Periodical
A successful entrepreneur or founder of a start-up needs to use many of the same techniques as a successful athlete or sports team.
Read ArticleFunding in 2023
Founders and entrepreneurs have to have a determination and resilience that often distinguishes them from those that are paid employees. It is not only that they have to find...
Read ArticleFunding in 2023
Getting funding to scale a business in 2023 is certainly more of a challenge than it has been in more recent years. This does not mean that it is not possible. It does however...
Read ArticleFunding in 2023
Valuing any business can be a complicated and often inexact procedure, but arriving at a valuation for an early-stage business is so much more difficult...
Read ArticleFunding in 2023
When considering raising equity finance, most early-stage businesses would often have to turn to angel investors or crowdfunding as was explained in last week’s article...
Read ArticleFunding in 2023
Having decided to scale your business and having concluded that the only way to make that happen in a meaningful way is to raise equity funding, there are then some very obvious...
Read ArticleFunding in 2023
Pitch decks and business plans are a very common area for discussion amongst founders and early-stage business owners, especially if those businesses are seeking to raise...
Read ArticleFunding in 2023
Funding for your business can, in theory, come from many different places. It can be self-funded from your own resources, otherwise known as bootstrapping, or you can ask...
Read ArticleFunding in 2023
Many hundreds of thousands of new businesses are set up each year in the UK. Indeed, according to Companies House, just over 200,000 new businesses were established in the first...
Read ArticleFunding in 2023
Ask any early-stage business owner and they will tell you that getting funding to scale can be tough. Very tough. All will tell you that it takes much more time and effort and take
Read ArticleChallenges & Top Tips
When starting a new business, founders tend to fit into one of two categories. There are founders whose plan it is to scale their new business as aggressively as possible and to...
Read ArticleChallenges & Top Tips
If you want to scale your early-stage business, and to grow it quickly, then it is quite possible that you will need to raise investment by selling part of your business to new...
Read ArticleChallenges & Top Tips
Most entrepreneurs, and indeed the early-stage businesses themselves, share many of the same challenges and experiences along their journey. This is basically true irrespective...
Read ArticleChallenges & Top Tips
Working with the right partners can make the difference between success and failure in almost any scenario, but this is even more true when running an early-stage business. As...
Read ArticleChallenges & Top Tips
To be a successful entrepreneur means that you have to run a successful business. That in turn requires your business to sell products or services that customers want to buy and...
Read ArticleChallenges & Top Tips
Welcome to a new series of articles for Startups Magazine. In this series we will look at some of the more common challenges that are faced by early-stage businesses and some of...
Read ArticleBack to Basics
So far in this ‘Back to Basics’ series we have looked at nine fundamental areas that entrepreneurs and would-be founders either consider or should be considering, both before...
Read ArticleBack to Basics
It has often been said that cash is king. This does not of course mean cash itself, but the phrase refers to a company’s cash flow and how it manages the flows of payments into...
Read ArticleBack to Basics
Of all the areas of starting and scaling a business that most founders are unsure of, it is raising finance. For some, the questions are more basic, whilst for others the...
Read ArticleBack to Basics
Green comes in many colours. Environmental. Eco. Ecological. Circular economy. ESG (environmental, social, governance). Carbon offset. Carbon neutral. Carbon positive. And many...
Read ArticleBack to Basics
Pitch decks and business plans. Every early-stage business with any thought of expansion, even if only modest expansion, should have them. And every founder of a start-up should...
Read ArticleBack to Basics
In any aspect of life, each of us will have different dreams and aspirations, and what we wish to achieve. This is no different for entrepreneurs and business founders. And why...
Read ArticleBack to Basics
Having decided whether to start your entrepreneurial journey as a sole founder or as a co-founder you will then be able to properly develop your idea and your business. Whatever...
Read ArticleBack to Basics
Welcome to a new series of articles aimed at helping entrepreneurs and founders to start and scale a business. In this series we will be going back to basics and examining some...
Read ArticleStart-up to Scale-up
It is true that many people do not like change and shy away from it. But it is equally true that periods of change bring much more opportunity for innovation and for businesses...
Read ArticleStart-up to Scale-up
Starting a business is not always easy. But scaling a business, any business, often brings many more challenges than actually starting one. A typical small business is quite...
Read ArticleStart-up to Scale-up
One of the most effective ways of telling your story is by building your network. As any business scales it will inevitably deal with an ever-increasing number of customers and...
Read ArticleStart-up to Scale-up
Having decided that you want to scale your business and that you need more money to do this properly, you will then need to carefully consider all the different options available..
Read ArticleStart-up to Scale-up
The majority of businesses that are looking to scale in any meaningful way will look to raise funding at some point. As well as the other steps already discussed in this series...
Read ArticleStart-up to Scale-up
From the time of your initial idea, you will have been thinking of all the very many steps necessary of turning your vision into reality. One of the first steps when starting up...
Read ArticleStart-up to Scale-up
Having decided that the entrepreneurial life is for you, it is then necessary to think about how you will actually make that best happen. The specific legal structure that you...
Read ArticleStart-up to Scale-up
For anyone starting a business there is that delicious and intoxicating mixture of excitement tinged with fear. Both these are driven by stepping into the unknown and doing...
Read ArticleStart-up to Scale-up
Have you ever thought of setting up your own business? Have you already done so? What made you want to do this? In truth, the answers are very different for each of us but...
Read ArticleStart-up to Scale-up
Welcome to a new series of articles for Startups Magazine. Over the next few months I would like to invite you to accompany me on a journey; a journey that many readers will...
Read ArticleThe Next Steps
What exactly is an Advisory Board and why is it so important to growing your business? This is a question that I am often asked by founders of early stage businesses. Thankfully..
Read ArticleThe Next Steps
The famous Chinese proverb stating that 'a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step' is often wrongly accredited to Confucius, but whether it was him, Lao Tzu, or...
Read ArticleThe Next Steps
In anthropology, psychology, and psychiatry, one of the theories that is often discussed relates to whether certain actions and activities are the result of nature or nurture...
Read ArticleThe Next Steps
Sometimes in life it can pay to watch, observe, and to take no immediate action. But there are also many times in life, and in business of course, where by far the best thing to...
Read ArticleThe Next Steps
Almost every business owner wants to scale their business in one way or another, at one time or another. But that is when the questions start: How do I grow my business? How do...
Read ArticleThe Next Steps
Systems and procedures are crucial to the running of every successful business. Some company structures are inevitably simpler than others, and the complexity of the business...
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A week after the next steps out of lockdown were taken the differences are palpable. A very large percentage of the population have been shopping in ‘non-essential’ shops, sat...
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How will people and businesses act now that we are finally coming out of what is generally expected to be the last lockdown? Not only is that the question that every business...
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On April 6th 2021 a new Government loan scheme has come into force to help those businesses with the next steps after they have been affected by the economic difficulties and...
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It’s not what you know but who you know. Or so the old saying goes. Whenever that is said though it always seems to be said in a disparaging way, as in the ‘old school tie’ is ...
Read ArticleThe Next Steps
Some very interesting statistics were released this week relating to trade over the past twelve months. What was so interesting about these two particular sets of statistics is...
Read ArticleThe Next Steps
Adapting and pivoting. For businesses, these two words sum up 2020 and the COVID pandemic perhaps more than any other words. Each and every business has had to reinvent itself...
Read ArticleThe Next Steps
Welcome to my new series ‘The Next Steps’. Every business owner and director, at every stage of a business’s life, should always be considering the next steps. If it is not...
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The founders of almost every early stage business will ask themselves on at least one occasion, “Do I need to raise finance in order to grow my business?” For many, the answer...
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It’s official – London is Europe’s global tech city, with London based technology firms having raised more than $10.5bn in new investment from venture capital firms in 2020...
Read ArticleLessons Learned
How much do you know about the Kickstart Scheme that was introduced by the Government in September 2020? If you are a startup or early stage business, my guess would probably be...
Read ArticleLessons Learned
In business, it is always important to react to changing circumstances and this has never been more true than in 2020. Regular readers will know that I have written a lot...
Read ArticleTop Tips
Every business needs to constantly assess what it sells, to whom, and how it sells it. It also needs to constantly assess the market and its competitors, as well as attempting...
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One thing that every early stage business should produce is a pitch deck, whether they are looking to raise external funding or not. A pith deck is typically a 15 to 20 page...
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Founders typically establish a business with one of two game plans in mind. They either want a lifestyle business and one that fits their work life balance, or they want to build..
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It is often said that turnover is vanity and profit is sanity. But, even more importantly, do not forget that cash is king. Put simply, businesses fail because they do not have...
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As with everything about starting a business, different people do it for different reasons, and they have different levels of ambition. Some people want it to remain a side hustle.
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We all communicate every day in both our social and our business lives but, let’s be honest, some do it so much better and more effectively than others. The very word...
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Some founders come up with their business ideas alone, whilst others do so with friends or associates. Some founders wish to stay as sole founders, whilst others prefer to work...
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Welcome to a new series of articles where I will provide practical top tips on a wide range of decisions and challenges that early stage businesses have to make every day. Here...
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Technology, especially new technology, has always had something of a divisive effect; that is it can be seen as black or white, working in good ways or bad. If we look back...
Read ArticleOverheard in a Startup...
We live in changing times. Rapidly changing times. Times always change and move forward but what has been remarkable recently has been the fact that the speed of change...
Read ArticleOverheard in a Startup...
It goes without saying that for any business, in any sector, in order for it to survive, grow and prosper, sales are imperative, because sales generate profit and cash flow and...
Read ArticleOverheard in a Startup...
According to UK Government statistics some 660,000 new companies are established each year and many of these will have plans to scale rather than to remain a micro business...
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For those founders at the beginning of their entrepreneurial journey, whether for the first time or as a serial founder, there is a question that I overhear time and time again...
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Taking the plunge and deciding to start your own business can be one of the biggest and most important decisions that many of us will make. Having set out on that course...
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Founders and entrepreneurs need to be many things. They need to be enthusiastic and energetic, intelligent and inventive, resourceful and resilient, tenacious and talented. But...
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When your business was founded you would have done a lot of market research into all the areas necessary in order to validate your idea and to write a full and comprehensive...
Read ArticleOverheard in a Startup...
Any business at any time has to constantly be considering how best to trade in the present, and how best to trade in the future. This is equally true in the good times as it is...
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Coronavirus is on everyone’s lips, not literally but figuratively. And for very good reason. It seems so long ago already that the only thing in the news was all things Brexit...
Read ArticleOverheard in a Startup...
Any business at any stage of its life must be able to adapt and change to changing circumstances. One of the very real benefits that early stage businesses have is that they are...
Read ArticleOverheard in a Startup...
Whatever any of us care to call it - funding, finance, getting investors, or any other variation on the theme – obtaining finance remains one of the biggest areas of both concern..
Read ArticleOverheard in a Startup...
Some questions in life are more fundamental than others and some are more specific or technical, and so it is in the world of early stage businesses. But for the person asking...
Read ArticleOverheard in a Startup...
For anyone starting a business there is that delicious and intoxicating mixture of excitement tinged with fear. That is partly the fear of the unknown but it is also very much...
Read ArticleOverheard in a Startup...
When anyone is considering doing anything important and potentially life changing in their lives it always pays to think hard, do as much research and gather as much information...
Read ArticleOverheard in a Startup...
Of all the questions that I overhear or am asked, the one with the most variants is without doubt ‘how long will it take? The simple reason that it has the most variants is...
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One of the very common themes that I come across with entrepreneurs and founders is that they are generally over confident. About everything! That goes from the valuation...
Read ArticleMentor's Journal
Last week was of course the last real working week of the year, but whilst many will have found opportunities to celebrate most will still have been working hard...
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At some stage in the development of a business that wishes to really grow and prosper, the founders or senior management will decide that they need to raise funding...
Read ArticleMentor's Journal
The middle of December is a strange time of year for all. Some are already starting to slow down and getting into the full swing of the season’s festivities, whilst others...
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Different things drive different people in different ways. That is because each of us wants something different from our lives and we are prepared to make different levels of ...
Read ArticleMentor's Journal
I am sure that each and every one of us would accept that we cannot be good at everything that we do, or that we do not have time to do everything ourselves.
Read ArticleMentor's Journal
Most of us would associate the phrase ‘fit for purpose’ with a product or service that we have seen or used, but that we do not think actually does what it is meant to do.
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This was one of those weeks that saw me meeting with business from every possible stage of growth from ‘enter stage left’ to being a massive player that is looking for...
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The old saying that ‘from little acorns mighty oaks grow’ came about to show that sometimes something very large can grow from something very small.
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This was one of those weeks where everything seemed to be on fast forward. Not just the number of meetings but the speed of progress in the companies that I met was truly...
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This week, almost to underline my comments in the first of this series about not knowing what each week will bring, was almost entirely different to last week. Last week was...
Read ArticleMentor's Journal
Welcome to the first in the new series of ‘The Mentor’s Journal’ which will look at some of my activities from the preceding week, with a view to turning the theory outlined in...
Read ArticleMentor's Perspective
In this article - the last in this series - I am going to look at scaling your business and the fact that growth is often the hardest part of the startup journey.
Read ArticleMentor's Perspective
Having written your business plan, identified your existing and potential market and your target clients, and decided how best to market and sell your product, you should now...
Read ArticleMentor's Perspective
Last week’s article focussed on Business Plans; what should be in them and why you should write one. One of the key pieces of information required is of course sales figures...
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