started their businesses.
A few of the other finalists' businesses that I think are cool are Plum Baby (a range of organic 'super foods' for babies, Boudiche (an Edinburgh lingerie boutique) and Mrs Massey's (a range of homemade sauces, chutneys and spicy rubs).
Before I start, I'm going to point out that I am not actually a millionaire. However, I have recently contributed my thoughts and advice for aspiring entrepreneurs to a book called 'how to be a teenage millionaire'. It is not a bad wee book for teenagers who are maybe thinking about whether they want to start their own business, either now or in the future.
Encouraging other young people to think about starting their own business is one of my big things. I've got so much out of starting SuperJam that I couldn't recommend a better way of life to other people than being an entrepreneur.
I get a couple of emails every day from teenagers who are thinking about starting up their own businesses. This is something that I love and am always more than happy to help in whatever way I can. I'm keen to hear from young people about what they think about starting their own business, what obstacles they face and what kind of businesses they would like to start.
