Matthew Rusk Student Entrepreneur in Residence

For the tenth article in our progress updates I sat down with Chris Rea, co-founder of a custom onesie clothing company called Young Ones, to talk about his growing involvement with another University of Exeter clothing brand now known as Just Winston. Dubbed “the ultimate dinner shirt” Just Winston combines extremely high quality shirts with exciting fabric designs, enabling the wearer to be both perfectly formal as well as having that distinct edge as the party livens up!

Founded by Nathan Ball and Ollie Sills as Winston Shirtchill, Chris and Young Ones co-founder Tom Carson decided to approach the pair in early 2014 as they were interested in helping drive the business forward. The four quickly came to an agreement that saw Chris and Tom come into the business as co-directors. The brand quickly developed, seeing the change in name, improvement of product quality and crowd sourced business funding from Kickstarter. Originally targeting £2,500 Just Winston rapidly exceeded expectations gaining 146 backers and over £5,764 to date. For those who know the passion of these four founders in delivering quality clothing products to market, as well as the potential for this project in particular this success is well founded. Indeed, Just Winston’s dinner shirts represented the University of Exeter at SETsquared’s Uni PopShop held in Spitalfields Market in summer 2013 as our product of choice – something I was luck enough to participate in as a team member.

From the interaction, interest and overall passion the general public had for this brand during the event within London is clear that on a conceptual level the business is completely there – now with the added help of Chris and Tom to develop the brand, business and operational models I really think we will see Just Winston develop into one of the more successful clothing brands to come out of the University of Exeter. The four are set to relaunch Just Winston in September 2014, something that we are all looking forward to! I will keep you updated with their progress!

Just Winston – the ultimate dinner shirt!

Here at MGR Music it has been another positive week, having taken on another new guitar teacher based here in Exeter for the Guitar Lessons Exeter website, as well as a second singing teacher on the Singing Lessons Brighton – both really exciting news!

Posted under Clothing Companies, Just Winston, Kickstarter, Progress Update, Young Ones

For the sixth of our progress updates I caught up with Chris Rea, co-founder of Young Ones a youth focused clothing company that Chris launched while studying at the University of Exeter. I last wrote about Young Ones in February 2013 and the business has really moved forward in leaps and bounds since then.

Young Ones was launched by Chris when he was a first year student in 2011, at the height of the onesie craze. He spotted some premium, but highly expensive onesies and thought he could produce a product of similar quality but at a lower price. Chris linked up with a factory in to begin making prototypes. His first onesie was produced in summer 2011, when Tom Carson, Chris’s business partner became involved. They started running Young Ones as an ecommerce site out of Chris’ bedroom. Having sold their stock of 200 onesies in under two months the pair knew that they were onto something. The popularity of the brand continued to grow throughout Chris’ second and third years at Exeter, with university students nationwide becoming “YoungOnes” and “keeping cozy during the cold winter months” in their personalised onesies. Chris and Tom even received an order from America’s iconic university Harvard to supply students with onesies there!

Young Ones – from onesies to a university brand!

In September 2013 perhaps came Young Ones’ biggest achievement so far, managing to secure a £75,000 investment from Dragons Den entrepreneur Duncan Bannatyne within the Den. Chris noted that it was a massive “confidence boost” for the pair and “confirmed that we were on the right track with the business”, encouraging them to undertake a nationwide university tour in autumn 2013. Young Ones were also diversify their products, offering bright boat shoes, wooden sunglasses as well as their ever famous custom onesies that started appearing ever more frequently across the University campus by early 2014.

Young Ones – 2013 saw the product range expand into boat shoes, wooden sunglasses & other street wear clothing items!

On a business front Chris cited the significance of changing supplier to reduce lead times, building up a core group of brand managers across the nation’s universities and continued focus on building the brand as the three most significant developments within Young Ones over the last twelve months. The later of three has seen Young Ones take on new graphic and fashion designers helping the company prepare for the release of their new summer range for 2014 which will be out shortly. Indeed, Chris and Tom are still looking to build their team and are especially interested in creating an internship programme, if you are interested in talking to them about this simply email . In terms of moving forward the pair cite their next major challenge will be getting Young Ones into retail stores, solidifying the company as the up and coming brand of choice for thousands of universities students throughout the UK. I am sure there is plenty more to come from Young Ones and I will keep you updated with their progress over the next few years!

In terms of my week here at MGR Music we had great success on the hiring front, taking on new teachers in Belfast, Plymouth and Coventry and well as launching the Piano Lessons Southampton and Singing Lessons Coventry websites! With over 75 teachers onboard now things are really starting to grow with speed, averaging over 30 new student enquiries each day to pass onto these teachers located throughout the UK. We are also coming up the one year birthday of the Guitar Lessons London website launch so there will be a small celebration for that next week!

Connect with Matthew via LinkedIn or have a read of his personal blog, where this week he explored the rise of Japanese whisky.

Posted under Clothing Companies, Progress Update, Young Ones

Wow, what a week! I met eight students with business ideas in a jam packed few days, before heading off to Instabear’s launch party on the Saturday! The Polaroid Instagram printing service will be live very shortly so make sure you sign up here!

A highlight of the week was sitting down with the Young Ones co-founder Chris Rea to talk about how he can move the business from the UK’s top selling university inspired Onesie company to the new university outfitters, competing against the likes of Jack Wills, Superdry and Topman.

With some great products in the line-up to be released over the summer & the possibility that the Young One team will go full time next year watch this space, you might just be seeing a new high-street clothing brand being born!

Young Ones – one of Exeter University’s top exports!

Another highlight of the week was meeting Tom, a first year student who had started a soap business early last year to win a bet against his friend. Having sold his own brand of soap on London stalls, generating a more than decent income, he is now preparing to launch his second business in Exeter! What this will be we let you know as soon as we can! I also met with a student who has a cracking idea for a new piece of skiing equipment, top secrete at the moment but once they are ready to go public you will hear more about it hear first! Additionally there were a few other pipeline businesses ideas this week that the Innovation Centre will help to incubate and develop over the next few months before their launch – I will keep you updated!

If you have a business idea, no matter how early come an visit us on campus up at the Innovation Centre!

My week away from the SEiR role saw the launch of Guitar Lessons Coventry, Guitar Lessons Plymouth and Singing Lessons Leeds thanks to my fantastic team of copywriters, while I began to start the process of hiring teachers for the Guitar Lessons Norwich and Guitar Lessons Belfast websites respectively. With enquiries coming in from all over the network guitar, singing and piano websites I am trying to hirer teachers as quickly as I can to fulfil them!

Hindered slightly however by having an excruciatingly painful back I was reminded not to work too hard, seriously I have met so many people in their mid-40s that have made millions and burned out, damaging their health irretrievably in the process. It is very easy to work too hard on your own business, while juggling a degree, social relationships, other part time jobs, yet you can’t buy your health back once you made your money – live in the present & chill!

Connect with Matthew via LinkedIn or check out his whisky box subscription website, his latest entrepreneurial project.

Posted under Innovation Centre, Instabear, Young Ones