Hi everyone! We are a group of students currently taking part in the Student Enterprise Programme this year. Our student enterprise is called Dalia Jewels. We make handmade, affordable, quality and fashionable jewellery for young people.
We sell a range of different products including earrings, rings, bracelets, necklaces and keyrings.
We sell mainly to other students and also online across Ireland and even abroad!
We have been so lucky to be able to take part in the Student Enterprise Programme this year. During our journey, we have learned so much about entrepreneurship and we would love to share some of our tips on running a successful business with you.
Tip # 1: Do something you are passionate about
Before starting up your business you need to make sure that what you plan on doing is something that you really enjoy and something that you are really passionate about. For us personally, we were going to make something completely different for our mini company but we soon realised that we are just not passionate about it so, we changed our idea and started Dalia Jewels as we all love wearing and making jewellery.
Tip # 2: Get yourself out there
Try and market your business and products as much as you can. There are so many different ways to market your product such as social media, word of mouth, posters and much more. If you don’t get yourself out there you won’t build up the customer base that you would like.
Tip #3: Research, research, research
We can’t stress enough how important market research is and how important it is to do as much as you can. Know your competitors, your target market and know why there is a need for your product/service in your chosen industry.
Tip # 4: Know your finances
Get to know your finances and start working on them from the very start. It’s really important that you truly understand your finances and also track every single transaction made into or out of your business. This may seem confusing at times but the Student Enterprise website has so many useful resources to help you with tackling your finances.
Tip # 5: Customer Feedback
From the start of our business, we have been very customer centric as we know that the customer is always right! We have done many customer surveys and polls from the start of running our business to make sure that our customers are happy. Remember, if your customers are not happy, they won’t buy from you!!! They may have a different opinion to you but try and compromise as customers are the most important part of your business.
Finally, don’t give up! It may be very disheartening to not succeed as you had hoped in your business but please do not give up. Many of the world’s most famous and successful entrepreneurs like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs have had some failures too. But, when they tried and tried again they finally succeeded and you can too!
Best of luck to everyone!
Dalia Jewels Team
