Student Story: The Enterprise Fund & Veeego

Posted on: 25 October 2021 in Enterprise

Veeego is a community group-buy platform aiming at connecting suppliers such as farms directly to the customers, who can purchase oriental grocery together to enjoy the best quality and price, and pick up the orders at the collection points in their neighbourhoods. Veeego was launched in February 2021, since then it has achieved £36,338 in sales for the first 6 months, with an average monthly growth rate at 76.83%.

We aimed to spend the funding on logistics, delivery and warehouse management. £4200 has been used to purchase a second-hand van and £800 has been used to employ one student from the University of Liverpool to work as a warehouse manager. We became aware of the opportunity through Paul Cullinan, who has helped us with the funded internships before. The application process is straightforward as the application form is easy to fill. The funding did eventually go towards our initial aims, the money has been spent on 1) delivery van; 2) student warehouse manager’s salary.

The Enterprise Fund has helped us to expand to more areas, including Wirral, Chester and Wigan. It also helps us to fulfill orders on time, so as to create a better customer buying experience. Hiring a student intern helps us maintain the high quality of our product and service. Overall, the funding has helped Veeego to grow steadily and confidently, to serve more customers from different areas and to provide higher quality products. The delivery van enables Veeego to deliver to more places, therefore expanding our customer base. Being able to own our van also means we could deliver to our customers punctually, therefore achieving higher customer satisfaction. The intern helps us with warehouse management, including packaging and quality control, which saves time for us to work on strategic sides.

The various enterprise programmes and activities which we have participated in is the SME Challenge, Sticky Campus Innovation Competition, Emerge Social Enterprise Support Programme in collaboration with Capacity etc. Being involved in these enterprise programmes helps me to think more strategically about my business.

Enterprise programmes also help me to know more like-minded people, who inspire me to challenge our business model and explore how to improve efficiency. The main thing I enjoyed through participating was the entrepreneurial atmosphere where everyone has an innovative idea to make the world better, encouraging me to jump out of the box and to test my idea.

As a student of marketing, we analyse different real-life business cases, which has made me critical and familiarised me with the business environment. Through marketing, I understand that business is closely related to our society, environment, politics, economy and culture, which helps me to analyse my business from a broader perspective. However, as long as you read and keep up with the times, you should have your own perspective of doing things right.

To those wanting to start a business and apply for the fund, I would advise being clear about what you want to do, who is your target customers? And what kind of value could you bring them? Also, be realistic about how the funds will be used and demonstrate how the funds will make a difference to your business.

Applications for The Enterprise Fund open on the 12th November 2021 on Handshake!

Join The Green Room today to be the first to hear about all of our fantastic opportunities and funding, whilst gaining access to a community of over 250 like-minded enterprise students and grads. https://bit.ly/DYFGreenRoom