Doug Richard's School for Startups

Find, Pitch & Close, The Art of Securing Investment – S4Stv Live!

Shash — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 17:06:25 +0000

Following the huge success of our seminars around the UK, Doug and the School for Startups team will present “Find, Pitch & Close: The Art of Securing Investment” at the UCL in London. To support the wider UK entrepreneur community, who cannot attend this face to face event with Doug Richard, School for Startups will broadcast the “Entrepreneur Surgery” happening at the event online via S4Stv.

The Find, Pitch and Close Entrepreneur Surgery is a corner stone of Doug Richard’s training for entrepreneurs seeking funding. By participating in a live critique of real entrepreneurs pitching their business, entrepreneurs online have an opportunity to master invaluable skills and gain important insights into how to achieve their own funding objectives. Doug is a seasoned entrepreneur and angel investor, and entrepreneur surgeries allow him to put entrepreneurs on both sides of the table. You will see those pitching their businesses as investors do, and you will seem them as peers undertaking an operation almost every successful business must take on some day.

In this one hour surgery you can expect to learn:

• How you must present your business so investors can understand it
• What investors care about and what they don’t. You will be surprised . . .
• The fundamentals of rapid business model analysis
• The fundamentals of coping with an intelligent, experienced, angel investor actively evaluating your enterprise

Who should tune in?

• Owners & managers of growing businesses
• People thinking about starting a business
• Business, Marketing and MA students
• Pros interested in understanding financing better

I Have to Show You: GoDaddy & Wordpress

Nancy — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 14:39:06 +0000

Almost every business needs a website. Having a website gives you a place to put information your prospects need to make their first sale and your previous customers need to close their second. If you understand the fundamentals of search engine optimisation, Google will drive potential customers to your website where they can learn enough about your products and services to buy them. Content posted on your website can reduce the cost of supporting your customers, providing answers to their most frequently asked questions and solutions to their most frequently encountered problems.

Not all websites are created equal. A site that you and your employees can maintain without much outside support is critical because having to pay people to make changes to it quickly becomes costly.

Wordpress is a content management tool that makes updates just about as easy as sending email. There are a wide variety of plug-ins that you can use to make Wordpress to clever things like accept orders or send updates for site changes.

All websites should be attached to a relevant domain name. Follow these directions to purchase a domain name at GoDaddy.com and set up a Wordpress website hosted on their servers for under £10 a month:

Go to http://www.godaddy.com/hosting/wordpress-hosting.aspx
Choose a hosting package in line with your budget.
Create a Domain name and add it to your order.
Provide payment information.
In about an hour, you will receive instructions on how to access your domain. You will usually be told to log in at www.yourdomain.com/wp-admin. Once logged in you will see tools that allow you to add, delete and edit pages.
You can find books that provide step-by-step instructions on how to use Wordpress at Amazon.

By following these instructions you can bring your commercial website online in a matter of hours. If you prefer, you can hire someone to create and maintain your website for you. Since Wordpress is one of most commonly used content management systems currently available, there are many developers out there who know how to create, launch and customise it.

SXSW. Love it. Hate it.

Shash — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 10:00:01 +0000

By Doug Richard

South by Southwest winds down again. And once again I marvel at how useful and useless it is. As a conference where one can hear provocative ideas, learn new things, and see the edge of what’s going on: it sucks. But as a place to meet people who you really should meet, it is unrivalled.

Let me explain. Austin is a city unto itself. It is the anti-Texas. And as many Austin residents will tell you, they pride themselves on being a centre of sophistication in the midst of a state that is anything but. I admit to having held a bias against Texas for a long time and I am not going to soften it in this essay; but I admit that Austin is special.

It’s special in the way that it is open to the whole world yet retains an easiness that let’s SXSW happen. And that’s important; because SXSW happens outside the panel sessions and the keynotes. It happens at the parties and the strange mashups between the film community and the interactive community, as they quaintly refer to the world of the web and the valley.

It happens at parties like the one I attended Saturday night at the Club de Ville, which is really a big shack, a dirt back yard and cheap Tecate beer with a lime where they held the Battle of the Laptops. Various musicians, if you care to call them that, went head to head with live improvised syntheses of music and imagery. It was an elimination tournament of geek musicians on a warm summery night. Only in Austin. Only at SXSW.

It happened at the party I went to the next night whose name I still cannot fathom but where I met a laundry list of engaging characters from worlds that just do not collide often enough. TV, film, advertising and media with gamers and techies, all looking more and more alike.

Where it doesn’t happen is in the panels. The panels are mostly consensus drifting talk fests where the obvious is repeated, no insights are gained and no one pushes new or controversial thoughts. And in large part that’s because of the nature of their formation. They are egalitarian, self-formed and pulled together by like-minded people who when tossed into a conversation, not surprisingly agree with one another, which is probably good for their karma but less good for an audience that is frequently in front of them and not usefully patronised.

But, really that’s OK. Because if you want to start an innovative company, if you are starting an innovative company you shouldn’t worry too much about what happens at the panels, so much as trying to spot the people you should meet and have that Mexican beer with later on. For that purpose, the panels are fine. They sort people by their interest. And you can read their tweets on the #hashtag for that panel and hear their opinions and introduce yourself shamelessly.

SXSW is important. It is wonderfully relaxed and easy. That’s the Austin in it. It mixes worlds. That’s the oddity of a film festival, an interactive conference and a music experience all rolled together.

Many of the people who read my blog are small businesses or aspiring entrepreneurs. Events like SXSW are relevant to you too. If you happen to be starting an innovative company, you must be in the mainstream. You must find ways to cross the world and get involved.

A cheap plane flight purchased six months ahead of time is £300. You can get a room on craigslist for as little as $60 a night from some local renting out their house, as one young lady I met had done who was on no budget at all. The rest is planning, introducing yourself, and a willingness to drink and stay up all night.

In return you will meet more useful people in a week than you might in a year. You will be pulled out of the London community, or Edinburgh or Letterkenny where I was the week before. The startups in that relatively remote part of Ireland are as good and ambitious as any Valley startup. But they are not in the Valley. They need to make those connections more than anyone.

If you aren’t in the technology community there is an SXSW in your world too. It might be the consumer electronics show, it might be the world book fair or the largest crafts show in the world. I can’t know which is your SXSW. But however small you are and even though the web permits you to be small and global, you need to be out in the world to see what’s going on and learn from it.

So go buy your ticket, go find a cheap room and the first Tecate and lime will be on me.

I Have to Show You Cracklytics

Shash — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 09:43:55 +0000

Every owner of a commercial website, whether ad supported or selling products and services, soon becomes a devotee of Google Analytics. This powerful set of tools lets you to monitor your website’s traffic. It can instantly tell you how many visitors have come to your site, what pages they viewed, what keywords they followed, what sites referred them and a lot more. With this information, you can refine and optimise your pages to increase the number of visitors you are getting, the number of pages they visit, and the length of their stay. This usually results in an increase in the potential to earn revenue.

Because Google Analytics is such a useful tool, webmasters end up checking their site stats several times a day. It becomes a form of electronic heroin, where an inability to get site stats for more than eight hours causes intense withdrawal symptoms ranging from high anxiety to extreme irritation.

Cracklytics is an application that feeds the addiction and runs on your iPhone. Currently it’s the fastest most easiest Google Analytics app available. It lets you view the most commonly accessed stats for your website, including Visits, Bounce Rate, Page Views and Page Visits. Additionally, it lets you see how these stats vary by time of day.

To use Cracklytics, you will need your site connected to Google Analytics. Here is a brief overview of how to do this and get Cracklytics running on your iPhone:

Go to www.google.com/analytics.
Create an account if you don’t have one.
Click Add New Account.
Specify the name of the website you want Google to monitor.
Provide additional information as required.
When you get the Google Analytics Tracking code, insert it into all the pages of your website. The easiest way to do this is to put it into a “footer” that gets automatically appended to every page as it loads. If you use a CMS like Wordpress or Joomla incorporating the analytics code is easy.
You should subsequently be able to check the status of your site at any time by logging into Google Analytics.
To use Cracklytics simply log into the AppStore with your iPhone. Download and install the application.
Modify its settings to point to your Google Analytics account.
Whenever you launch the application on your iPhone you will immediately see the stats for your site.

To sell products and services on the Internet you must master the art of “inbound” marketing. This means you must put your products and services where people can find them. It may be that people who buy your patented dog washing soap search for “Dog Groomer” first. It may be that they search for “Dirty Dog” first. It may be that they come to you through ads you post on PerfectPetsForever.com. Using Google Analytics you can find out, for sure, what keywords work, what websites work, what makes visitors stick around and what makes them fly away.

Using Cracklytics, you can monitor the ebb and flow of your site statistics over the course of a day or month, without the hassle of logging in on your laptop. If you’re like most website owners, you’ll find the constant feed an addictive comfort.

Find, Pitch & Close – The Art of Securing Investment Hosted by University College London – 19th April

Shash — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 17:57:00 +0000

Location: University College London
Time: 2pm – 7pm

Following the huge success of our seminars around the UK, Doug and the School for Startups team are presenting at University College London. A must-attend event for any budding entrepreneur, “Find, Pitch & Close: The Art of Securing Investment” is hosted personally by Doug Richard and is a cornerstone of the School for Startups curriculum.

The seminar will cover 3 hours of sessions and Q&A; followed by a live and interactive 60-minute Dragon’s Den style “entrepreneur surgery” global S4Stv webcast. As an attendee you will have the opportunity to ask Doug and our Featured Entrepreneurs questions – and participate as international viewers contribute ideas via the live chat-room!
At “Find, Pitch & Close” You Will Learn:

The key questions every entrepreneur must be able to answer when considering seeking investment:

• How to know when you’re ready for money
• How to know how much money you need
• Identifying the different types of money
• Where to find investors
• How to create the perfect pitch
• The rules of how to interview an investor
• The secrets of increasing your value
• How to be savvy and cut the best deal
• 3 things to avoid in any investment

Who should attend?

• Owners & managers of growing businesses
• People thinking about starting a business
• Business, Marketing and MA students
• Pros interested in understanding financing better

What’s Included?

• 5 hours of business tuition with one of the UK’s leading entrepreneurs
• Access to online resources and materials, including membership of VentureNavigator (see details below)
• Accreditation as a Graduate of School for Startups (web-badge)
• Free refreshments throughout the afternoon, followed by an evening drinks reception

Ticket Information

• Standard Entrepreneur Ticket
• Early Bird Discount
• Online bookings policy – We only accept online bookings with a credit or debit card. Unfortunately we do not issue invoices for future payment or allow attendees to pay on the day. Anyone who has not paid for their ticket in full before the event will not be granted access.
• Refunds and changes to ticket details policy – Unfortunately we cannot offer refunds or change the name on the booking once tickets have been booked.

Event Information

• Registrations starts 14:00hrs
• Event starts 15:00hrs
• In conjunction with University College London
• Sponsored by O2

For more information see our full Terms and Conditions

Money-Back Guarantee

We are confident that you will be completely satisfied by this event. If you are not completely satisfied with the event, we will issue a 100% refund, no questions asked. Requests for refunds must be made via email within 24hrs of the event taking place.

On some earlier versions of Internet Explorer, the “Enter Discount Code” link is not visible. If you are experiencing this, to enter a discount code, please click here.

Prices Are Discovered

Doug Richard — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 14:35:17 +0000

This morning, we posted an article by Doug called “Successful Startups Almost Never Compete On Price”. Due to the popularity of the article, within hours, our website started to receive an unprecedented amount of traffic.

Naturally, this tells us we’ve hit upon a key issue that faces most entrepreneurs.

We thought it would be helpful to post a video clip from our S4Stv library entitled “Prices Are Discovered” with Doug explaining the thinking behind pricing, turning around some of the more commonly held assumptions.

Here is Doug in action:

What are your views on pricing for your business? Tell us what you’ve learned by commenting below. You can also register here or continue the discussion in our forum.

Successful Startups Almost Never Compete On Price

Doug Richard — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 09:30:54 +0000

by Doug Richard, founder of School for Startups

I have counseled and supported many thousands of entrepreneurs over the years, and something that never ceases to amaze me is how many initially enter the market with the intent of competing on price. Since I have an extensive background in sales and marketing, and since I’ve managed more than my fare share of sales teams, the idea of maximizing the number of low margin sales a business makes just seems completely insane. Startups rarely have the returns to scale or the marketing and sales efficiency to do large volumes of business profitably at a low price.

I believe this problem is caused by a fundamental misunderstanding about how prices are set, a lack of insight into why people buy what they buy, and no formal education on what other meaningful qualities products can compete on. This article reviews some fundamentals that every entrepreneur needs to know.

The Process of Perfect Pricing

Prices are insanely slippery numbers. They are defined by what one person will pay another for a given product or service. They are not defined by what a product cost to produce or what profit margin a producer would like to have.

For example, all the ingredients in a litre bottle of Coca Cola, the bottle itself, and all the branding painted on it, costs less than 10 pence. The Coca Cola company feels no need at all to price its products at a few pence per bottle. Sometimes this truth is explained away by pointing out how much the company spends on advertisements, maintaining its brand, etc. But the truth is that if customers decided they were only going to pay 15 pence a bottle, Coca Cola would change its branding and all other elements of its business model to keep profits high while meeting that requirement or they would stop producing the product.

The price people are willing to pay for a product or service can be derived from many factors. Which factors people use to make their decision will vary from person to person and from day to day. A man trapped in the rain on the way to a business meeting will spend quite a bit for an umbrella. Someone who buys airplane tickets online will almost always want to spend less than someone who buys tickets from a travel agent.

Factors people may take into account when figuring out how much they will pay for something include:

•   The cost of the problem a product or service solves
•   The revenue owning or using a product or service can generate
•   The status derived from owning or using a product or service
•   The improved perception of self derived from owning or using a product or service
•   The cost of the crisis a product or service prevents
•   The price of substitute products and services
•   The price people pay for related products and services
•   The location where the product or service is being provided
•   Who will be using the product or service
•   Customer service provided post sale
•   Pre-sales support leading to a better solution for the customer.

Sales and marketing professionals can choose to target customers based on any of these characteristics. They can target their marketing materials and their marketing efforts on customers who do relatively little in the way of comparison shopping. In many cases this will require the business to adjust the products and services they offer to address the needs of these less “price sensitive” customers.

For example, the price of a tow truck to pick up a car may be just £20. But a service that guarantees they will rescue a stranded daughter in the middle of the night on a dark road may be worth £80. If your objective is to sell tow truck services, you should obviously consider modifying your business model to provide the more profitable solution. After all, many people purchase towing service plans but few use them even once a year. In fact, this is a demonstration that sometimes the number of people willing to pay more for a service is much higher than those willing to pay less.

Good pricing requires good market research. You must look for and find people who are ideal customers for your product. You must come to understand them well and you must give them what they need. When you can do that, you won’t need to compete on price. You’ll be able to compete on everything else.

Update: Watch Doug’s exclusive video “Prices Are Discovered“.

Looking for More Help?

School for Startups offers support and practical instruction for UK entrepreneurs through online events and face to face courses. For more information, please visit www.schoolforstartups.co.uk or follow us on twitter at @s4startups.

Secrets to Marketing & Sales on the Internet, London, April 6th

Shash — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 17:54:14 +0000

Location: The British Library
Time: Noon – 7pm

Bring your computers because this is a hands-on day. It’s a new class from School for Startups specifically focussed on what you asked for: how to increase your marketing and sales for your business leveraging everything new on the net.

This isn’t a lecture. It isn’t a dry Powerpoint. We will walk you step-by-step through an introduction to key techniques to drive more prospects to your site and more sales through your doors.

It will be hosted and taught by Doug Richard, with help from some of the leading experts in web sales and marketing. We will work with Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Blogs, YouTube and key tools to track your progress.

If you own or run a business and you haven’t been sure where to start or how to make it work, all you need is one day, a notebook computer and an open mind. We’ll supply the rest.

In this hands-on step by step course, you will master the skills required to reach new customers through a variety of online social media tools such as Twitter, Facebook, Blogs, LinkedIn and YouTube.

Guest Expert Speakers

• Dan Martin, Editor at BusinessZone.co.uk / Sift Media
• Ilana Fox, Partner of Spoke Digital (formerly Social Media Manager at ASOS)
• Robert McIntosh, Founder of Wineconversation.com
• Sháá Wasmund, Founder of Smarta.com

At “Secrets to Marketing & Sales on the Internet” you will learn:

• Find and communicate with customers through private messages and online posts
• Define your brand and promote your products online to a worldwide audience
• Establish long term & trusted relationships with customers old and new
• Find out what your customers really want
• Create online forums and chat for great customer service
• Become an industry spokesman using clever social media techniques
• Approach individuals through these tools who can help you achieve your sales and marketing objectives

What’s included?

• 6 hours of business tuition with one of the UK’s leading entrepreneurs
• Access to online resources and materials, including membership of VentureNavigator
• Accreditation as a Graduate of School for Startups (web-badge
• Free refreshments

Who should attend?

• Owners & managers of growing businesses who want to get started making their business grow
• Marketing and media professionals who want to learn new techniques

Ticket Information

• Online bookings policy – We only accept online bookings with a credit or debit card. Unfortunately we do not issue invoices for future payment or allow attendees to pay on the day. Anyone who has not paid for their ticket in full before the event will not be granted access.
• Standard Entrepreneur Ticket
• Student Ticket – We only offer reduced price tickets for full-time students who can prove their status with a valid ID card.
• Refunds and changes to ticket details policy – Unfortunately we cannot offer refunds or change the name on the booking once tickets have been booked.

Event Information

• Registrations starts 12:00hrs
• Event starts 13:00hrs
• In conjunction with The British Library

Travel Information

The nearest tube stations to the British Library are Euston and Kings Cross St Pancras

For more information see our full Terms and Conditions

Money-Back Guarantee

On some earlier versions of Internet Explorer, the “Enter Discount Code” link is not visible. If you are experiencing this, to enter a discount code, please click here.

Start Here! Starting & Growing a Successful Business, Brighton, Jun 15th

Shash — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 14:45:20 +0000

Following the huge success of our seminars around the UK, Doug and the School for Startups team are taking their nationwide tour to Brighton. A must-attend event for any budding or established entrepreneur, “Start Here! Starting and Growing a Successful Business” is hosted personally by Doug Richard and is the cornerstone of the School for Startups curriculum.

At “Start Here! Starting & Growing a Successful Business” you will learn:

• The key questions every entrepreneur must be able to answer before starting or growing a business
• How to write the perfect business model
• How to identify your product and your market
• How to start an affordable marketing campaign to increase your sales leads
• How to treat the recession as an opportunity, rather than a threat
• How to make money and secure investment

What’s included?

Ticket Information

• University of Brighton Ticket – These tickets are for anyone affiliated to The University of Brighton. Set discounts available at the universities discretion.
• Standard Entrepreneur Ticket – These are for anyone outside of the University
• Student & Staff Discounts – students & staff using discount codes must show their ID at registration, failure to do so will result in none entry to the event.
• Online bookings policy – We only accept online bookings with a credit or debit card. Unfortunately we do not issue invoices for future payment or allow attendees to pay on the day. Anyone who has not paid for their ticket in full before the event will not be granted access.
• Refunds and changes to ticket details policy – Unfortunately we cannot offer refunds or change the name on the booking once tickets have been booked.

Who should attend

• Anyone with an idea for a business
• Owners of small businesses that want to grow
• Students interested in starting a business

Event Information

• Registrations Starts: 12:00hrs
• Event Starts: 13:00hrs
• In conjunction with NACUE & The University of Brighton

For more information see our full Terms and Conditions

Money-Back Guarantee

On some earlier versions of Internet Explorer, the “Enter Discount Code” link is not visible. If you are experiencing this, to enter a discount code, please click here.

You’re Not Dead at 50: The Best Entrepreneurs are Silver

Nancy — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 08:51:15 +0000

by Doug Richard, Founder of School for Startups

While those under fifty often give starting a business serious consideration, many fifty and over think entrepreneurship just isn’t an option for them. No matter how much they may have wanted a business in their youth, somewhere around fifty they arbitrarily decide that they are far too old to have one.

Some think that working to get paid more in their current job must be easier than starting a new enterprise.
Some believe that finding a new job that pays more will be easier than starting a completely new business.
Some consider it wise to have a job that offers retirement benefits, even if it doesn’t pay well and the projected retirement benefits will be insufficient to pay bills in years to come.
Others simply have no idea how they would go about founding a new enterprise and think they are far too old to learn.

If you are over the age of fifty, and you are letting age alone stand in the way of starting your own enterprise, I suggest you reflect on the following.

People are living longer than ever. Someone in good health who works hard to remain healthy, may expect to be fully functional into their eighties. Changes in medical technology may extend your lifespan even further. Spending almost half your life in idle retirement is a bit insane.
Having a business, and the daily pressure to remain mentally acute and physically active, is good for you. Studies show that mental and physical exercise stave off most of the ill effects of old age. So allowing yourself to have a business may actually help you live longer.
A good business provides value to your family as well as to you. If you increase the number of years you are productive, you may build resources that benefit people after you are gone.

Starting a business isn’t rocket science, and all other things being equal it is easier for those over fifty to create a successful enterprise than it is for the younger set. Older professionals have business, financial and personal life experience to draw on. They tend to be more pragmatic and better connected than their younger brothers and sisters. They also have fewer personal distractions since they rarely have infants and small children at home.

It’s Not All Roses

Older entrepreneurs do have some important issues that should address very directly before they start new enterprises.

They should give the enterprises they plan to start serious thought before they invest significant time or money in them. Not all businesses are created equal. Some are just better than others. I have 20 questions I use to vet businesses I plan to start, because I know that businesses that pass my test make more money faster than those that don’t. Youngsters can work long hours at minimum wage to build an enterprise based on a bad business models. More mature business professionals should be smart enough not to.
They need to frankly assess their health and their requirements for exercise and reasonable levels of stress. Whereas younger workers can afford to burn the candle at both ends, adults must make sure they do everything they need to do in order to remain fit. A healthy body and mind are always a good investment, and they are the single most important asset an older professional can give to their business.
They need to be realistic about the financial life cycle of their business. Though I never tell people to start a business with a firm exit plan in mind, I do think older entrepreneurs need to give some thought, as they develop their enterprises, into how their businesses can run without them for periods of time and how they can monetize any equity or value they build in their firms when they decide to cash out.
They must renew their personal and professional relationships. The most significant advantage that most mature entrepreneurs have over newcomers is the depth and breadth of their contacts. This is particularly true when multiple over-50 entrepreneurs find a way to collaborate. This opens up access to early sales and prompt financing on a very significant level.
They should refrain from dumping their life savings into their business. They should avoid acquiring a great deal of debt to fund their business. Businesses are supposed to make money. If a business model is well considered, and it’s implementation strategic, it can almost always launch and become profitable with very little investment. Younger entrepreneurs can make the mistake of believing that financial success can be bought. More mature entrepreneurs must know better.

Ready to Get Started?

If you are over fifty and want to give serious consideration to starting your own business, here are some steps you can take to get started.

Start by making a list of all the assets and experience you can bring to a business. It may seem strange to start with a list of what you have rather than what you want, but creating this list throws off the tunnel vision that having a job and raising a family give most of us. By the time you are remembering what you did for a living when you were twenty, and which courses you enjoyed in school, you are also remembering who you know and what you know, and that’s an important thing for you to do. Writing this information down is also important. What we remember and ponder is ephemeral. What we write down is concrete and easy to reference.

Make a list of the things you enjoy doing. Good businesses are based on passion. Enthusiasm and expertise are your most important sales tools because most people enjoy working with folks who care, deeply, about doing something right. Don’t think about what’s possible, what’s rational, what is wise or what is practical. Think about what activities you enjoy day to day, minute to minute. Make another list of things you don’t like doing. You may hate accounting, but it’s a part of running a business. The necessary parts of a business that you don’t want to do must be undertaken by others. You have to know what they are so you can shop for help.

Start writing down business ideas. By the time you’ve completed the previous two operations, which will take days or weeks, you’ll have ideas noodling around in your head for things you might like to do that make money. You’ll have come up with ways you can be of service to others, and you’ll have some notions of people who might be willing to help you. You’ll be aware that some of your business ideas are things that won’t take much time and will make money. You’ll also have some larger ideas, requiring more of an investment and providing more of an income. By the time you’ve got twenty or thirty ideas on paper, you’ll have some you like better than others. Those are the ones you can begin to explore. Exactly what would it take to get started with those businesses? Can you find customers? Do they want what you have to sell them? I mention in passing that our School for Startup’s “Start Here!” classes are designed to help people who want to know how to vet business ideas before investing time or money into them.

The process may seem strangely loose and intuitive, given that business is always characterized as such a cut and dried thing. But the truth is that starting a business is about equally art and science. There’s no point starting a business you will loathe running. The best outcome from that kind of thing will be that you go out of business quickly so you can get on with something that you enjoy more that pays just as well or better.

As a very happy entrepreneur over fifty, I encourage my peers to join the entrepreneur revolution required to keep the UK wealthy and prosperous well into the next century. Innovation, invention, insight and good implementation can build a good business at any age.