Whenever I hear advice from successful entrepreneurs the most consistent mantra is “always hire the best people you can afford”.
But how good is “the best”, how do you measure that? Also, if you are in a young company, with very limited resources, how much can you really afford?
Let’s step back for a moment though and [...]

Every experienced Investor develops a sixth sense when looking at potential business opportunities, but even so it can sometimes be difficult to put your finger on what is the key ingredient in making a new venture successful.
Over the years of working with start-ups I’ve seen companies grow rapidly and then fall away, great businesses that [...]

A few days ago the office of the Prime Minister sent a letter to many small businesses and SME organisations explaining that a new online tool called Contracts Finder has been launched that will show all government tender opportunities.
At the same time he said they would eliminate the prequalification questionnaire (PQQ) for low value orders [...]

There’s a common misconception of the typical entrepreneur being a charismatic individual business person, not needing or wanting a partner’s help in driving forward his all conquering venture.
Think Richard Branson, Bill Gates, or the latest film idol, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook fame.
Yes they were the front men and there’s no doubt that they steered the [...]

Business gets ever quicker and there’s never a time now when we aren’t connected and “on-call”. It used to be that if you were on a train or car journey, there was valuable down-time where you could ruminate on life and free your mind to come up with new ideas.
It’s good to keep busy – [...]

I originally put a similar article to this in our resources section, but we continue to get questions about what to do if you have invented a new product, so I’ve also put these 7 tips here in the blog to reach a wider audience.
1. Work out whether it is an “invention” or a more [...]

During our last Business Plan Workshop we had an interesting question asked  – “when should someone accept that their idea for a business will not work?”
Normally I am adamant that you need persistence and belief in yourself, never give up your dream. But this made me stop and think.
Certainly in the past I’ve had entrepreneurs [...]