Successful entrepreneurs’ advice on how to ride out the three-year glitch September 25, 2011 STARTING a business is not easy. It’s a monumental decision like getting married, buying a house or having children. So much energy goes into getting it off the ground in the first year that it seems odd to focus on the third. But the third year really does matter. It’s a decisive year when most [...]
ALTERNATIVE FUNDING FOR ENTREPRENEURS September 18, 2011 ASK entrepreneurs to name the biggest challenge they face in expanding their business and I would expect most to say raising the finance they need to grow. Whether it is thousands or millions, generating the capital required to expand will at some stage be on the agenda of every ambitious business. As a country we [...]
ENTREPRENEURS NEWS | IN BRIEF September 18, 2011 MAKING MENTORS OF ENTREPRENEURS A new campaign from Virgin Media Pioneers has been launched to address the challenges faced by aspiring entrepreneurs. The campaign plans to make mentors of experienced business owners such as Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones, the founder of The Black Farmer and Joe Cohen, the founder and CEO of Seatwave. The programme will be [...]
ENTREPRENEURS NEWS | IN BRIEF August 14, 2011 ENTREPRENEURIAL FESTIVAL LINE-UP MADE: The Entrepreneur Festival announced its headline speakers this week: government ministers Vince Cable and Mark Prisk, venture capitalists Julie Meyer, Luke Johnson and Dragons’ Den’s Peter Jones. They will be speaking on entrepreneurial inspiration, market disruption and business growth. Over 2,000 entrepreneurs will come to the city to share their knowledge [...]
ENTREPRENEURS NEWS | IN BRIEF August 7, 2011 BUSINESS CONFIDENCE FALLS BACK IN JULY Business confidence fell back in July after rebounding in June to a 13-month high, according to the Lloyds Bank Corporate Markets Business Barometer. Less than half (46 per cent) of companies were more optimistic regarding economic prospects, a reduction from 51 per cent in June, while those that were [...]
ENTREPRENEURS NEWS | IN BRIEF July 31, 2011 YOUNG PEOPLE WANT TO BE ENTREPRENEURS Eight in ten young people want to become entrepreneurs. Britain is brimming with future entrepreneurs, a new study into young people’s ambitions has concluded. According to the survey of 2,000 youngsters, commissioned to support the Ambition AXA Awards, more than three-quarters of 11 to 18-year-olds (77 per cent) say [...]
ENTREPRENEURS NEWS | IN BRIEF July 24, 2011 MAJORITY THINK GETTING FUNDING IS EASY A sizable 39 per cent of Britain’s entrepreneurs expect conditions for accessing external sources of capital to be “normal” or “easy” in the next 12 months. This compares to 25 per cent who said this six months ago, according to research from May 2011 by Investec Specialist Private Bank. [...]
ENTREPRENEURS NEED A GOOD START-UP STORY July 17, 2011 THE creation of new firms is the single most important part of the economic drama,” says Carl Schramm, the chief executive of the Kauffman Foundation, the world’s largest private foundation devoted to encouraging entrepreneurship. He was speaking about the challenges facing the world’s entrepreneurs. While the whole speech was fascinating, that statement really stood out. [...]
ENTREPRENEURS NEWS | IN BRIEF July 17, 2011 SMES ARE NOT TAKING DATA LAWS SERIOUSLY Half of small firms in the UK still believe that the loss or theft of data from their organisation would have no impact on their business, according to new research commissioned by Shred-it, a document destruction company. The survey among 1,000 UK businesses, undertaken by Ipsos, found that [...]
ENTREPRENEURS NEWS | IN BRIEF July 3, 2011 MIND CANDY AND LOVEFILM WIN AWARDS The British Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (BVCA) awarded Mind Candy and LoveFilm business management awards at a black tie ceremony held in London last week. Mind Candy, the business behind children’s social networking sensation Moshi Monsters, picked up the Venture Capital Backed-Management Team of the Year award, [...]
