The kings of frisbee

29 September 2013

Take six friends with a formidable entrepreneurial spirit, well honed business skills, and a passion for the sport of frisbee, and you have the ingredients for a novel venture that has become a major commercial hit over the past four years.

An Chenran, Xu Yingfeng, Wang Yinqiu and Yao Xi graduated in 2008 with a BA (Hons) Finance Accounting and Management from Nottingham University Business School (Ningbo China). Xue Zhixing and Zhou Liebin gained a BA (Hons) International Business in 2009. Together the six friends formed Yikun Sports, a specialised supplier for disc sports or 'frisbee' as it is more commonly known.

Based in Ningbo, Yikun Sports design, manufacture and distribute a wide range of beautiful frisbees for the disc sports enthusiast or professional. The company is dedicated to supporting the development of the burgeoning disc sports industry by providing professional products and services. They currently own four disc brands and have a clear vision to be China's market leader for disc sports underpinned by a mission to promote physical fitness, participatory spirit and a healthier lifestyle. The Yikun mantra is 'Born for Disc Sports!'.

Four years on from their launch, Yikun now boasts worldwide sales with significant customers in the US, Denmark, Poland and the Philippines. But it wasn't always like this explain the six partners: 'Before Yikun Sports, we worked for banks or family businesses which offered much better salaries and welfare. We didn’t need to worry about basic living issues. Once we started Yikun, we realised we had nothing to live on. During the most difficult moments, we could only afford two dishes of food and one soup between us, then we even deleted the soup on our menu, and drank hot water instead to save cost. We were living in an all-in-one warehouse. Living room, office, warehouse were all in the same place, because we couldn’t afford rent for a separate office or apartment. When we woke up, we started to work, when we felt tired, we slept with thousands of flying discs'

Now, after 4 years of hard graft and development, Yikun Sports has its own office in the business building and a 5000 square metre warehouse. Sales have doubled year on year and the growing popularity of disc sports such as 'Ultimate Frisbee', 'Disc Golf', 'Disc Dog', and 'Freestyle' mean the future looks bright for the business.

The friends and partners are proud of their common bond through the University of Nottingham Ningbo China (UNNC) and acknowledge the critical role the Business School played in helping develop their business: 'When we look back, we realise the knowledge and skills we learnt from UNNC were essential. The course equipped us with a strong capability in international business and relationship building. It helped us to understand bsiness strategy and the basic framework for our business. The case studies we examined used structured theory and were also very practical. The network of UNNC and our friends in alumni are also very helpful. People are essential to make things happen. But most importantly, UNNC taught us that everyone can have a dream and everything is possible.'

For more information about Nottingham University Business School China, please contact Carol Chen: carol.chen@nottingham.edu.cn