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Future-Proof Your Digital Startup: Plan, Talk and Get Creative

Twenty per cent of startups will fail in their first 12 months, and just half can sustain themselves for three years, according to government figures. And digital startups are no exception. It’s a stark fact, especially when you consider that every startup begins with a feeling of possibility, with a founder willing it to succeed. So what’s the difference between a startup that falls at the first hurdle and another that lasts the distance? Is it hard work and determination, access to funding or just pure luck? How can you future-proof your digital startup?   Look...

Start-up Psychology: Silicon Roundabout versus Silicon Valley

The image of sun-drenched Silicon Valley has dominated both pop culture and the business world for the past decade, but the UK’s Silicon Roundabout is catching up with its American cousin, despite a very different psychology in terms of culture and development. Although the end result—an abundance of successful tech start-ups—has been much the same, the key differences in the processes that created them and continue shape them are examined here: Origins: Academic vs. Creative Silicon Valley has its roots in Stanford University and very much grew up around academia...

How Much Should You Pay Yourself? A Founder’s Guide

We’ve all been there—no one knows what to pay themselves when they’re just starting out. There’s no rulebook for a founder, and everyone has a different view. It’s even harder to know how to react to change—how much to increase your salary when you start making profit, or if you should significantly decrease your pay when your start-up runs into difficulty? There are investors who believe that CEO pay should be the single biggest factor in investment, and there are CEOs who believe that if you want to stay motivated through difficult times, reasonable pay is...

Failure: Did You Give Your Startup a Fighting Chance?

There is a lot to learn from successful start-up entrepreneurs such as Mind Candy’s Michael Acton Smith and Huddle’s Alistair Mitchell, which is why I’m really pleased to present you more advice from them in the following article. Whether you’re building on your first startup idea or your third, learning from the experience of those who’ve done it and done it well is always a positive step. Give your start-ups a fighting chance or learn from past mistakes by asking yourself the following: Were you Realistic about Your Idea? Was it good enough? Just...

No Need to Beg: How to Attract Start-up Talent

If human capital is key to business success; Do you have the right strategy to attract and keep the best? A typical Start Up will have a small founding team and they will include a mix of skills – Management, Sales and Technical. But once the business is in Go Mode, and particularly if the business is externally funded or burning scarce Founder capital, then it needs to get moving fast and become revenue positive as quickly as it can. This almost certainly means growing the business functions and adding new people and skills to build the team’s resources. One option...

4 Big Fish Outgrowing the Start-up Pond

Starting your own business is risky; one in three fail in their first three years. Tech start-ups are no exception, even those starting lean. In fact, their innovative nature means they are perhaps more likely to fail than traditional ‘safer’ concepts. Is it simply a question of money or entrepreneurial talent to push the enterprise across the line? For many the odds might seem disheartening, these four case studies show the potential payoffs, for getting it right, are worth the risk.   Zeebox uk.zeebox.com/tv/home What is it? Social-networking and...

Does Innovation Kill Customer Certainty?

How do you strike the right balance between new product or feature development and maintaining the status quo? The question is fundamental to many start-up businesses because it comes down to whether it is better to focus scarce resources on running and improving operations or on new development and generating customer excitement? And it could be a multi-million dollar question if you get the answer right and a killer if you’re wrong. But it’s not always an easy call: Your tech team is bursting with ideas for the new features and functions and desperate to build them...

How Grads in Silicon Roundabout Out Earn Parents: £40k Incomes at 24

A Guide to Grads Wanting To Get into a UK Tech Start-up Earning more than £40 grand a year at the age of 24 may sound a little too good to be true, particularly in a Britain where masses of over educated graduates are competing for entry level roles in a heavily saturated job market. But there is a place where exercising your creative licence, working on innovative projects and earning 40K in your twenties can become a reality. The Silicon Roundabout, AKA Tech City is the home of many of the UK’s most successful tech start-ups. If you’re soon to graduate and want to...