Running a business on campus

This year UEA students have a great opportunity to test their business ideas right on campus. Young entrepreneurs can book a table and display their own products. Eva Rybalova, a second year art history student from Russia started to sell Bubble Waffle for UEA students, and shared her experience of being a student entrepreneur with us.

How did you come up with the idea of the Bubble Waffle business?

We came up with the idea of this business together with my friend Vilius Balandis. It was quite spontaneous because we were just thinking about our London trip and we were searching where to eat in London. We realised that street food is becoming a very big thing now so we made a bit of a research about contemporary street food and realised that Bubble Waffle can be something that can become quite popular and something that people nowadays can really enjoy.

So can you say that it appeared to be a success in UEA?

Well, I would say so. By now we have had only two days of selling and during the first day we sold about 100 waffles, and more than 130 waffles during the second day. It takes quite a long time to cook a waffle as we have only one waffle iron, not everyone would want to queue for 30-40 minutes. However, some people we asked were waiting for 40 minutes to get a waffle. That is why, now we are thinking about buying a second iron so we can work faster and sell more waffles.

Why do you think your business is so successful so far?

Because what we are trying to do is to differentiate our Bubble waffle as much as possible. We will be changing menu every single time: we are buying new chocolates, sweets and toppings so student do not het bored. For the summer time, we want to add an ice-cream to our waffles.

We also will try to ask UEA to let us stand on the square because in summer that would be really great to sell waffles on the square, but we are still not sure if they will allow us.

Do you consider hiring anyone to help you?

At the moment, there is just two of us and we are trying to keep it that way. Of course, my close friend is helping me, which is great, but if we are to expand then we will consider hiring people in other universities as we have lectures and we cannot travel during the term time.

Do you have any competitors among other students?

Among other students? No. I would say that it is not about the competition, we are not trying to get anyone else money, we just try to gain some experience and bring some happiness into the daily life of UEA students.

However, during the pop up market once we were in a very awkward situation. Next to us there was a non-UEA business owner working and we did not take her as our competitor but she saw us as competitors. I think that because we were quite popular she was confused. She came to us as soon as we set up, started shouting that we are taking her place and doing inappropriate actions. We did not expect this :).

Does UEA support you?

UEA does not help us financially but it helps us a lot with the managerial planning. For example, they offered us a table. On Wednesdays we do not have to pay a rent as we are UEA students, which is very helpful and very kind of them. Besides, last time we have been working, it was a pop up market and one of managers (Victoria) helped us with the booking because it was on Saint Valentine’s Day. So yes, it could be said that UEA is helping as it can.

In terms of promotion, do you use any special tools like social media or traditional media? And how UEA reacts on it?

We created an Instagram account Pufflery_UEA, which is helpful. So currently I think we have around 400 followers. We don’t use printed media because it might look messy, if we put our poster around university, we do not want to annoy anyone. And we just printed a big beautiful menu for our clients.

Are you planning to run the business next year?

It is difficult to look so far at the moment. You never now, sometimes businesses have ups and downs, we cannot make any predictions. If the business is going to be grown, why not to continue it next year. I would be happy to spend more time with this business because I can see some future.

We wish Eva and Vilius a good luck! Hopefully they will have even more clients!

Yulia Meshcherova

Russian Ambassador