Congrats To Obama

Congratulations to Barack Obama becoming President. I didn't particularly support either candidates in this election, but it is refreshing to see Obama in the White House.

So he claims he is going to make 'changes'. It does sound positive that the 'changes' also includes many issues on the environment, including

-80% cut of carbon emissions by 2050
-Pushing 1 million low carbon cars onto roads in the next 7 years
-30% of energy from renewable sources by 2020.

Compared to Bush, it definitely is a great direction. There is actually A direction. Though.. realistic? Not sure. We will just have to see if the new president is all talk and no action or not.

Algae and exhibition ONE PLANET FESTIVAL

Because of time I haven't updated my blog on time! (I try to do it once a week) so I've decided to blog about two things in this blog.

The reason for my busyness is due to the preparation for another exhibition for the ONE PLANET FESTIVAL
The purpose for the festival is to celebrate the lancaster district and to encourage sustainability within the area. There would be local food, music, art and exhibitions from local businesses which helps increase awareness to climate change. Our company can't miss out in the opportunity to encourage composting and recycling education here! Hopefully there will be a few important people and teachers who will be interested in our products and what our company does.

Moving away from the exhibition, I want to talk about a potential next big thing. ALGAE. Its on the news and in many articles. People are starting to pick up on it.. why? Because of three green reasons. 1) The fact that algae is green (isn't really a good reason.. but had to put it in) 2) It's very environmentally friendly for its industrial use and 3) MONEY (if you use american dollar bills)

So what's up with algae? Its is the fact that it absorbs carbon from the atmosphere for its own use (up to 50% of algaes mass is carbon) and that it one fast growing micro-oranism with a high prolific rate. Other than reducing carbon from the atmosphere, oil can be extracted from the algae, which in turn is used for bio-fuel (instead of using corn, raising all the food prices!). Further more, the biomass of the algae is not wasted, since it can be composted. If placed in an anaerobic digestion system, it can be used to drive the system producing more elecricity. So to conclude the end product would be lower carbon, bio-fuel and electricity + fertilizer. Seems too good to be true eh? Definitely so... the cost so far to produce a algae farm such as this is prohibitive, and large pieces of land is required to grow these micro-green slime. But with technology now advancing (they've started growing these in large tubes to save space) ... it seems like a very possible route to a sustainable future.

Right.. off to more preparation...

Will post pictures up of the exhibition in the next few days!

*UPDATE* 5:25pm. I have just finished unloading things in the town hall for the exhibition. I came out to my car to find (drum rolls) a parking ticket on my car. A parking ticket.. for 10 minutes of unloading in front of the town hall, and was asked to park there too. Will be getting off to fill in the challenging form now..

Meeting with Wild-Life trust

You may be wondering, why did I post a picture of a badger on this blog? First of all, its 10pm and I'm still in the office so finding the perfect picture is not exactly my first priorities. Secondly, I must say.. its pretty cute, and it attracted YOUR attention! Didn't it? Thirdly, this morning I attended a meeting in the Environment Centre with the Wild-life trust. A few companies from the Environment Centre was asked to join the meeting which introduced a new project the trust is doing, which is setting up a new reserve. The difference with this reserve however, is that it's right next to the motorway allowing greater publicity and footfall.

These reserves also hold many education activities, encouraging a hands-on apporach to learning, and thats where our company may fit in. It seems that they are quite interested in the OvOs and education pacakage that our BEEcycle has to offer! We will soon see where this can go.

HSBC Unipreneurs

This is a pretty late blog for this competition... actually VERY late... The competition was held back in April 2008, but since I did not start the blog until a couple months back, it has taken me this long to report on it!

The competition was held by HSBC to seek out the most entrepreneurial student or recent graduate in the UK who has a good business idea or started a potentially high growth business. The prize was £20,000! The process started off by applicants sending in their business plan summary, which then got sifted through from the hundreds down to 100, and then down to 20 and then down to top 10 where they will need to pitch to a few judges. The 10 was then sifted down to the top 5 which had to do a presentation to a large audience of VIP's and investors, and it was then down to the matter of audiences votes to select the winner


It was a long process and but unfortunately I didn't win, and only managed to get down to the top 10... Nevertheless, the competition was fierce and the company who won really did deserve it. 'Scratchface' designed a computer software which allowed colour blinded people to read the computer screen more effectively and easily. So it was definitely a good product for the good of society, and I truly hope that they do well. Although the £20,000 would have helped the company immensely the experience I got from this was valuable, and I know BEEcycle will get the 1st prize next time ;)

Also thanks to Desmond who lent me his place to stay over in London!

Earthworms close relationships with BEEcycle

When I mention to my friends what my company does and I mention one of them being earthworms, most of the time (if not always) I get 'the look', and my social circle would suddenly diminish to a certain degree....even more so when I mention the wormery that I have in my kitchen... and suddenly I am left with the wall. Thank goodness biology and ecology students, graduates and professor are far more understanding....

Jokes aside, as the managing director, I do place the company's concern as a priority, and that is why the business in worms is important, The potential of recycling and land remediation. Today the BBC has just written an article about land remediation using worms, and you can see it here.
Recent studies have shown worms being able to remove toxic chemicals from lands, however it has been known for centuries that worms are the intestines of the Earth. Worms compost and recycle organic waste, and also remove any impurities in them. There are more than 4000 different species of Earthworms, and each one are more suited or better adapted for particular environments. The ones used in the studies are probably Lumbricus terrestris and Aporrectodea tuberculata. These are burrowing worms you usually find in the UK gardens, and they dig deep down making burrows coming to the surface only to feed.

BEEcycle currently focuses more on composting only, and the worms that we use are slightly different. We use what are called 'soil dwellers', which stays near the surface of the soil feeding on organic matter non-stop making it more suitable for wormery bins. Examples of these species are Eisenia Foetidas and Eisenia Hortensis (formerly known as Denrobaena Veneta).

These are also the 'secret' to the composting action of our OvO's, and we definitely won't be limiting our future use of earthworms here!

Stationary designs

In the beginning of August I had to use up a budget from a grant which I can use on stationary and marketing materials. At the same time printing.com was nice enough to come up with a stationary offer. 1000 business cards, 1000 leaflets, 1000 mailing stickers, 1000 compliment slips and 1000 header paper all for £299 (originally £799). Being the shrewed business man that I am, I chose the package and also ordered some CD jackets for the educational material CD's. The happiness pretty much ends there, due to the fact that design is NOT my forte, and I could not stretch the budget to hire a designer. So down goes many late nights again, ALOT OF HELP AND ADVICE FROM FRIENDS and my amateur photoshop skills.

I didn't even know the difference between CMYK and RGB.. Problem really arose when I did it all in RGB and had to do them all again in CMYK, and then got told it was not in the correct resolution and had to do it again in 300dpi... Result was ugly artwork designed 3 times... minus my sanity and calmness and probably a few hair. Replaced the mouse and keyboard a few times as well...

In shame, I have posted up pictures of the designs here for you to criticize and for the designers to cringe with hatred and disgust.

header paper:
Compliment Slips
mailing stickers:

CD cover inside and outside:

OvO leaflets (the front is designed to fold over, so stop your quick snapping on the upside down photo)


In the end it all looks very similar, which is good because it brings this format out as the BEEcycle brand. However in all honesty its simply because I am not creative enough to bring in new ideas...which worked for the better!

What does BEEcycle do and its start up

A friend asked me today (despite knowing her for a whole year already!) "What does BEEcycle do?". So I thought that it would be good to couple that question with how I started up.


BEEcycle focuses its business on Food Waste recycling. There are currently 3 sides to the business.

1. The OvO is an educational toy that help teachers teach about food waste recycling especially composting with worms. The OvO contains a self watering system rendering it easy to use and manage. The children will make their own compost from the food waste and in the end of the process then can plant a seed and grow a plant, taking them through the whole food cycle. The system comes with teaching materials and lesson plans.

2. Wormcast. BEEcycle sells wormcast produced by a local worm farm. Wormcast is a rich organic fertilizer produced by the feeding of food waste to worms. The worms munch through this waste and poop out the wormcast material. Through the digestive system, beneficial micro-oganisms and plant growth factors are added making the wormcast rich, natural and organic.

3. Consultation. BEEcycle consults organizations and community groups on setting up food waste recycling systems. There are many different ways of food waste recycling such as in-vessel composting, anaerobic digestion and bokashi, but each are only appropriate for different cases. BEEcycle helps in clarifying issues and source products for the groups and organizations to start their recycling programme. BEEcycle is currently working with local councils, a social enterprise and the University.

So how did BEEcycle start up? Finishing university with a biochemistry degree in 2006, I didn't want to become just a scientist but to be able to do business where I can apply my scientific skills. At the same time I can across the Enviroentrepreneur school
I had to come up with an environmental business plan in order to get a place for the school. So with a bit of research I found a pretty good potential market in the food waste and composting industry. I spent a further year in doing more research on the sector and the business before applying to Lancasters Enviroment Centre Business Plan Competition in 2007. I became one of the winners for the competition, giving me a year of free office accommodation and business support. I have to admit that this move to Lancaster is a pivotal point for my business. The University helped tremendously and resulted in the incorporation of the company, a business website, stationary, business consultations and access to the laboratories for research.

For the article click here

Even though the competitions has gotten me this far, and with products and services ready, I know that there is still a long way to go... and its still not the time to relax!

Jack of all trades (start-up entrepreneur)

"Jack of all trades, master of none, though ofttimes better than master of one". I think the phrase pretty much sums up a start-up entrepreneur, at least this is what I have found out for myself. You need to know a bit of EVERYTHING, if you don't know something then FIND A WAY to learn it and if you still don't know it then at least know how to pull those skills together by networking. But then in the end, even if you can find the right skills from people it will be expensive and so in the end there is no real choice but to do it yourself.

Ideally to have many arms and a poker face to show your calm and collected management with unlimited skills up the sleeves.


The difference between working for a company and starting up your company is that cashflow will always be tight for any start-up. Instead of being able to pick up and call for support or to ask and pay for external help, things will have to be done by yourself to by-pass the cash-flow problems. It does indeed feel like several departments on one head and its when you start envying Shiva will you know that you are A START UP ENTREPRENEUR.

Thinking back on the my past year in starting up BEEcycle I was required to:

• Incorporate the Company
• Manage finance and account
• Market research (although I did have a student helping me, thanks Lucia)
  
• Apply for funding/business plan writing
  
• Read up legislations
• Scientific and technical research
  
• Develop products
• Design marketing materials
• Creating educational materials
  
• Design Webpage (with my amateur skills, this was the most time consuming and frustrating part of the whole list, yet most fulfilling with results)
  
• Network and establish link with suppliers/consumers
• Sales and presentations

Sometimes the bigger problem is weighing time and money to decide whether it is more worth it to hire someone to do those things. But until cashflow is up with steady sales, there is nothing we can do but bite the bullet and work 7 days a week + late nights.

Beijing 2008 Olympics starts

As I watched part of the opening to the Beijing Olympics, I could feel nothing but energy and pride from the City and Country. For anyone who watched the opening ceremony has to agree that was one of the most amazing and cinematic experience for any Olympic games.

Will be looking forward to the games, especially badminton.

Absolute Well Done to China for doing such a good job! Certainly did not let 1.3 billion people down when the whole world was looking!

Setting up BEEcycle's Blog

I have contemplated starting a blog site for BEEcycle, and now after many hours of editing with my amateur computer skills, I have finally become a blogger myself. I have seen successes of many blogs, but my aim of this page is not to become a professional blogger (although some publicity might be nice) but to jot down my daily frustrations and joy with setting up my business BEEcycle. It has been almost a year since I first started, and things are starting to come together.

This is only an introductory post. I would think that many after reading this post will want to know what I have done so far, been through and what I will do in the future. I have decided to write down the interesting stuff of my year in a seperate post. For now, if you are interested in what BEEcycle does, click on the link to the website on the right hand side.

Kenneth