Archive for the ‘ Entrepreneurship ’ Category

Why fundraising is just like jobhunting

Let’s face it, starting a business is tough.  You have to build a client base, hire employees, find office space, get a website…. There are plenty of challenges, but the one that many find the most daunting is fund raising.  Since the days of dazing investors with hot new technology ideas are gone, finding investment [ READ MORE ]

On Startup Finance

Startups risk failure by ignoring business basics According to a recent survey by Simply Business, weak financial management, an absence of basic business planning, uninformed decision-making and inadequate contracts impose the greatest risk for early stage businesses. It seems that many startup businesses have become so focused on working in the business that their time [ READ MORE ]

$1 billion in sales in less than 18 months

Groupon, the deal-of-the-day website, is officially the fastest growing company in the world.  It is the first company in history to reach $1 billion in sales in less than 18 months and, having featured on the front cover of Forbes magazine (08/10) and listed in TIME’s Top 50 Websites of 2010.  It has an ever-increasing [ READ MORE ]

The most important questions in business

The key factor in any business is the market’s response: are your customers ready for your products/services and will they appreciate you well enough to pay the price you want for them.   A lot of research and decision-making is done before you start your business and it can get overwhelming due to the many [ READ MORE ]

The 21st century entrepreneur

Changing business circumstances are a fact of life: recession, smart phones, social media, cloud computing, etc. changes the way we communicate with clients, customers and just about everyone else we come into contact with.  Expectations have changed a lot about when and where we are contactable, along with the speed at which we are asked [ READ MORE ]

What is your favourite motivational quote

Summer is over, the weather is rubbish and not a holiday in sight for months…so I went to have good browse on the LinkedIn entrepreneurs site for some motivational quotes. Here are my favourites, what are yours[ READ MORE ]

The Future of Startup Funding

I run a FastTrack meetup event in June on The Future of Startup Funding, where we were very lucky to have experts from all key areas of business funding: banks, investors, incubators and crowd funding.   In the present economic environment, raising finance is extremely challenging  for small companies that cannot promise rocket propelled growth rates and need modest sums (it [ READ MORE ]

Why a woman investor in your business could be very good news

In 2004, Digitallook.com analysed over 100,000 UK investment portfolios and found that women investors’ portfolios tend to outperform the market.  They concluded that women’s success was due to in part to their more balanced portfolios and in part to their sector choice that favours leisure, food and drink, and utility firms.  In contrast, men seem [ READ MORE ]

How will the new Government’s financial policy affect your business?

Cutting red tape, introducing ‘sunset clauses’ on regulations, a review of employment law, and simplifying as well as lowering business taxes were widely welcomed by the business community after the Queen’s speech yesterday. When the UK’s entrepreneurs were polled prior to Gordon Brown’s last budget, by Simply Business, only 40% thought that the proposed measures [ READ MORE ]

Business plans at a glance?

At a recent Meetup event in Rotterdam, Peter Hilton of Lunatech (an early stage VC firm meets software development company) presented a very neat idea that could change the game of start-up funding.  It aims to solve the ultimate problem between entrepreneurs and investors,  clear communication, by creating a to-the-point, standardised  submission format. Peter’s idea was [ READ MORE ]

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