The Tiger’s Pen – Returned to Brighton with a Pounce!
“The Tiger’s Pen,” is an ambitious platform that aims to bridge the gap between aspiring student entrepreneurs and visionary business leaders by bringing them together in a pitching event to build confidence and to help them scale up and grow up if they want to start their own businesses once they’ve got their degrees at University.
On the 12th of December 2023, The Tiger’s Pen – part of Network Xpress, hosted a unique event at the University of Brighton. Which was organised by Julian D. Riano at The University of Brighton, and co-hosted by Sonny Cutting, a multi-business entrepreneur to give another opportunity for aspiring student entrepreneurs to present their own business ideas to an experienced panel of business entrepreneurs in Sussex.
As part of an exciting new partnership, business leaders were a collective hub of wisdom and wealth of experience, offering advice and a critical eye for the next generation of entrepreneurs.
The panel of judges (the ‘Tigers’) comprised Flo Powell, Co-Founder (Midnight), Martin Williams, Partner (Mayo Wynne Baxter Solicitors) and Kyriakos Baxevanis, Co-founder & Managing Director at Little Jasmine Therapies Ltd, Axiom Brighton Limited, The Right People Ltd and the founder of the fabulous Greek restaurant, Nostos in Hove.
The experienced Tigers gave feedback, hoping to both help the students achieve better grades in their degrees, but also apply to real life; inspiring students to make their concepts their reality. But before we get to the ‘Best Pitch Award’ Let’s quickly delve into the three finalists that we saw this evening at the University who gave true grit performances.
Thank you to the Brighton students for allowing us to have some fun at the event.
Throughout the event, the Tigers heard pitches for the following business ideas:
Campus Keg Collective – A student bar and a micro brewery idea which offered a ‘drinking society’ which you could join to gain exclusive discounts to student members. This concept came across as an excellent alcohol free beer platform for Brighton and was delivered with professionalism to the Tiger’s.
Eat Well – An online platform providing a variety of lactose-intolerant friendly-foods, healthy meal options, and convenient meal prep choices, ensuring that people ‘Eat Well.’ Brighton benchmark and then roll out across the County.
Lune Bar and Lounge – Quite an amazing idea to create a bar, restaurant and nightclub in one stunning venue space in Brighton, could be amazing but start up costs for this type of venture would require huge capital investment.
This event was one to build confidence, encourage boldness and highlight the value of thinking differently – skills an entrepreneur leans on for success. The next Tiger’s Pen takes place at Sussex Business Show, September 26th, 2024.
Winners of the ‘Best Pitch’ was Campus Keg Collective who have won a 2-hour mentoring session with all four of the Tigers comprising of this evening’s panel judges, Sonny, Flo, Martin and Kyriakos.
Thank you to the team which included Luke Shaw and Joseph McKenzie for a great pitch today!
View photos of this event on The Tiger’s Pen website, we’ve also added a few here too.
