Why did you choose to study International Business at Loughborough University?

I was a junior professional tennis player and competed around the world from a young age. I chose International Business because I wanted to have the same international experience with my business career.

The placement year during this course was the most attractive part because it allowed me to live and work in Brazil for a year.

How has Loughborough University inspired and helped you to progress in your career?

I believe the sporting nature of the University keeps you proactive and focused, which spurred me to kickstart my business venture during my studies.

Would there be one piece of advice that you would give to current or prospective students looking to study the same course that you did?

Definitely try to do a work placement abroad – it’s the best opportunity to experience a different country and meet new people. This puts you out of your comfort zone to build your character and it definitely kicked me into shape!

I actually met my co-founder in a bar in Sao Paulo where we launched our start up. I believe this experience gave me the ability to kickstart my business venture because I became very outgoing when it came to business networking and pitching.

Did you take part in any extracurricular activities during your studies alongside your appearances for the University’s tennis team? If so, how did this impact upon your Loughborough experience?

I started my business venture in my placement year, so in my final year I was busy with my start up. Again, I believe because I was proactive in business, I was more active with my studies.

Can you tell us about your career journey so far?

My career started in Sao Paulo where I met my co-founder in a bar. We both travelled back to Europe to join the IBM innovation programme where we started building a solution for Lidl.

Unfortunately Lidl discontinued the product after nine months, although we received recognition for this work when we were accepted onto a Silicon Valley innovation programme where we pivoted our product.

Upon arriving home we won the Reinsurance Group of America innovation competition. They brought us to 26 of their markets around the world, but unfortunately there wasn't a market fit.

After these experiences of raising investment and working with Fortune 500 companies, we learnt how to design and build high quality apps to open our own app development shop.

Can you tell us more about Styliff, who you currently work for?

We are a non-traditional tech company and are now a team of eight people that build a limited amount of apps for other companies to fund our own in-house apps.

Instead of raising investment, we leverage our ability to build high-quality apps to become self-sustainable. This gives us the creative freedom and runway to launch our own apps onto the market until one lands.

What do you love the most about your job?

I love the excitement of these business ventures and the high potential nature of apps.

What does the future hold for you?

I do believe that my future will still be with Styliff Tech as we have built a self-sustainable and ever-growing business.

The best part is that we get better at making apps with each client, until we make ‘The App’ and never have to work again!

How did you get involved with LSU Enterprise, and how has this helped in your own career?

I have helped as a judge with their student innovation competition – Apply Yourself – and they have introduced me to sports professors to help with my latest app in fitness.