Michail Marinakis - BA Business Management with Marketing - Leeds Entrepreneur Society

With the support of the enterprise community, Spark and the wider CEES team, Michail Marinakis developed his idea 'recuppa' and secured a prestigious West Yorkshire innovation prize. Developing his idea and leading the Leeds Entrepreneur Society meant he stood out from peers at graduate job interviews. 

Finding a way to study enterprise alongside his BA 

Michail discovered the enterprise scholarship opportunities available at the University of Leeds after he’d begun his degree. “I thought I’d be too busy to take on any further study,” he admits. “Yet I soon discovered that enterprise is incredibly flexible. I discovered ways I could study with CEES that worked for me, such as discovery modules and choosing enterprise for my optional modules.” 

“My degree is BA Business Management with Marketing, so clearly enterprise and entrepreneurship is complementary. I study everything from economic theories and accounting to consumer behaviour and advertising, with plenty of enterprise modules to give me a full overview of the business and marketing world. These included enterprise consultancy, small business internationalisation and growth, and starting your own business.” 

Launching a start-up during a year in industry 

For Michail’s year in industry, he secured a 15-month placement working at Vodafone Group. It was here he learn about a West Yorkshire-wide competition for business start-up ideas, and decided to enter. “Part of my course involved starting my own business,” Michail explains. “I teamed up with friends from different schools across the university to see what we could create using our varied ideas and skills.” 

Michail’s business is recuppa: a sustainable way to reduce coffee cup use. “Billions of cups are used yearly in the UK, so we came up with a way to tackle that wastage while making it easy for customers to refill their paper cups in coffee shops.”  

Developing a business plan with the support of the CEES network  

“Entering the competition was a complex process,” says Michail. “Yet we had the support from CEES every step of the way. We worked closely with the enterprise network and Spark. They helped us register the company, provided funding for the prototype, and advised us to validate our idea using market research. We also grew our network across the university, meeting lots of other students studying enterprise to create a strong, supportive CEES community".  

Michail and his team presented recuppa to a panel of judges, including West Yorkshire Mayor Tracy Brabin. “It was intense, but it was worth it,” Michail smiles. “recuppa was declared the overall winner of the West Yorkshire competition and awarded the Mayor’s Innovation prize.”  

Demonstrating entrepreneurial commitment at university – and beyond 

Michail is also the Secretary of the Entrepreneurs Society: an elected role, which he won in 2023. “Our main objective was to raise awareness of all the enterprise opportunities that exist in the university to support students through social media, events and the current enterprise community,” Michail explains. “We managed to increase engagement and grew to around 350 members. I’m really proud of what we achieved.”  

As well as taking recuppa further, with a view to launch to market next year, Michail has secured a graduate job. “At interview, I’ve been able to present confidently, process information quickly and explain my ideas clearly, showing I can apply theories and scenarios I’ve learnt to real world scenarios,” he says. “Studying at a prestigious university has certainly helped me, too!”  

“It’s been clear that enterprise skills are what employers are looking for. Both my start-up business and my time as an enterprise scholar at the University of Leeds have helped me consistently stand out from the competition.”