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 [...]

The first question is should it cost anything? After all it is the Investors who have money, so why should they charge in order to pitch to them?
Well, actually almost all Investors don’t charge a penny for entrepreneurs to present an investment case to them.
Investors are not looking to make money from people presenting [...]

I was putting together a business plan workshop for some MBA students the other day and looked for a couple of quotes to illustrate points. There are, as you can imagine, quotes for everything, sometimes contradictory.
There is one area though that no one disagrees with and it happens to be a pet issue with me. [...]

Last night I attended the keynote event of Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW), yes it’s this week, how could you miss it? Sitting in a packed conference centre of the British Library, I looked around at the alert eager faces of budding Entrepreneurs and thought this has to be the future for Britain.
Tom Bewick, the CEO [...]

Hands up those who have more sales than they can handle? It does happen, but for most small businesses it is a constant battle to get customers.
You’ve got a good product or service; in fact you are probably very proud of the quality and cost effectiveness of your offering. But sales don’t seem to be [...]

At one time business incubators seemed to be mentioned in the business section of every newspaper. Now they have a much lower profile and you might be forgiven for wondering what had became of them.
Since they tend to be focused on high growth, technology or knowledge-based industries, it’s not surprising that during the hay day [...]

Yesterday’s budget reminded me that there are still considerable tax benefits to owning your own business, beyond the normal personal tax choices of taking salary, or dividends.
The Chancellor has for a start not only continued with the Entrepreneur Relief Rate of 10% but expanded it up to a value of £5M. Now many entrepreneurs busy [...]

During the latest recession as skilled or senior professional people suffered redundancy, many decided to start their own businesses. Some escapees from the crash of the City actually became Investors into young businesses.
With the huge cuts to public spending now being implemented there will undoubtedly not only be direct job losses, but with contracts being [...]

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 [...]