General Assembly’s Startup Founders Exchange: The Startups Strike Back

On the evening of Tuesday 7th February Club Workspace were overjoyed to once again welcome General Assembly for their second Startup Founders Exchange.

The objective of the Startup Founders Exchange project is to get London’s entrepreneurs talking to each other. General Assembly have their roots in the Valley, but now, with the enigmatic Rob Fitzpatrick at the helm, GA are taking London by storm.

For the second time in three weeks, General Assembly brought a huge crowd into Club Workspace. They came to listen to the stories of six entrepreneurs.

Ed Cooke of Memrise, Alex O’Byrne of We Make Websites, Robert Welch of SmallCarBIGCITY, Will Orr-Ewing of Keystone Tutors, Roly Allen of Lyceum Partners and Fletcher Bowley of Foodie Kiwi all stepped up to the plate to share their wisdom.

So, as I don’t wish to prevaricate about the bush any longer, here’s some pearls of wisdom from the sextet of entrepreneurs.

Ed Cooke of Memrise - People and Pitching

Ed Cooke is one of a team of entrepreneurially-minded memory-specialists whose baby is ‘Memrise’, an online learning aid.

Even though Ed began his ten-minute session by giving the audience this warning - ‘I’m in no position to tell you, ‘this is how to be an entrepreneur’ as I haven’t made any money’ - the advice he shared was invaluable.

Ed spoke of how important it is to be with likeminded people. ‘When you’re a startup’, Ed explained, ‘one day you think you're building the best website in the world, the next you say, 'I'm such a loser, this is pointless!'’ If you can ride those mood-waves with a business partner or with another startup, you feel a lot less like the crazy guy...

The captivating Mr Cooke also shared his thoughts on pitching to VCs. After mistakes made my him and his team, Ed recommended, ‘Startups: be confident when pitching to VCs: even if you’re not.’ Confidence, Ed believes, will enable you to secure investor number one. After you’ve found your first investor, the second and third become a lot easier to tempt!

Alex O’Byrne of We Make Websites - Networking and Going for a Run

Alex, who left a very ‘financially rewarding’ position at Meryl Lynch to create a website building startup, lauded the benefits of networking. However, he recommends that you go to networking events that would interest your customers, not you!

To reboot Alex’s metaphor: It’s all very well going to a web-building seminar if you want to learn, however it’s probably bad hunting ground for new business - they can build their own sites! Instead, go to events that are honeypots for entrepreneurs who aren’t web-development experts! Sorted.

Alex said if he could change anything about his startup years: he’d be less busy. And for a very good reason. Taking one hour out of your afternoon to go for a run could boost productivity. Clear your head for once, stop filling it!

Will Orr Ewing of Keystone Tutors - ‘Making Peace with your Startup’

It appears that Will had an ethical struggle coming to terms with their business model. Keystone Tutors serves ‘the privileged one percent’ - it provides tutors to those sitting entrance exams for the ‘top schools’ and suchlike.

In order to cleanse their mental palate, Will and Josh ploughed money into more ethically-satisfying side-projects. Thought these projects didn’t lose money hand-over-fist, they certainly didn’t turn into a herd of cash cows.

Will recommends: do what you do best. If you have any ethical hangups about what you’re doing: it’s best to get over them!

Rob Welch of SmallCarBIGCITY - Outsourcing & Perseverance

Rob Welch never planned to be an entrepreneur. In 2008 he wanted a job in finance, but the world decided to implode... he’s never looked back.

Rob has learnt many lessons from his accidental entrepreneurship. Something he was keen to tell everyone was: outsource! It reminded me of an axiomic expression once driven home by Emma Jones: ‘do what you do best, and outsource the rest’. Rob added his weight to the argument: ‘think about it: YOU are not the best accountant that you know!’

“Keep going, and don’t take no for an answer” was Rob’s other gem. It seems a hardhearded business cliché, but due to Rob’s perseverance he got Boris Johnson’s permission to circumnavigate existing legislation.

Roly Allen of Lyceum Partners - Profit and your Partner

Roly warned startups not to charge too little for their service. In a game where margins are everything, don’t sell yourself too short! Roly added that if you’re not in a position to make yourself ‘more’ profitable - get out! Unless, of course, you’re happy to keep going at that level.

No matter what stage you are with your startup - even pre-start - it is never too early to make an agreement with your business partner, Roly advised. Things to do: Consult a lawyer, work out what happens if it all goes wrong, work out what happens if it all goes right! You don’t want a great friendship to be torn to shreds by an argument that could have been nullified years before.

Fletcher Bowley of FoodieKiwi - Starting Up in Another Country

Fletcher Bowley described himself as ‘the baited bear at the end of the show.’ Unlike the other entrepreneurs that had taken to the stage, Fletcher was the self-titled ‘man on the ledge’ - he was about to startup!

Fletcher, a proud New Zealander, spoke about the trails of starting up a food-business on the other side of the world. He told other globetrotting entrepreneurs that although it is scary starting up in another country, that voice in your head is still you! So follow it.

A Closing Word

After this leviathan blog all that remains is to thanks Rob and the General Assembly team for an insightful and exciting evening.

The closing words go to Ed Cooke. He remarked that startups and entrepreneurs should take every risk that presents itself. They might pay off! And, even if they doesn’t, ‘you’re very unlikely to starve in Western Europe’. Thanks Ed.

It's not what you buy, it's why you buy. Find out more by listening to SHOPITIZE's interivew on LBC

Shopitize is a mobile web platform that connects savvy shoppers with the brands they love. 

Their mobile web platform places consumers at the heart of the shopping experience; providing personalised rewards based on the products they actually purchase which therefore helps consumers understand their buying behaviour in the process.

They help by providing an objective perspective, helping consumers understand ‘what’ they buy.  In many cases they identified that their customers will go and visit a grocery store and at the end of the month have very little understanding as to what they have purchased and what the product means to them.  Shopitize thus helps their customers understand their purchase and the same time provide offers that are based on products they have actually purchased as opposed to products that someone wants them to purchase.

When Shopitize studied the market place, they identified that the economic environment has placed an enormous amount of financial strain on families and therefore Shopitize looked for solutions that can help customers manage and optimise the effectiveness of their spending.

For more information visit their website: www.shopitize.com

Listen to their interview

Business Books and Lean Startup Mavericks

‘Lean Startups’ is the name of the game as Eric Reis’ idea sweeps the globe. The eponymous book, ‘The Lean Startup’, was one of two industry-changing works that were discussed at Tuesday evening’s ‘Business Books and Beers’ meetup at Club Workspace.

Ricardo Semler’s ‘Maverick’ was the first book that was pushed to the forefront of our imaginations. Under it’s original title, ‘Virando a Própria Mesa’, the work became the best-selling non-fiction work in the history of Brazilian literature.

Ricardo Semler: Maverick

In the book, Semler draws on his experience as CEO of Semco.

Semler became the CEO of his Dad’s business when he was 21. However, he did not have his Eureka moment until he was 25. After a spell of ill health, Ricardo was inspired to reengineer the corporate mechanics of his company. Semler enhanced delegation and improved the work-life-balance of all employees.

One of the interesting concepts discussed was ‘Hepatitis Leave’. If an employee came to Semler and said that they didn’t have time to think, and that this was putting pressure on their work, Semler would encourage the workers to imagine what they would do if they has suddenly been diagnosed with hepatitis. When the employee had shared what they would do, Semler would tell them to go and do it!

You see why they call him a maverick, right? There’s more...

Semler also allowed 25% of Semco employees to set their own salaries. He maintains that the mixture of peer-pressure and empowerment enables a relationship of mutual benefit to arise. Furthermore, Semler introduces ‘upwards appraisals’. Rather than managers running the rule over their staff, the staff are provided with the opportunity to evaluate their superiors.

Semler’s work throws up that old business dichotomy: Trust v. Control. Do you give your employes room to manoeuvre and hope that they deliver, or do you keep the leash tight by dictating their roles and monitoring the results?

Eric Ries: The Lean Startup

Eric Ries’ big point is that startups have to get really good at the ‘middle bit’ between starting up and success.

Whatever the assumption of your business - that milkshakes will sell well in Clerkenwell, or that startups need stationary - you must test that assumption as soon as possible. What Ries advises is that you avoid ‘Achieving Failure.’

Achieving Failure may have the ring of an oxymoron about it, but it makes perfect sense. Startups who fail regularly ‘achieve their failure’ by manufacturing or ascertaining all of their produce on time and on budget, and only after doing this do they realise that there is no demand.

To test demand, and to gauge whether something ‘should be sold’ rather than ‘could be sold’, Ries advises that startups use a system of ‘Minimum Viable Product.’ This entails creating and attempting to sell the minimum product required to test the core assumption of a business.

Doing jobs in small batches is more time-efficient and it highlights any potential problems sooner. For example, it’s better to notice a mistake on an order of 250 than it is on 10, 000.

Coda

Thank you, as ever, to Dominic Pulver for organising Business Books and Beers, and thank you to everyone who came along. Business Books and Beers returns next month (as it does every month), so keep an eye out on for the next date. This will be listed on either Meetup, on the Club Workspace Site or, and this is cool, on StartUp Britain’s Enterprise Calendar!

Free Finance Advice for Small Business

You could have the best idea in the entire world. You could have a product idea that knocks the spots off everyone else in your marketplace. Your could be the next Apple, the next Dyson, or even the next Workspace Group (zing); but if you don’t have a firm hand on your finances, Mr. Osbourne will take more of your money than he’s entitled to.

That’s why Club Workspace invited Emily Coltman and Kevin McCallum to the Club venue at Clerkenwelll Workshops to whip the finances of London’s small-businesses into shape.

On Wednesday 27th January ‘FreeAgent’ came to our place. We were delighted to host an organisation who can boast over 17,000 users in 82 countries. These ‘users’ enjoy the accounting software that FreeAgent provide. Their (extremely) affordable platform allows SME owner-managers to easily understand their financial situation. Users can swiftly update their financial info and view a projection of what they’re due to pay when their return is due.

But more on that later, on with the advice!

Financial Records

Emily explained which records Small Businesses must keep.

She explained that LLPs, Ltd. cos and sole-traders are obliged to keep records of their assets, their liabilities, their income and their stock. These records must be kept for six years. However, what constitutes a record?

A word document, a scanned receipt, an online invoice, a document dropped in the Cloud - they all suffice. In other words, you can keep these records digitally. There is no obligation to keep your six-year-old receipts in a haphazard mountain of shoeboxes, box-files and custard-tins.

It is very much worth mentioning this: HMRC do not give you - as an LLP, an Ltd or a sole-trader - a prescribed method of record-keeping. Ergo, there is no ‘right’ way to store your financial records, though there are a plethora of wrong ways.

A bank-statement does indeed fall into the category of things that are acceptable records. However, Emily offered these extremely wise words of warning: Although a bank statement is an accepted method of ‘proof of transaction’, the Revenue may challenge you.

For instance, if you use your bank statement as proof of a purchase from Tesco, the revenue may require you to prove that this purchase was for business purposes. You know that you popped to Tesco for the entire rainbow’s worth of colour-printer-ink, however the suspicious Rev will assume that you spend all your money on apples, ready-meals and multipack Y-Fronts. The moral of the story is: if you can get hold of ‘better’ proof than a bank statement, use that!

And here’s a clever little way of getting better proof very quickly. Paper receipts get lost, they break, they fly away in the wind and they are ruined by misplaced coffee. Snap a picture of them with your smartphone, use Receipt Bank to ping them over to Free Agent and your record is safely stored.

Don’t deliberately over-complicate things. Keep records of all of your financial doings from ‘Day Minus One’. In other words, don’t wait until you start trading to keep these important records of assets, liabilities, income and stock. Keep records of the costs as soon as you start paying them!

This will make your life easier. Why? Because you’ll be able to claim them as expenses and therefore you’ll pay less tax!

There we go, I hope you’ve enjoyed your record keeping fact-file. Thanks to Free Agent for supplying all of the advice. It was a pleasure to welcome Kevin and Emily to Club Workspace at the Clerkenwell Workshops, don’t leave it too long ‘til next time. Thank you to 90SecondsTV for recording the event on video, this will soon be available on InspiresMe. 

For a play-by-play breakdown of the event - including even more free finance advice - travel over to  the Twittersphere and jump on @clubworkspace, or search the #freefinance tag.

A big thanks to everyone who came long, I hope you enjoyed the space, the drinks, the conversation and the free finance advice!

There’s a Business in Everyone: StartUp Britain’s Enterprise Calendar sets the tone for 2012

StartUp Britain have started the year as they mean to go on. On Thursday 16th of January StartUp Britain and their friends took over The Department of Business, Innovation and Skills to announce the arrival of the Enterprise Calendar.

The Enterprise Calendar wants to become the go-to online place for startups and entrepreneurs who want to learn, collaborate and connect. The calendar lists a huge amount of events from all over the country. These events, workshops and advice-nights are hosted by all sorts of organisations and groups. The calendar is currently listed as a top story on the Bis.Gov website.

Here at Club Workspace, we are delighted to be one of the first-ever listed hosts. The presence of both Business Books and Beers and Mike Buckworth’s Legal Workshop means that both Club venues - at Clerkenwell and Leathermarket - are featured on the calendar.

However, the Enterprise Calendar launch event was more than just the premiere of a fancy diary.

With the ‘#StartUp2012’ hashtag going viral on Twitter, and the ‘There’s a Business in Everyone’ campaign banner greeting the guests, Thursday’s event was pitched as a masterclass in entrepreneurship. It did not disappoint.

Opening the Event... The Right Honourable Mark Prisk MP

It must be said that Michael Hayman and Oli Barrett did a great job of MC-ing the entire event. The afternoon’s festivities lasted from 13:00-16:00, and the Michael and Oli dream-team were able and energetic hosts. The Bruce and Tess of the Startup Britain team, if you will.

It was Mark Prisk, the Minister for Business and Enterprise, who started the event in earnest. Mark commended the collected audience for ‘not only wanting to be part of the Entrepreneurship scene, but wanting to add it.’

Mr. Prisk discussed how he was impressed by those organisations who focus on youth enterprise. The Honourable Member believes that it is very important that ‘young people realise that they have a choice (after school), it’s not uni or nothing.’ A sentiment we echo at Workspace Group. Last summer out Inspiresme Week event gave young adults the chance to experience entrepreneurial life on the front-line.

The 60 Second Introduction

Next up for Mr. Prisk was the ‘60 Second Introduction’ session.

A selection of organisations were given the opportunity to introduce themselves to the minister in under a minute. As Nicholas Parsons wasn’t in the chair, they were allowed to hesitate, deviate and repeat.

VM Pioneers, Nokia’s Bridge Programme, the Gazelle Group, the White Horse Group, Scottish Enterprise, Gripple, the YES Network, Young Enterprise, My Kinda Crowd, Pants to Povery and the New Entrepreneurs Foundation all took the opportunity precis their goals and objectives to Mr. Prisk.

Mini Enterprise

One of the day’s quirkier sessions was the Mini competition. Audience members were encouraged to put their business cards into buckets. From these buckets two cards were drawn. These lucky entrepreneurs received a short mentoring session from either Doug Richard or Will King as they were driven around London together in this Mini, which is emblazoned with the StartUp Britain insignia. Small Car, Big City provided the rolling-stock.

Rachel Bridge also graced the stage. The Sunday Times’ Enterprise Editor spoke about her own startup: ‘Entrepreneur Things’. The business, which she referred to as her ‘case study’, is her ‘proof’ that you can start a business with zero capital.

Another three sessions gave some oxygen to Entrepreneurship Events that will take place in 2012.

Club Workspace and Workspace Group are very familiar with Global Entrepreneurship Week. The aforementioned ‘InspiresmeWeek project deliberately coincided with 2011’s GEW. Other events spoken about included Sheffield’s MADE Festival and Liverpool’s Global Entrepreneurship Congress. Brendan Moffett’s description of MADE is too good to leave out: ‘it’s the urban Glastonbury of business.’

Young Entrepreneurs and the Five Minute MBA

Another session allowed four proven young entrepreneurs to share their stories. Jasmine Eilfield, a current student at the Peter Jones Enterprise Academy, told of the hesitant nature of her school teachers and her hopes for the Teen Success Show. Chris Dodson spoke about Shell Livewire, Zoe Jackson shared her ‘#blondtrepreneur’ tales and Junior Ogunyemi plugged his new book, ‘How to be a Student Entrepreneur’.

The ‘Five Minute MBA’ followed soonafter. Entrepreneurs from the floor fired their problems at a panel of experts. This panel consisted of Doug Richards, Will King, Pernille Bruun-Jensen and Bob Forsyth.

Some of the advice that arose from this session was quite enlightening. Pernille reminded entrepreneurs of the importance of having a good team behind them. Richards commented that every company needs three people: someone to sell, someone to count and someone to deliver. Will King told startups to set themselves a goal. His was to get his product in Harrods, what’s yours?

Lord Young and An Olympic Gold Medalist

When Lord Young, the Prime Minister’s Advisor on Enterprise took to the stage he elevated the rhetoric to the rarified level of über-experienced charm.

Lord Young, who has a few ‘downturns’ under his belt, said that ‘it is infinitely easier to start a new business when the market is at the bottom.’ Lord Young also commented that the banks’ widespread reluctance to lend money has opened up innovate funding channels: The Lord was impressed with crowdfunding and business angels.

To round off the event, after the crowd had learnt about StartUp Local and Tech City’s interesting StartUp Games, a surprise guest was announced.

Duncan Goodhew, the winner of the gold medal for 100 metre breast stroke in 1980, leapt to the stage to give a speech that would bring the event to a close. Duncan’s eminence and grace in the water is indisputable and widely-known, however his prowess as a speaker was an absolute delight. Of course, nobody doubted that Duncan had a story to tell, but he shared his tales with an honesty and precision that had the audience enthralled. To put things in perspective, Duncan pulled his gold medal from his pocket. In this day of business, we all clapped eyes on something that money cannot buy.

Thank you to StartUp Britain for organising the event, and to the Department of Business Innovation and Skills for letting us in.