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8:36 am, November 5, 2008
Student entrepreneur launches anti-gravity car
Manchester Business School student Vernon Kerswell is supplementing his income with another bit of seasonal enterprise.
Last Christmas his company Extreme Fliers Ltd sold 2,000 remote-controlled miniature helicopters and UFOs.
The 20-year-old took a crash course in Chinese and then used a £1,500 overdraft to fly to the Far East to find gadgets to market in the UK. His venture won him the University of Manchester’s Venture Out business ideas competition.
This year he is selling an anti-gravity remote-controlled car which can be driven up walls or upside down across the ceiling.
Other products include an Apache military helicopter, a remote controlled insect called the Terror Wasp and a twin rotor Chinook helicopter.
MBS allowed Kerswell use his industrial placement year to work for Extreme Fliers. Last summer He spent two months in the industrial areas of China, building relationships and developing a prototype of the anti-gravity car.
To help retailers boost sales on the shop floor, Vernon’s team has also developed a customisable display unit with LCD screen which is provided free, delivering promotional multimedia video content that can be streamed to all shops from anywhere in the world using the internet.
Vernon said: ““We’re not just an import business – in China we have established an in-house team of manufacturers, product developers, electrical engineers, graphical designers and aerodynamic engineers employed by the company.
“This means we can make innovative new designs through continuous development, to create a range of more desirable, cool, durable, longer lasting toys.”
In developing the business, Vernon says he has been careful to ensure his products maintain the highest standards.
“There have been stories in the press recently about toys made in China failing to meet UK safety standards. We put a massive emphasis on high quality material sourcing, staff training according to ISO9001, guidelines and industry standards.
“I spent a number of weeks in ‘Toy City’, a remote area of China with over 4,000 factories. I even slept in some factories for several nights and from this established good relationships with the most reputable ones.
“You can’t just walk into China and do business. It has taken over two years to find the right partners, learn the language to communicate, establish the right people as well as develop the products.
“We source our products from around 20 of the most reputable factories and independently monitor quality control throughout the whole production process with our own people.”
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