Gimme 5 January 12, 2014 …FREE APPS FOR ENTREPRENEURS Asana asana.com/apps WHAT: Task management app offering real-time interaction across a company. WHY: “I can get more done with less effort. It keeps me on the pulse of what’s going on back at the office,” says Will Swannell, founder of venue booking service Hire Space. Citymapper citymapper.com WHAT: A transport app [...]
The pair taking peer-to-peer to property December 15, 2013 Annabel Palmer talks with lending platform founders Anthony Fane and Graham Wellesley THE BURGEONING peer-to-peer (P2P) lending industry could transform the personal loans market. It is currently worth £550m in the UK, but some experts expect that to increase to as much as £1bn by 2016. One of its newest entrants is Wellesley & Co, [...]
The Brit who managed to tough it out in unfamiliar territory December 9, 2013 Annabel Palmer talks strength, endurance and electric wires with Will Dean, co-founder of Tough Mudder and Englishman in New York THE growing obsession with wellbeing has now reached a point where 12-mile obstacle courses, designed by British Special Forces and incorporating icy cold water and electric wires, are among the most popular fitness events in [...]
Autumn Statement 2013: What it means for UK entrepreneurs December 8, 2013 ENTREPRENEURS are rarely political animals and don’t often get involved in the dirty business of politics. However, there are few people who are more impacted – for better or worse – by public policy. As such, every time the chancellor stands up to speak, entrepreneurs and small business owners should take note. The news from [...]
Innovation Diary: Tech City turns three: Cluster changes shape while the quango seeks scale December 8, 2013 TECH City has just turned three. There is some confusion over what this actually means, however. Tech firms have been located around Old Street roundabout since at least the 1990s, so it’s really just the anniversary of the government quango dedicated to stimulating them. Yet despite criticism (Sir James Dyson has attacked an obsession with [...]
The retail champion who puts fame after business December 1, 2013 Annabel Palmer talks T-shirts and Small Business Saturday with Made in Chelsea’s Oliver Proudlock THE SERGE DeNimes headquarters is a cosy studio-cum-office, located exactly where you would expect for a business whose founder has found fame on Channel 4’s hugely-successful reality TV show Made In Chelsea. I’m hesitant about interviewing Oliver Proudlock, who, when not [...]
The unlikely bedfellows driving a cab revolution November 24, 2013 Annabel Palmer talks taxis with Russell Hall and Ron Zeghibe, two of the founders behind Hailo IN 1639, a licence was granted to the Corporation of Coachmen, allowing its members to compete with the then-dominant licensed sedan chairs. Today, there are over 23,000 licensed taxi drivers in London. They’ve become a British institution – described [...]
Startup springboks who let the idea come to them November 17, 2013 Annabel Palmer meets Leon Blitz and Brad Fried, lifelong pals behind investment firm Grovepoint MOST entrepreneurs start with an idea – be it reinventing the wheel or simply finding a way to do something better than anyone else out there. The hard part is then taking the first steps – shunning job security for months [...]
It’s time for entrepreneurs to make their numbers heard – for the benefit of the wider British economy November 17, 2013 IN HOLLYWOOD action movies, the hero often battles a room full of villains, defeating them one at a time before rescuing the girl. However, the world isn’t a movie – on planet Earth, when it comes to getting your way, numbers matter. That’s why, in the 1970s, Britain was brought to a halt when the [...]
Entrepreneurship week comes to London: Four events worth watching November 17, 2013 IT’S GLOBAL Entrepreneurship Week, and this year’s theme (Take a Step Forward) is more timely than usual. Despite record numbers of new startups, UK entrepreneurs still find it more difficult to scale or reach the next stage of their development than their peers in the US. Whatever the reasons (and they are much debated), this [...]