"Surround yourself with good people": meet the undergrad with a business that's already giving back

"Surround yourself with good people": meet the undergrad with a business that's already giving back

He's championing small businesses and helping the homeless become prizewinning photographers

Some people have their big ideas over a coffee. But for Alex, an Industrial Economics student in Nottingham, back-packing in Vietnam provided the creative spark for setting up his first business – although I’m sure coffee helped along the way. Before the age of 23 Alex has set up his first business, LionCard, and a social enterprise, ‘People of the Streets CIC’. Both with one clear aim: to help the local community.  

I caught up with the young entrepreneur to find out how you kick-start your business career before even leaving university.

Tell us a little bit about LionCard and how it came about...

I was lucky really, I met a mate in Vietnam and we were talking about what is missing from university. After throwing ideas back and forth, I realised there’s no discount card for small businesses. We all come to our university city to study but use the same restaurants that we can go to anywhere in the country. We don’t go to independent bars or shops. There was a gap so I thought:  let’s create a discount card. Over 25 local businesses are currently signed up with 400 members since January this year. 

 

 

What are your plans to expand LionCard in the future?

I want to expand the card into a free app with hopeful movement to other cities throughout the UK. Focusing on local businesses to help give back to the community, rather than the chain shops we're shackled to. 

Apart from LionCard, what other campavigns and projects are you working on?

Last year in 2017 I wanted to start helping with the homeless issue in Nottingham. As in most cities, it is gradually getting out of hand. Charles and I run People of the Streets CIC, which involves sending out essential items to homeless people. We decided, however, to try something a bit radical and came up with ‘Stories of the Streets’. We gave homeless people cameras to take photos, which would be hung and sold in an exhibition. It ended up exceeding our expectations; the exhibition was open for 6 weeks and had foot traffic of around a few thousand. 

Before the campaign, we started off by doing packs of essential items that people could buy from our website for homeless people, eg. female or male hygiene packs. We distributed to shelters and not individuals. And this grew our idea into the ‘People of the Streets’ campaign. 

So how did the campaign help to raise money for the homeless?

The top 20 photos taken by the homeless participants were sold and also had donation boxes underneath, and all the money collected went to the photographer. We aimed to make sure each individual had at least one photo in the top 20 as they were framed and blown up to around A4 size. The top earner made over £450. 

 

What’s next for People of the Streets?

Well, we’ve just secured £8,500 lottery funding for our next exhibition in Manchester later this year, as well as getting pupils from my old school to help this time. Hopefully this will encourage them to help with charitable work in the future, as well as helping with what they could be interested in going into career wise. 

What advice would you give to people wanting to start their first business or charity campaign?

Not having much money can be a blessing. There’s always a better, cheaper, way of doing something, and with little money you’ll find it. So, get a team together, surround yourself with good people and hire with your gut. Also, get the bank account sorted early, it’s a long and painful process. You can work out a lot of things whilst you’re waiting to be able to trade.

Support Alex's campaign for rough sleepers here.

All other images author's own.