StudentFurniture: For International Students and Expats

Could you briefly describe what the business involves and what it is trying to achieve?
Our company is called StudentFurniture. We furnish accommodation for people who stay in the Netherlands for a shorter period of time, namely international students and expats.We deliver an all-inclusive service which means we furnish the complete accommodation and pick it up again when our customer leaves the Netherlands. Our goal is to take away some of the troubles involved with moving abroad or moving to a new city.

When did you come up with the idea of starting your own business?
We came up with this idea in the 2^nd year of our Bachelor studies at Tilburg University (roughly 1,5 years ago). Back then, we lived in Talent Square which is an accommodation for mainly international students. We saw all the troubles the internationals had with furnishing their rooms. They did not have transportation, they did not know where to go and buying new furniture is pretty expensive. We though there had to be an easier way and so we started our company.

In what way has the company evolved since its inception?
We have gone through various business models and by doing a lot of pilots we ultimately found the ultimate one. Also we targeted various markets, where we were first focusing mainly on students we now have partnerships with housing agencies and other businesses.

Can owning and running a business be combined easily with your studies?
Yes, definitely! However, I think it has to be something you really like. For us it is just like a hobby and we really like to do it which makes it a lot easier. If you see it as just work, you are going to have a really hard time. It is important to make the trade-off and see what is important to you, your business or your studies, or both.

What skills have you acquired during your studies that can be applied to your daily business activities?
Less than expected. We were a bit surprised when we found ourselves having difficulties with making financial statements and liquidity balances, even though we study business economics and finance. I think education does not really focus on teaching you the basics of starting out on your own. However, we used several other skills acquired through our studies such as marketing and logistics. The main thing we got from our study was the network we build on University which we could use a lot.

Up to this point, what skills have you gained from the establishment of your business?
The main goal of starting our own company was to gain experience in how to start your own business and see what are the main points you will have to deal with. We definitely gained a lot of experience in dealing with people, since having a business makes you dependent on a lot of people and parties like suppliers, customers, partners, financiers. It is important to keep good relationships with them. Next to this we gained multiple other useful skills like how to get financing in the early phase of start-up and how to do market research.

How do you see the future of the company?
Bright. We are planning to expand to other cities after the summer. We focus on big international cities with a big student and expat market. Some cities we are looking into right now are Rotterdam, Eindhoven and Amsterdam. Also we are closing more partnerships with housing agencies and Universities which will definitely help us get further.

Finally, what would you like to say to students who are also planning to start their own business?
Get your priorities right. You have to ask yourself things like if you would be willing to sacrifice getting a 1 year delay in your studies to start your own business. You also have to be willing to take risks since it is almost unavoidable to start a business without investing some of your own money in it. Finally, I think it has to be something you like to do in your free time, otherwise you will have a very hard time.