ºù«Ӱҵ

Where did your business idea come from?

I had personal experience of putting on a lot of weight during lockdown, and I found it difficult to persistently use nutrition apps, as they were either too expensive, lacked true personalisation, or weren’t engaging enough.

The idea for Nutritoken originally came while completing my Computer Science dissertation in third year, which was titled ‘A Lean Start-up Approach to Improving Nutrition among University Students’.  A study found that due to this and many other issues (e.g. time and social constraints), first year students gain weight at a faster rate than the general population. It’s likely that University is the first time for most students to have so much agency and responsibility in meal choices and preparation.

What inspired you to turn your idea into a business?

The spark came from my usage of an app called Sweatcoin, which allows users to earn ‘sweatcoins’ for walking, which could be spent in their marketplace on discounts, giveaways and even charity donations. I sought to emulate this reward framework for nutrition in my solution, but focusing mainly on students and the problems they face, as well as taking a uniquely community-based approach.

I had actually always intended to turn my idea into a business from early on in my dissertation and was working towards this, but I wasn’t sure when the right time would arise. As it would happen, later in the year, following a pitching practice event, I was invited to apply for the TransformSY Accelerator, and a requirement was that my idea had to be an actual incorporated business, so that’s when I officially started Nutritoken!

What support did you receive from the University of ºù«Ӱҵ to develop your idea?

I’m grateful to have received tonnes of support from Emerge! We were able to receive £300 of funding to support research into our business plan, which was invaluable at an early stage to properly take our business from just an idea to a product in development. 

Besides this, the events and seminars put on by Emerge have helped me learn so much about starting up a business, from finance, to building a team, and I particularly enjoy the guest speaker events, which are always really informative and inspirational! I’ve also been able to drop in and get one-to-one advice on anything I’m struggling with or would like some guidance on – which has often really helped me focus on what matters in the business.

Marvelous Jibogu

Emerge community member 

Additionally, although we didn’t win, pitching at the Emerge Awards Showcase Finals last year provided an amazing opportunity to practice pitching in front of potential investors, and it was great to see all the winning solutions at the awards showcase event!

We also recently had the opportunity to take over Emerge’s Instagram for a week to promote our business and engage with the community and potential users – it was a great experience which allowed me to build some skills in social media marketing and learn more about the importance of a cohesive brand identity, whilst earning some money as well! The experience taught me that marketing is not as straightforward as it may initially sound, but it is so important (and ultimately rewarding if you get it right)!

What do you think the most important skills are to succeed in the start-up industry?

Firstly, I think you need to be persistent – you need to have the resilience to see your idea through to realisation, which means having a persistent focus on what you’re trying to solve over an extended period of time, through challenges, rejection and failure. This is easier if you really care about the problem you’re trying to solve, which is another characteristic I think is really important. I also think it’s important to be a bit of a dreamer or optimist – I feel that being able to imagine a brighter future is really important in setting a strong vision for your start-up!

Finally, I think having a growth mindset is crucial. When starting a business, you may know next to nothing about how one operates or where to start – at least I know this is how I felt early on (and still have loads to learn)! That’s why you need to be able to believe you can grow and improve, and taking every possible opportunity to learn, listening to advice and adapting, will go a long way!

What advice would you give to anyone who would like to start a business?

I’d say the first thing is that if you have a problem that you’re passionate about solving, go for it! Starting a business is great because you have a lot of direct control over the impact that you have, and even if it doesn’t work out, you learn so much! I’d also say make sure you don’t build your solution in a vacuum – get out and speak to your potential customers to validate (or invalidate) your assumptions; this will ensure that what you’re building provides as much value to your customers as possible.

Finally, I’d say have a growth mindset and keep learning, and take advantage of the many resources available to you, especially within the university and the wider city of ºù«Ӱҵ!

Where is your business up to now, what are you looking forward to in 2025?

We’ve just recently released an alpha version of our app and are testing it out with a small group of users and collecting feedback; we’re building the app up to a semi-public beta and are beginning to engage with potential partner businesses and health and nutrition stakeholders, so exciting times!

We’re looking forward to fully launching the app in September, but there’s still a lot of work to be done until then!