13 Dec “Forfeited my social life to focus on my future”
Matthew Finnegan is a 19 year old business student by day, but in the evenings he is in the process of starting his own company.
When Matthew, or Matt as he prefers to be called, first started at London South Bank, he did what many students did, and started partying most weekends, and even going out in the weeks. Matt said that he, “couldn’t get enough of the party life”, however as he began to settle onto his course, his mindset began to change.
Coming from a poor background, Matt had always had a vision to start up his own company, this being the main reason for him choosing a business degree. Matt’s ambition at university is to “set my life out”, and after a couple of weeks of university he took the first steps towards this. When talking about his background, Matt was proud when he spoke about how far his company has come, and he had what he called a “why not” attitude, explaining to me that “just because my background is not the most luxurious, that doesn’t mean my future won’t be.”
Matt spoke to his lecturers and academic staff about how he could go about starting his own business, they in turn referred him to Student Enterprise, which is where Matt’s entrepreneurial journey began. He enrolled onto a course which took him two weeks to complete, by taking part in and completing this course, Matt was able to secure an office space, but also out of 40 students he was selected as one of six to win a grant of £1000.
The office space that Matt was awarded
Matt now has very little spare time, a typical day for him involves sitting in lectures and seminars from 9-3, and then from there he is straight to his office, where he will often work for four hours a day, to get the start-up of his business complete.
Matt admitted that he struggles at times, he has had to put the business second, but in the future he plans to “take if further, up to a stage where I can hire staff”.
Whenever he is not studying during the day, Matt is working on his business. He has reached a stage now where the front end of his website is complete, and is now in the process of finalising the back end of the website, with the vision of the site being open to the public domain by early March.
Alex Cameron, a fellow student, has noticed a change in Matt, since he became more serious about his business. “Matt hasn’t been out regularly since the end of September, instead he spends all of his time, including his weekends, doing everything he can to open up his business” said Alex.
Matt had come straight from working in his office to speak, although he had been at uni that morning, followed by a period of four hours in his office, he continued to sit upright when talking, and he spoke in a professional manner. The interview itself took place in the common room at his accommodation, this is somewhere where he will go to relax after he has been at work.
