Top 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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Top Tips
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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Top Tips
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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Top Tips
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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Top Tips
Before any business is established the founder will of course have spotted a gap in the market, thought of the original idea, conducted research, and come up with the MVP...
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Top Tips
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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Top Tips
According to the Office for National Statistics 213,285 businesses failed in the UK in the first half of 2020, a 14% increase on the same period in the previous year. Without...
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Top Tips
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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Top Tips
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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Top Tips
Having set up a business there are some very logical next steps that have common features irrespective of what your business will do. Any business needs to sell its product or...
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Top Tips
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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Periodical
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...
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Overheard 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...
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Overheard 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...
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Overheard 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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Overheard in a Startup...
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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Periodical
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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Overheard in a Startup...
As spring turns into summer and the fears of lockdown turn into the uncertainties of release, many early stage companies are effectively having to start all over again...
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Overheard in a Startup...
After nine long weeks of lockdown, businesses are starting to re-open or, at least, planning to reopen in the near future. For some of the luckier ones this might be possible...
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Overheard in a Startup...
Many businesses ask me many questions but one of the questions that has become more common over the last few months is whether their business should pivot. Regular readers will...
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Periodical
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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sifted. Part of Financial Times
Overheard in a Startup...
As we are all starting to hope that the end, or at least a temporary reprieve, is in sight, thoughts are starting to turn to how we and our businesses can bounce back. In fact...
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Overheard in a Startup...
As we emerge blinking into the light post lockdown, what will the ‘new normal’ look like? The questions that I am overhearing have changed very recently, from those covering how...
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Periodical
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...
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NatWest - Esme Loans
Overheard in a Startup...
Money most certainly does not buy happiness, but it does make the world go round. And the lack of money can lead to hardship in many ways. A question that I keep overhearing...
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Overheard in a Startup...
The longer the coronavirus lockdown goes on, the more my conversations with startups have varied from the norm. Just another example of ‘the new normal’ maybe, but recently...
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Overheard 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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Overheard in a Startup...
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...
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Overheard in a Startup...
In any business, at any time, cash is king and cashflow is much more important than turnover, and in the short term it can often even be more important than profit. If turnover...
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Periodical
The government backed Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS) has been rolled out at unprecedented speed, and the size of the financial packages being made...
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Overheard in a Startup...
These are strange times, unsettling times, and if I am honest this is not a normal question that I overhear much in more normal times, but recently THE question that I keep...
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Overheard 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...
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Periodical
My ‘day job’ is as a business and finance consultant working with early stage businesses from start up to mid-sized corporates, and I am also a Mentor at Cass Business School...
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Growth & Grace Collective
Overheard in a Startup...
Some people are afraid of networking and others love it! It is true. We have all come across people that love nothing more than going to networking events and chatting to...
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Overheard 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..
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Overheard 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...
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Overheard 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...
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Overheard 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...
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Finance
In my previous article in this series I set out why I thought that having cash in an instant bank or building society savings account, and especially in a cash ISA, was not good..
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Like Minded Females
Overheard 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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Overheard in a Startup...
As a Mentor, one of the things that I am often asked about is how to find reliable partners, and indeed who those partners should be. I recently overheard that very point...
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Overheard in a Startup...
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...
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Overheard in a Startup...
There are many reasons why living in the UK makes life much easier than living in most other countries. This is in our personal lives and wellbeing but also in our working lives...
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Overheard in a Startup...
Over the years that I have been working with startups and early-stage businesses I have overheard many different things. The majority of these follow the normal concerns...
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Finance
Having started to understand that we owe it to ourselves that we really do need to know a little more about our personal finances it is easy to go one of two ways...
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Like Minded Females
Mentor'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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Periodical
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...
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London Business Magazine
Mentor'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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Finance
In my opening article in this ‘Money Matters!’ series I asked a number of basic questions about personal finance that everyone should be able to answer at least in general terms...
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Periodical
So…you’ve decided you’re going to set up your own business and this time you are really going to do it...
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Mentor's Journal
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 ...
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Mentor'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.
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Finance
I have been in and around the financial service sector the whole of my working life and indeed studied Commerce and Economics at school, so I guess that that shapes my view on...
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Like Minded Females
Mentor's Journal
In each of our lives, some weeks are more predictable than others. Some people are a little afraid of change and facing new, unexpected challenges, whilst others face the world...
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Mentor's Journal
Over the last two weeks I have written special articles on ‘Business Plans and Pitch Decks’ and on ‘The Art of Fundraising’ but this week I return to writing 'The Mentor’s Journal'
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Periodical
As a mentor I get involved in a huge cross section of businesses in different sectors and at different stages of their development. As a result I have been involved in many...
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Periodical
As readers of either my Mentor’s Perspective or Mentor’s Journal series will know, one of the most common themes that I come across is that of fundraising in all its guises.
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Mentor'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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Mentor's Journal
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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Mentor's Journal
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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Mentor's Journal
When I think about all of my conversations and meetings last week there was a very common thread tying them all together, and that was of people or businesses reinventing...
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Mentor's Journal
Just as last week’s Mentor’s Journal led me neatly into my article, 'The Power of Networking', so this week started off very much in the same vein with all my early meetings...
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Periodical
Welcome to the first of a periodic series of articles that will take a more in depth look at some of the topics that make frequent appearances in my Mentor’s Journal series.
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Mentor's Journal
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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Mentor's Journal
This week was quite typical in that it was an unusual mix of many of the things that I get involved with as a mentor and that I have written about in the past. There was some...
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Mentor's Journal
One thing that I have learned over the years is the importance of cooperation and working with the right partners, and this has only been reiterated during my activities as a...
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Mentor's Journal
This week I met with Deputy Chief Constable Jo Shiner at Sussex Police to talk about all the many ways that businesses of any size can work together with the police for the...
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Mentor's Journal
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...
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Mentor'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...
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Mentor's Journal
Following on from the nine articles in the ‘A Mentor’s Perspective’ series that I wrote recently that looked at some of the main points that any startup or early stage business...
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Mentor'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.
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Mentor'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...
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Mentor'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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Mentor's Perspective
Over the last five articles I have tried to set the scene in terms of outlining what help is available to early stage businesses, and certain aspects of finance, including a...
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Startups Magazine
Mentor's Perspective
In the last two articles in this series I have looked at various aspects of finance and this time I am going to stay with the financial theme but from a very different angle...
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Startups Magazine
Mentor's Perspective
In this, the second part of looking at the different forms of finance available to a startup, I look specifically at the different types of equity finance and try to summarise...
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Startups Magazine
Mentor's Perspective
So far in the series I have looked at some of the different types of assistance that is available to a startup and also about what benefits working with a Mentor can bring and...
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Startups Magazine
Mentor's Perspective
In the first of this series of articles we looked at the fact that there was actually quite a lot of help available to you when you set up your own business, and specifically we...
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Mentor's Perspective
In this, the first of an occasional series, I will be passing on my thoughts and observations in my capacity as a Mentor and how accepting the help that is available to startup...
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Startups Magazine
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