The fast food revolutionary: EatFirst co-founder Rahul Parekh talks long hours, calories, mopeds and Mayfair hotels January 11, 2015 If you're after a startup story with a good luck streak, then that of Rahul Parekh, co-founder of EatFirst, might be the one for you. One evening, late last April, Parekh was holed up in a Mayfair hotel. He got chatting to some friends of a friend who, it transpired, worked for Rocket Internet – [...]
Gimme 5: Entrepreneurial reads for January January 11, 2015 Playing to Win by A G Lafley The chief executive of Proctor & Gamble shares how he restored the fortunes of the consumer goods giant. Lafley cleverly demonstrates the key connections between daily action and realising a long-term vision. £14.39 (Harvard Business Review Press) The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg The award-winning author [...]
The billionaire philanthropist: Chemical magnate Jon Huntsman talks egg boxes and saving lives January 4, 2015 Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.” That is what Jon Huntsman Senior, the self-made billionaire who has given away over 80 per cent of his wealth, said to me when I asked him what message he would like to send to today’s wealthy. [...]
How Tech City’s Future Fifty programme helped to supercharge my company’s growth January 4, 2015 My company, as one of a class of 12 firms, graduated from the Future Fifty at the end of last year, making room for a new class of 12. Future Fifty, a programme run by Tech City that aims to accelerate the development of growth-stage digital companies, has by now assisted many businesses well known [...]
Gimme 5: New Year events for entrepreneurs January 4, 2015 Grow Your Business in Europe A two-hour workshop on taking your business into Europe with limited resources, run by UCL in partnership with the British Library. 27 January, 2-5pm, British Library Free www.ucl.ac.uk/advances Digital Marketing Masterclass Grow, the small business marketing experts, host a masterclass covering the nine areas of digital marketing you must [...]
Gimme 5 December 21, 2014 …APPS FOR CUTTING DOWN ON STRESS Schedule Planner Free Staying on top of your daily routine and tasks is surely one of the best ways of making your working day less “mindless”, or stressful. And Schedule Planner is one of the most-loved planning apps out there. It’s designed with busy users in mind, and the [...]
Going places: The Source founder James Crabb talks risk-taking and velour sofas December 14, 2014 It was just time to do something completely different,” James Crabb tells me. He’s talking about going from managing director of global technology and operations at Deutsche Bank to founding The Source, a digital lifestyle business that satisfies the emerging affluents’ every need – from food, wine, travel and childcare to art, home interiors and [...]
Startup stumbling blocks: Be sure to avoid these four fatal pitfalls December 14, 2014 The capital is brimming with rising startup stars. Last week, seven up-and-coming fintech firms were selected to join the government-backed Future Fifty scheme, run by Tech City UK. The programme seeks out our most promising high-growth tech businesses and helps them get to market. More widely, the UK was recently ranked the most entrepreneurial nation [...]
Restaurateur Des McDonald discusses the burger revolution, forests and what it means to have cooking in your blood December 7, 2014 Sitting in your own month-old restaurant would be extremely exciting for most people. It is for Des McDonald too, except this is one of six – and they’ve all opened within the last two years. His second branch of The Fish & Chip Shop is the latest, and it’s bringing the City what McDonald describes [...]
How government is opening its supply chain – to small business’s benefit December 7, 2014 If you’ve never considered government as a potential client for your business, think again. Government spends £230bn every year on products and services across all layers – from central and local government, to the police, NHS, and emergency services. This may not previously have appealed to the small business owner, as the perception has always [...]