Matthew Rusk Student Entrepreneur in Residence

For the eleventh progress update I managed to catch up with Dan Wiseman, founder of Webwise Media, a website design business aimed at creating affordable websites for small and medium businesses. Dan, who studied drama at Exeter 2009-2012, focused his degree on arts management. Extensively exploring how the creative industry works and is managed on a financial level, he was prompted to start designing websites as source of income while at university. However, his skills for designing websites, as well as his honest and customer focused approach to web design, saw his business start to flourish in its own right during his second year at university. It was this organic growth in the business, where one website design would lead to three further enquiries that ensured that business thrived without spending too much on advertising.

Webwise Media – not all businesses need to be born from a single eureka moment, many like Dan’s were created from a journey that became increasingly more entrepreneurial as time when on

Dan took a part-time job in the University of Exeter’s IT department, working over the summer to continue to learn and develop his abilities. It also proved a source of inspiration and motivation to continue to drive his business forward. By 2011, after wining some notable contracts, the idea that Webwise Media could become a post-graduation job started to materialise in Dan’s mind. That summer he took the steps to formalise the company, continuing push forward the organic growth of his business which had seen ever more interest from clients throughout the South West. By summer 2012 Webwise Media had started rent hot-desk space at the Innovation Centre, something that is available for all student businesses, subject to the approval of the Innovation Centre staff and had started to develop a number of exciting new software based projects like Screenfish.

By summer 2013 Webwise Media had moved into permanent offices in the Innovation Centre, partnered with an SEO company and continued to grow their client base – taking on new projects from across the South West. This hard work enabled Dan to take on two University of Exeter student interns in early 2014, as well as winning the prestigious 2014 “Young Entrepreneur of the Year” at the Exeter Business Awards that was a fantastic achievement. Moving forward Webwise Media will continue to grow their client base organically, pivoting slightly by looking to develop further into systems development and eCommerce website creation. Dan also plays an integral role at the Innovation Centre in terms of helping to develop the current entrepreneurial students, offering web advice as well as holding regular seminars through the career zone on multiple aspects of developing an online business. He is also always interested in talking on talented University of Exeter students to work at Webwise Media as interns, you can get in touch with him via the Webwise Media website. We are excited to see how Dan’s business continues grow and develop over the next twelve months and hope he represents the first of a new wave of entrepreneurial Exeter students who will choose to grow their businesses in the South West!

Posted under Progress Update, Student Interns, Student Jobs, Webwise Media, Young Entrepreneur of the Year Awards

Another furious week this week up at the Innovation Centre as we awarded grant funding to our first student business of the year! Dan Wiseman, a recent drama graduate and current owner of Webwise Media, pitched for grant funding to help develop his software solution to digital signage management.

Named Screenfish, the idea successfully negotiated its way through two business plan development sessions, multiple meetings with Innovation Centre staff and a Dragon’s Den style pitch before gaining funding. Congratulations to Dan, I will keep you updated as how the project is going!

Screenfish – Webwise Media Ltd new software package!

I also met a student during my weekly drop in sessions who pitched one of the best business ideas I have heard all term! Instabear, which has already gone online this week, is an awesome website where you can finally get your Instagram photos printed! Offering both Polaroid’s and snaps check out their website and like their Facebook page – great job by final year student Solly Akhtar!

Instabear goes live!

This week also saw me travelling up to Leicester and Sheffield to interview guitar teachers for the Guitar Lessons Leicester and Guitar Lessons Sheffield websites. A really exciting trip, I managed to interview a total of five teachers in Leicester and Sheffield hiring a new guitar teacher in Leicester to work with!

Interviewing is a hard process to get right, especially in the context of my sub-contracting business where I have to pitch the business model to them while they try and pitch themselves to me. There is a lot of research to suggest that interviewing is actually one of the worst ways of selecting the right people to work for your organisation as the process is far from objective.

Personality, appearance and the fact you both support the same football/rugby/bowls team invariably prompts you to hire the person you get on with rather than the best candidate for the job! Always take applications first and then select the final candidates to be interviewed by a colleague who is not the decision maker before interviewing the last two or three yourself!

Connect with Matthew via LinkedIn or join his whisky subscription club to meet with likeminded entrepreneurs over a few drams of whisky.

Posted under Guitar Lessons London, Instabear, MGR Music, Student Businesses, Webwise Media, Wiseman Media