Entrepreneur Michael is the founder of Kit Keeper, an award-winning by-the-box storage company providing students all over the UK with an all inclusive service including boxes, collection, storage and redelivery.
Kit Keeper is a storage and shipping network for university students across the UK, offering an economical solution for students who aren’t able to or don’t want to take of their belongings home.
Michael graduated from the University of York in 2020 with a degree in Business & Management. After his first year of university, faced with the prospect of having to take all his belongings home by bus during the holidays, Michael looked for local storage companies and was baffled at how archaic and expensive self-storage was.
In his second year, determined to create something better, he invested his student loan into a van and started a company wholly dedicated to student storage in York, Kit Keeper.
“Everyone loved it. In the years following we received loads of support from the University of York, including funding from the Proof-of-Concept Fund, the Summer Accelerator, and the Venture One grant.”
Michael’s entrepreneurial efforts paid off when he won the Santander University pitching competition. Word spread and demand for Kit Keeper’s services grew nationwide.
In 2019, Michael won the York Festival of Ideas award and the Duke of York Young Entrepreneur award. Kit Keeper also began sponsoring local sports teams and societies, which helped to raise the brand’s profile.
“After graduating university, we received grants from The Princes Trust, InnovateUK, and private investment, which allowed us to build our online platform and operational capacity.”
Kit Keeper now operates in over 50 UK cities, and ships to over 100 countries worldwide. They are now one of the largest and most popular student storage providers in the UK.
“Having a job whilst studying at University and trying to build the business was challenging timewise.”
We put a huge amount of time and effort into our customer experience and service reliability. Maintaining the high level of quality whilst scaling has been the toughest challenge but definitely worth it.”
“Talking to as many people as possible. Especially more experienced founders who would have gone through the same issues and experiences.”
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