Start-Up business launched by former UoB student goes global

Personal branding agency, Kurogo, launched by University of Birmingham alumnus, Sam Winsbury, expands globally after celebrating its first birthday.

The company was officially founded in a bedroom in Birmingham in February 2021 by Sam Winsbury, 22, who took the plunge into entrepreneurship after graduating with a first-class degree in Psychology from the University of Birmingham. 

Kurogo works with CEOs and founders to build their personal brands. For most of their clients, this involves developing a unique personal branding strategy, creating social media content and overseeing PR activities. For other clients, Kurogo delivers bespoke personal branding training sessions for executive teams and whole companies. 

The start-up agency’s name derives from the Japanese ‘Kuroko’, meaning ‘black clad’, referring to the stagehands in traditional Japanese theatre who would support the main act on stage dressed in all black costumes to keep hidden from the audience.  

Creating an innovative design for your garden: The Siemens Boot Camp at UoB - by Sarah Page

In late January, University of Birmingham students took part in an enterprising Boot Camp with Siemens and had the task of designing garden furniture using Siemens' Solid Edge software. Physiotherapy undergraduate Sarah Page was part of the winning team helping to create a garden product called 'The Capsule'.

Sarah:  It was a fantastic opportunity for three mechanical engineering students, a nuclear science student and a physiotherapy student to learn, collaborate and successfully launch a market-viable product. The Capsule was our team’s innovative design of garden furniture that won us the competition in the 4-day Siemens Solid Edge Bootcamp.

Our idea consisted of two recycled-plastic, low chairs and a coffee table with a compact parasol that could be neatly pieced together to form a sleek high table. It is aesthetic, durable, social and compact — meeting the desired features we identified in our market research of consumer and housing market trends. Using Solid Edge, a synchronous computer-aided manufacturing software, we were able to create, refine, animate and structurally test our design in such a short space of time. 

GINA: The social enterprise helping survivors of sexual violence - by Lucy Hebberts

Lucy Hebberts graduated from the University of Birmingham in 2019 with a degree in Business Management and took on a full time role working as Business Lead with Birmingham start-up GINA.

Lucy: GINA's mission is to bring a sprinkling of magic in supporting all subjected to sexual violence & abuse in living free, empowered, hopeful futures; whilst challenging beliefs, attitudes and systems that threaten such futures.

We are a UK social enterprise united by lived experience to bring compassionate, tailored counselling & bespoke products/resources for all subjected to sexual violence & abuse. GINA provides immediate counselling support (contrasting lengthy waiting lists associated with organisations providing free support). There is no equivalent UK private, specialist, rape crisis organisation. 

UoB start-up exhibiting at this years MegaCon Live in Birmingham

After graduating in 2020, Heidi Lung turned her passion for anime and manga into a full time business. Weeb Express is an online retailer which offers key chains, posters, figurines and
plush toys to its customers. The business was awarded funding by the university's Start-Up Fund and has seen positive growth at the start of the year. 

Heidi: Our online sales have been growing in the past few months. This year, we decided to step forward and attend a local comic con and we will be exhibiting at MegaCon Live which takes place at the Birmingham NEC on 26-27th March. The festival aims to immerse attendees in the world of modern pop culture and bring it to the next level. The festival is estimated to welcome 20,000-30,000 fans and consumers. 

I have always been a big anime fan since I was little. I joined Anime and Manga Society at UoB and met many anime fans with similar interests throughout the three years at uni.

The Power of 2: Celebrating the co-founders and partnerships on 2/2/22

February is here! January's friendlier neighbour offering lighter nights and longer days and there's plenty going on. A new Lunar year encouraging us to bring out our inner tiger and the month of love reminding us to be kind to each other in the run up to Valentine's Day. Expect to see supermarkets filled with red roses in the coming days.

Today also marks a quirk in the calendar with the date reading as 2/2/22. 

We thought this was a good enough reason to jump on the bandwagon and celebrate the power of 2: celebrating partnerships, co-founders and university friends or course-mates who have started a project, social enterprise or start-up business together.

Here's to the co-creators and those who innovate together. We invite you to learn more about some of the UoB businesses created by two founders below:

Businesses created by partnerships

Frankie Lewns and Paris Lalousis are co-founders of a mental health consultancy called Bloomwise, The pair took part in the Virtual Consultancy Challenge in 2020 creating their idea as part of the competition before developing the idea further and turning it into a registered business. Interestingly, the pair did not meet each other(in real life!) until the first day of their incubator induction in September 2021.