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