Hot on the heals of the top 20 entrepreneurs to watch, here are my top 20 UK Startups to watch in 2012. Their really are some great companies coming out of the UK right now and these 20 are no different.

Pay As U Gym

Founders: Jamie Ward, Mike Blake, Neil Harmsworth

Gym memberships can be expensive especially if you have to sign up to an annual contract. Well no more is this a problem, Pay As U Gym does ‘exactly as it says on the tin.’

The website allows you to purchase discounted pay as you go gym passes. Although launched only in London at the start of 2011, Pay As U Gym now has over 250 gyms across the UK with no membership, no fees and no inductions.

2012 could be a big year for Pay As U Gym.

Tribesports

Founders: Jenna Anians, David Hickson, Steve Reid, Andrew McDonough

Tribesports is a social network aimed at helping to motivate people to do more in their sports. Setting and sharing goals and having a peer network helps users keep improving on their sporting achievements.

Users in the community can set challenges and users join tribes dedicated around a chosen sport.

Created for sports enthusiasts and powered by sports enthusiasts, Tribesports delivers a social platform supported by a refreshing mix of affiliate marketing and social integration to the under-serviced active sports market.

Picklive

Founder: Tim Morgan

Picklive is a live Fantasy Football game where users make bets in real time. Users can play for free or for cash and basically choose a team and can see live stats for players as they pick up points. The game is split into 5 minute sections and so you can win multiple sections to win overall.

In what is an entertaining and addictive game it can certainly become a big hit as the quickness of the game and continuous live scoring and sections means that users are engaged throughout the game whilst not distracting from the game.

Starting of in football Picklive hope to expand into other countries and sports as they grow. As word spreads I can see Picklive picking up many sports fans over the coming year and expanding into other sports.

Housebites

Founder: Simon Prockter

Housebites allows you to order gourmet takeaway from great chefs in your local area. Any chef can start selling their home cooked meals (after being vetted) on Housebites and even make a living out of it. And all of this can be delivered to your door for the price of a pizza delivery.

The ease of the takeaway, but with the quality of a restaurant meal, delivered to your door, not bad. It also allows you to rate chefs and it’s delivered to your front door via a Housebites courier.

It’s a very cool idea and is backed by Paul & Michael Birch, who sold Bebo for $890m, the startup could take off massively this year.

Adzuna

Founder: Andrew Hunter, Doug Monro

Adzuna is a job search engine. It aggregates jobs from across multiple networks so you can search and apply for jobs from one site. But Adzuna is more than a massive jobsite, it integrates your social connections so that you can leverage your connections to give you an advantage when looking for a job.

Adzuna raised $300,00 from Passion Capital last summer to ramp up and start them on the way to becoming the biggest and best classifieds search engine globally.

Duedil

Founder: Damian Kimmelman

Duedil is a free database of information on companies in the UK.

Drawing on data from Companies House, Intellectual Property Office, Google, Social Networks, basically scraping the internet to pull in multiple data sources to build a company profile with financial records, litigations, director profiles, company credit check, stock information & more.

The fact that it is free and so simple to find so much aggregated data for companies it makes it informative & addictive for those looking for company information. It also has a ton of features and can already claim to be the largest database of free company financials in the world!

Blippar

Founders: Ambarish Mitra, Steve Spencer, Omar Tayeb

Blippar was launched in the summer of 2011 and already it has seen it’s augmented reality app put into the spotlight as they have teamed up some big brands for some cool interactive campaigns. Blippar allows brands to create interactive ads to engage audiences in a way which is more fun than the usual billboard or poster.

Augmented reality regularly comes up as one of the future next tech trends and Blippar is getting on the potential augmented reality advertising bandwagon early.  As it’s popularity increases and more brands take up the idea Blippar is in a good position to grow rapidly as well.

Hailo

Founders: Jay Bregman, Russell Hall, Caspar Woolley, Gary Jackson, Ron Zeghibe, Terry Runham

Hailo was founded in 2010. It’s a network that matches passengers and licensed taxi drivers. I have the app myself and it has been brilliant.

It uses your GPS to find where you are and locate the nearest taxi to you. From there you can hail the  taxi at the touch of a button and choose how you want to pay. The taxi will then get your, umm ‘order’? and come pick you up. When I used it, the taxi driver called me straight away to confirm where I was and that he was on the way.

Jay Bregman partnered with 3 taxi drivers as co founders, as well as two other internet entrepreneurs, and looks to change the way we hail taxis in London, and eventually other cities as the company grows.

Jay has already created a great business in eCourier which will be valuable in making Hailo a similar success.

MarketInvoice Limited

Founders: Anil Stocker & Charles Delingpole

These two university friends escaped the city in 2010 to startup their own company. Anil & Charles launched Marketinvoice, an innovative new cloud-based working capital platform, which enables small businesses to flexibly raise cash from a network of global investors.

They look set to disrupt an industry which has generally been lagging behind when it has come to innovation and have made some great strides in 2011 and the two young, smart entrepreneurs hope to take it to the next level in 2012.

We interviewed the guys back in June, you can take a look here.

UberLife

Founder: Sanchita Saha

With people socialising more and more online Sanchita founded UberLife to help people meet online in order to enable real world community and connections, in what she has coined an ‘Online2Offline’ service.

UberLife allows you to arrange a hangout when you’re doing or want to do something & see who’s free to come join you or you can simply join a hangout.

As we go more and more social online I think this will translate into more offline meetings and Sanchita’s creation, UberLife could go big in 2012 making this happen. It is already getting a large number of the tech startup scene using it, who tend to be the influencers of these kind of apps.

Find out a little more abut Sanchita here.

Crowdcube

Founders: Darren Westlake, Luke Lang

Crowdcube is the brainchild of Darren Westlake & Luke Lang and launched in February 2011 to much fanfare. The idea is that entrepreneurs invest in business ideas in an effort to crowdsource funding. It’s crowdfunding.

The benefit of the model is that those who pitch their ideas and businesses on Crowdcube then promote and share it across their networks and look to help get as many people to share it as possible which in turn brings traffic to the site and helps minimize the amount that the guys need to spend on marketing at this early stage.

With Dragon’s Den bringing the concept of angel investing to the masses, Darren & Luke realised that many people will have watched many ideas come out of the Den without any funding and thought to themselves that they would have put in a bit of money into that.

Now they can, with the ability to invest as little as £10 anyone can now invest in a business idea and see it come to life!

Bantr

Founder: Peter McCormack

Bantr is a social network for football fans. Fans can use Bantr to check-in to games, vote on the action, view live stats and as their name suggests, banter with other fans.

With social networks becoming more and more common in our daily lives, niche sites which cover a topic, especially one as popular and team based such as football will continue to grow as users can share and interact with others with the same common interest rather than the general nature of broader social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.

That is why I see Bantr doing well this year, especially fans from older sports forums, from the likes of the BBC, are closing down due to streamlining of their services. They have already now expanded into covering Spanish and Italian leagues and I’m sure many more will follow in the near future.

Check out our interview with Peter here.

Editd

Founders: Geoff Watts and Julia Fowler

What happens when you get a fashion designer and an expert at analysing big data? You get Editd, a fashion intelligence startup. The company based in London is able to offer market intelligence and spot trends using huge amounts of data crawled from multiple sources.

Editd offers customised industry trend data to clients which include retailers, merchandisers, designers and buyers.

They already have 10 high street retailers as customers & having raised their first bit of funding, $1.6million of seed funding they will hope to use that to grow further this year.

CloudBees 

Founder: Sacha Labourey

CloudBees allows you to build, run and manage java applications in the cloud letting companies build and test different user interfaces without having to worry about servers.

With more and more companies moving various IT services over to the cloud, the startup founded in 2010 could be in a good position to make the most of the interest as companies look to become more efficient and save costs.

2012 could be a good year for this cloud company.

Made.com

Founders: Ning Li, Julien Callede

Made.com are a online made to order furniture store. Made allows you to order furniture straight from some of the best furniture makers in the world. What’s best is this cuts out the plethora of middlemen that normal take a cut along the way and put prices up.

By cutting out the middleman made.com can offer very competitive pricing for furniture and with original designs, and the chance for users to vote on new designs to see them commissioned, I think once more people find out about made.com they will just have to worry about scaling the business quick enough.

 Pusher

Founders: Damien Tanner, Max Williams

Another cloud based service, Pusher allows developers to quickly and easily add realtime functionality to webapps. This means that people can create collaborative tools, multiplayer games, chat, realtime dashboards and more.

They raised $1million in seed funding in the last quarter of 2011 and can be confident of further funding at some point as they look to help developers make awesome stuff.

Lanyrd

Founders: Natalie Downe, Simon Willison

Social is everywhere right now, even at this conference directory startup Lanyrd. The directory of conferences, events and speakers allows users to sign in with Twitter to see what events their friends are attending and add their own events or even build a personal speaking profile.

It’s an interesting idea which has lots of potential to grow it’s offering in an attempt to make conferences even more social.

Buffer

Founder: Joel Gascoigne

Buffer is a social media app that allows you to store content in Buffer and schedule it to be posted on your social networks through the day. Just add content that you find, as you find it and add it to Buffer, it will then automatically be shared by Buffer and you can see all the analytics from your tweets inside the app.

Lookk

Founder: Gilbert Wedam, Tamas Locher, Andreas Klinger

Lookk connects designers with consumers. Designers can showcase their fashions building their brand and selling their fashions to an engaged audience.

You can support your a favourite designers and help influence what is in the Lookk store. Is this the future of fashion shopping?

The company raised funding last August led by some great investors in Eden Ventures, Dave McClure and Sherry Coutu.

Righster

Founder: Charlie Muirhead

Rightster is a technology and services company which makes distributing, marketing and monetising digital video content simple.

Digital media strategies are becoming ever more important for companies, including ITN, the British news producer, who are using Rightster to manage its online ad sales platform so that it is unified and Rightster will also syndicate all of ITN’s content online.

This is a big step forward for the startup and they will hope to get bigger deals like this over the course of the next year.

———

Who have I missed? Who do you think are the startups to watch in 2012?

Let us know in the comments we would love to hear from you!

Follow @rishi_chowdhury

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Today, continuing with my NEF interview series, I speak to Gordon McQuoid. The Zimbabwe born 28 years old grew up in Harare before moving over to the UK just before his 19th Birthday.

Gordon is currently part of the New Entrepreneurs Foundation, while also pursuing his own startup ‘Jobs in Network’ after selling his shares in a recruitment business he set up a few years ago.

Hi Gordon, Its great to finally have you on YHP, how are you doing today?

I’m great, thanks for the invite. It’s good to be here.

So tell us about how you got into entrepreneurship, what was your inspiration?

I’ve wanted to have my own business for as long as my mother can remember! When I was growing up people would always ask “what do you want to be” and I would always say that I just wanted my own business. It’s always just seemed like the natural path to pursue.

Why did you decide not to go university and head off straight into the working world?

I finished school in Zimbabwe after GCSE’s and went to college for a year. Neither of my parents went to university and it was never something that was pushed. In Zimbabwe going to uni isn’t as accessible as it is over here. I was eager to leave school and start earning money.

You worked for Ezek for over 3 years, how was your experience working for a Head Hunting company?

Ezek was a great place to work; I still regularly keep in touch with the two Directors. They really took a risk employing me and a colleague. We joined them to set up a new area in their business, which was recruiting in the defence industry, which they hadn’t done before. It was exciting and scary but we were given a lot of autonomy to get things done.

What are some of the key things you learnt from working there?

The key thing I learnt was really about was sales. When we started there we were given a computer and a phone, and managed to bring on board some large defence contractors as clients.

How did you know that was the right time to leave?

It was just as the recession really kicked in and the business was being restructured, which meant they we making cut backs. It felt like the right time to set up on our own, so we made a timely approach to the two directors who turned out to be incredibly supportive which definitely made it easier.

Tell me about Latronis then?

Latronis was born following the work I had been doing at Ezek. We focused on recruiting technical engineers and management in the defence industry. The roles we recruited for were quite specialist skill sets, which included Systems Engineers, Software Engineer and Programme Managers.

What would you say was probably the most difficult part of starting the business?

The hardest part was getting the cash flow and pipeline of sales again. I used my savings and borrowed some money from my parents to give us 6 months’ worth of money in the bank – just enough to live on and run the business. We came very close to running out of money. Fortunately we had our first invoice paid just in the nick of time to keep us trading!

What has been some of the key things that you’ve learnt running the business?

Getting those initial few clients is critical for cash flow! It’s an obvious one but until it was my business and I had to deal with it, it became very real. Also having a good accountant makes life so much easier.

Why did you decide to exit the company and how successful was the company?

It depends how you define successful. Deciding to exit wasn’t an easy decision. The New Entrepreneurs Foundation was a catalyst for change. I had been looking at the online recruitment industry for a while and things had started falling into place. I could see an opportunity and was sure that if I didn’t get on with setting up the “Jobs in Network” now then I’d kick myself in a few years.

What has been some of the differences working in a company compared to starting your own business or running a startup?

In your own business you get out what you put in. The harder you work the luckier you get. I guess you are limited when you work for someone else.

Jobs in Network Ltd was Started in March 2011, tell me how the idea came about and what it is?

The Jobs in Network is a company I set up to launch regional and local online job board services, joining job seekers looking for local jobs and employers looking for a cost effective way to recruit online. I had been kicking the idea around for a few years and when I started doing more and more research things started falling into place. It’s nothing revolutionary, but I see an opportunity for a variety of services which no one has really nailed (yet!).

The first job board to launch is Jobs in Cheltenham launched September 2011, how’s it going?

It’s going well, so far we have a number of local agencies using the service and we are delivering applications for jobs posted. I’ve learnt a huge amount and continually improving and tweaking things for the next job board, which will go live in a couple of weeks.

Tell me about NEF, why did you decide this was the next step for you, what was the process?

I saw Oliver Pawle, the founder, and Ed East on Sky News with Jeff Randall discussing the NEF and knew it was something I wanted to be a part of. I found the link to the website the following day via Twitter and sent in an application. It was a pretty intense interview and assessment process.

What opportunity has the NEF programme presented you with?

The NEF has presented all sorts of opportunities; the networking with other entrepreneurs is awesome. They also host speaker events, where we’ve had the likes of Luke Johnson from Risk Capital Partners and Al Lukies from Monitise sharing their experiences which is also very inspiring. Then there’s the training from companies like Deloitte, McLaren and LBS who have hosted events for us.

What would you say has been some of your most memorable moment so far?

There have been lots of memorable moments but one funny one was when Luke Johnson was telling us when he worked for a bank, when he was younger, he used to get so bored he’d go and sleep in the toilets.

What advices would you give to aspiring entrepreneurs looking to start their own business?

Get on with it, look for advice and help, there’s plenty of it out there.

What can we be expecting from you in the future?

Lots hopefully. Right now my focus is getting the Jobs in Network off the ground and then I’ll go from there.

If you’d like to follow Gordon on Twitter it’s @gordonmcquoid

APPLICATIONS ARE NOW OPEN! Applications for the 2012-2013 programme opened on 23 January 2011 at 9am. They will close at 12pm on 27 February 2012

I recently caught up with Sebastian Siemiatkowski, the founder and CEO of Klarna – one of Europe’s leading providers of payment solutions for e-commerce and took a trip down memory lane. He talks about his background, how the idea for Klarna came about, advices about investments (Klarna raised $155M in Series C funding late last year) and why even though people are moving away from paypal it is still a David vs Goliath story for them.

This is the full interview.

Can you give us some background information about yourself, were you the entrepreneurial type growing up?

I was born in Sweden by polish immigrants who fled the communist regime. Ever since I was a kid, I have been driven to prove that my family “deserved” the same that the rest of the Swedes had, so I got involved in a number of different projects that I thought would enable me to do so. I used to spend a lot of time coming up with business ideas, some just ideas, some I wrote down and some I realized in a small scale.

Tell me about the early days, how the idea for Klarna came about?

Niklas and I were on a trip with the aim to travel around the world without flying, when we got stuck in Australia and had to wait a month for the next cargo ship that would take us to Mexico. Due to the delay, I wasn’t able to return on time to continue my studies in 2003. Instead I got a job as a salesperson at a factoring firm, where I started to learn the business. Eventually I started to gain an understanding of online shopping, and I realized that there was a huge difference in how people were paying and how they would have preferred to pay. The company I was working for eventually went bust after I left, but the idea survived and I joined forces with Niklas and Victor to start Klarna. At the time, we all were students at the Stockholm School of Economics, which has a business lab that supports students who start companies. The opportunity to join the business lab was too good to pass up, so we presented our idea to them and they urged us to pursue it.

What would you say was the hardest part of starting the business?

Probably the hardest part was the decision itself to start. We were in the middle of our studies and all of the other students were talking about getting jobs in banks in London. To do something different and start a business was a huge step. What helped us was when we said to ourselves, “Let’s not talk about a life commitment. Instead let’s give this all that we have for 6 months and then see where we are.” And so we did.

What is Klarna? Tell me how it works?

We provide after delivery payment solutions for e-commerce. The basic idea is that buying is fun, whereas payment is a nuisance. That’s why we want to separate buying from paying, and the one way to do that is to let consumers pay after delivery. In practice that means that consumers pay via invoice rather than for example with their credit card at the moment of purchase. For consumers, this implies total safety as they don’t have to pay for anything before they are able to hold the ordered products in their hands. For online shops we provide a full payment guarantee and handle all payment related administration. it’s a win-win situation for everyone involved.

How were you able to convince investors to invest in your company at that time?

We were extremely fortunate to meet Jane Walerud. The school we were studying at has a good reputation. When the business lab invited some business angels to listen to pitches from all the companies in the lab, Jane was one of them who attended that Christmas party. Jane has founded and funded a string of successful companies. We were a bit surprised that she gave us more money than we had asked for, and for less of the company. I think part of it was that she liked the idea but even more so that she saw three 23-year-olds who were extremely motivated and prepared to work 90 hours a week to become successful.

How has the business evolved comparing to your first year of running it, the business model? Strategy?

The company has changed a lot. When we started we were 3 students, now we are 600 employees. Back then we were happy amateurs, today we are one of Sweden’s larger companies. We have added more bank like products to the business such as Klarna Account, which allows consumers to make purchases online and then pay in instalments. We have expanded to a number of geographies outside of Sweden. And we have become regulated like a bank and this entails huge consequences, such as the establishment of rules, procedures and processes in a high growth environment. The underlying idea, however, to create payment solutions that help merchants increase their sales has stayed the same.

What is your business model?

The question is how we can increase sales for online merchants by making payments simpler, safer and more fun. Safety comes from the fact that we know that most people who shop online would prefer to hold the product in their own hands before paying for it. After delivery payments make this possible. On the other hand, online shops incur a huge risk when delivering something without having received payment for it. This is precisely where we come in. We let consumers pay safely when shopping online and at the same time take the associated risk for the shops. Simplicity comes from allowing people to buy stuff online with an absolute minimum of information entered. We only ask for email, name and address.

How many users do you have? Paying customers?

We currently have more than 14 000 affiliated online shops in Europe and more than six million people have used our services.

Are you profitable?

Yes, and we have been profitable since the very start. We raised 80 000 Euro during our first round of funding and we spent only about half of it before we achieved profitability.

It must be very encouraging for you as everyone seems to be moving away from Paypal these days?

You have to hand it to Paypal that they are growing at a 30 % per year rate. That’s pretty impressive for such a big company. At the same time the internet is constantly evolving at an impressive speed. Companies who used to rule the net such as Yahoo, Netscape and Altavista are now shadows of their past glory. We foresee such a shift in payments as well and hope to be the leaders in it. However, this is still very much a David vs Goliath struggle for us.

Speaking of Paypal, how do stay competitive? What makes you guys different from the likes of Paypal, Stripe etc..

I think it is a combination of many things. Though it might not be the most important factor,we are one of few players in the market who is not dependent on VISA or Mastercard. All of the other vendors including the ones mentioned and others such as Square are dependent on these brands, which limits them in many ways. They make less money per transaction as they only earn a fraction of the revenue that a payment transaction generates. Moreover, while they may build beautiful shells, they are built on top of the existing infrastructure of VISA and Mastercard that has a Cobol legacy.

How has your market changed in the past few years? How has your business changed to keep pace?

Actually we see more and more of the market moving in our direction. To us it has been much more about making sure we grow the business and our organization in line with the market’s evolution, so that we can maintain the high quality of our services. We will continue on our mission to provide a shopping experience that is as simple as clicking the “Like” button on Facebook.

What would you say has been some of the most crucial things that you’ve done to grow your business?

I think Klarna has grown partly due to the expansion of our customers (on average e-commerce merchants have been growing at rapid rates, which fuels our growth as wellsince we charge per transaction). But if we look at what we have done ourselves I would note a couple of important things. We have a very strong sales organization that has a great winning culture. We have a track record of being very selective when hiring. What we could have done better is starting on a smaller scale in more markets earlier. Finally, we have had the fortune to work with some of the best growth investors in Sweden and internationally.

Coming back again to investments especially in Europe, a lot of people have talked about how difficult it has been to raise money, how have you seen this change over the few years?

There has definitely been a change. When we started this business in 2005 we did not even know what a series A was. We just needed money and really needed someone to invest. As mentioned, we had the good fortune to meet Jane. When we wanted to raise additional fundingin 2007 before the financial crisis there was no interest. We visited a lot of Swedish investors. However the VC market in Sweden at that time was totally dead. The only firm willing to invest was Öresund and so eventually they did. A lot had changed in 2009/2010 when we ventured on the international VC market. It helped that a number of Swedish companies had proven successful such as Skype and Spotify, while it also helped that we received mentorship from people in companies like Tradedoubler, Gymgrossisten, Pricerunner. The access to this type of money has dramatically changed in the Stockholm startup scene.

Klarna has been very successful raising money, you guys have just raise a staggering amount of $155 million in your Series C funding, why so much and what kind of plans do you have in spending that money?

Part of that money was used to purchase secondary stock from Öresund who had decided they wanted to sell a part of their shares. However it was still a big raise and the reason for that was simply that there are huge international growth opportunities for Klarna. Just as importantly, we believe that if we spend the money wisely to pursue our ideas about how to revolutionize payments, then we will build the foundation for a global giant in the payments industry.

What kind of advice could you give to startups looking to raise money, is there a special route or process that you have?

Well, over time I have learned to just stay in touch with any investor who contacts you and at least update him or her with a few emails now and then. Otherwise reach out to the usual suspects, often the firms that you find written about on sites such as Techcrunch. Make sure you have a good pitch prepared, and never go into exclusivity until you have received indicative bids. All investors will try to spend as much time as possible and keep asking for as much data as possible before they put in a bid. Just give them a deadline and a limited amount of data. If they are not ready to buy into your company at that point, then it’s not meant to be anyway. Don’t spend your time on too many people – choose the ones you feel like working with. Always have a route open to go to someone else if they start pushing too much about legal issues or during the business diligence process. Always raise funding when you still have money and try to avoid winding up in a situation where you need money ASAP.

What would you like to say to an entrepreneur contemplating bootstrapping or getting investment?

With so low start-up costs as we have today I would definitely bootstrap until I would be able to see that your services/products are getting some traction. Then I would raise money as you quickly want to expand the business.

What is an average workday like for you?

No day is like the next. I travel quite a lot between our different offices. I sit in interviews with people for all kinds of positions. I have meetings with my management team and the product teams. I meet existing and potential customers. I answer a LOT of emails.

What could you say has been some of the key things you’ve learnt so far as an entrepreneur?

The first thing is really boring but entirely true. If you work a lot, things happen; if you don’t, nothing happens. When we were sitting in the business lab we and one other company were the only ones who came in 7 AM in the morning and left 11 PM every day, Monday to Sunday. It’s also only our two companies that are still around. Scalability is the second thing. Do something that makes money when everyone is on vacation(i.e., that is as little people dependent as possible).

What has been your most memorable moment so far on your entrepreneurial journey?

There are numerous ones, but I would say the most important thing is that there has been so many. When Niklas and I travelled around the world without flying, we spent 143 days moving from one place to another. When I came back from that trip I felt physically old. My brain was stuffed with as much memories from the trip as I probably had from the rest of my life up until leaving for the trip. It reminded me of the truth in that old saying “the journey itself is the goal.” Or as we say in Klarna, change is not always enjoyable but it is always memorable.

What trends, startups, technology are you personally looking forward to in 2012?

Klarna will launch a new product that we believe will revolutionize the way people shop online.

What are your other plans for Klarna in 2012?

We want to become market leaders in all of the countries that we are present in – a goal that we are now closer to than ever before. And of course we want to continue to push the limits of e-commerce by launching new services and expanding to new geographies.

What pieces of advices could you give to aspiring entrepreneurs out there looking to start their business?

If you believe in your idea, stick to it no matter what others say. If we had not done that, Klarna would not be where we are today.

Each year we take a look at the young entrepreneurs, based in the UK, who we think are set to have a great year, you can see our 2011 list here, and this year is no different.

So here are 20 entrepreneurs, founders and co founders, who you may want to watch in 2012, there are some great companies here and I’m sure you will be hearing a lot more about them over the next 12 months.

Here they are:

Josh Buckley (MinoMonsters)

Josh Buckley is the CEO and founder of MinoMonsters, a Pokemon type game where you can battle and trade pet monsters. Josh is the youngest CEO to have raised funding from investment giant Andreessen Horowitz at 19 years of age.

The Kent born youngster sold his first company at the age of 15. He created ‘Menewsha’ a community where users create whimsical avatars and interact online for fun. He sold this for a six figures sum while still in school.

He then moved to Silicon Valley & participated in Y Combinator to help take his company to the next level and take on Pokemon brand. His USP is it is a game for iOS where Pokemon is not available.

Expect to be hearing more of this young CEO as he ventures into the mobile gaming space with no fear.

Nick D’Aloisio (Summly)

Nick D’Aloisio is only 16 years old but he has already managed to raise $250,00 in funding for his startup, Summly. He created an app that offers a simpler way to browse and search the web by automatically summarising search results, web pages and articles to make content easier to sift to and find what is most relevant to you.

In it’s first 4 days after it reached 17k downloads and is now well over 100,000. Still studying for his GCSE’s he had to get special dispensation to delay his mocks while he traveled to San Fransisco.

So to sum it up, he is one to watch in 2012!

James Gill (GoSquared)

James Gill is the CEO and co founder of GoSquared a real time web analytics service which he started during his gap year. rather than taking the year to travel, he decided to build a web app which people would pay for and by the end of the year him and his co founders realised they had done just that.

James now works on GoSquared at White Bear Yard from which GoSquared got their angel funding and they are surrounded by other great startups which will help them as they look to grow and take on their main rivals Chartbeat.

You can see our video interview with James here.

Lucian Tarnowski (Brave New Talent)

Lucian Tarnowski is the founder and CEO of Brave New Talent, a social recruitment network.  The passionate young entrepreneur loves social media and leverages the sharing and engagement inherent in social networks and applies it to job recruitment.

Lucian has also been honored as Europe’s youngest Young Global Leader (YGL) by the World Economic Forum. He is also the youngest  entrepreneur to join UKTI (United Kingdom Trade and Investment) so age isn’t a factor as he goes about his mission to change the face of job recruitment and skills building.

He is a confident leader and looks set to have a big year in 2012.

Maria Constantinescu (Slick Flick)

Maria Constantinescu is the founder of SlickFlick, which allows you to create storyboards on the iPhone using your photos. An ex lawyer Maria left law to start Curious Quests and the Slick Flick app.

Maria is trying to take creativity to the masses and has been get the app out into the film industry and creative industries to get support and name out amongst a sector which will find it used by most. Being based in the heart of Shoreditch she is surrounded by creatives in every direction which should serve her well.

Having secured an association with Apsmart, they have a great partner which can help them continue to improve the app and add weight to their proposal when they go for funding.

Ry Morgan (PleaseCycle)

Ry Morgan (right) is the founder and CEO of PleaseCycle, provides products and services for organisations to encourage cycling within the workplace.

Ry went from being an intern at CURB media (a really cool startup by the way!) to founding PleaseCycle with the founder & CEO of CURB media, Anthony Ganjou (left). A born entrepreneur Ry has gone from top student, to graduate to founder & CEO.

He has a great drive to grow PleaseCycle massively and his determination and vision has helped him build a great experienced team which will in no doubt help see them progress rapidly in 2012.

Find out more about Ry from his guest post on YHP.

Michael Korn (KwickScreen)

Michael Korn is the founder of KwickScreen, a portable, retractable, room divider which provides isolation or privacy solutions. Initially the design was meant to be used in hospitals to act as a privacy barrier between patients and it was perfect for this. It’s small size and easy and quick set up was perfect for the hospital environment.

Michael has now seen the product, which took 4 years of design iterations to get it ready for release, enter new markets and is being used in universities, exhibitions, offices etc…

It is a well thought out design and the ideas has already received recognition. Michael was named Shell LiveWIRE Young Entrepreneur of the Year 2011.

Look out for KwickScreens popping up near you in 2012.

Emi Gal (Brainient)

Emi a young Romanian entrepreneur started Brainient in 2009. Brainient is a a video advertising technology company, based in London’s silicon roundabout, and currently has two products. First an interactive video advertising product and second one is a personalised video retargeting platform.

Emi has a lot of experience with startups at his young age, having previously founded two and has also been an advisor or helped out on various other tech startups.

This experience will hold him in good stead and help as Brainient looks to grow further in 2012.

Check out our video interview with Emi here.

Damian Kimmelman (Duedil)

Damian founded Duedil in April 2011 with the aim to make business more transparent, helping executives and entrepreneurs make well-informed business decisions, by allowing users to easily find company information for free.

Damian has pivoted Duedil from a people recommendation system, like a ‘Yelp for people’, to it’s current state as a database of companies.

He has also overseen Duedil raise funding from some of the investors behind Skype, LastFM & Yahoo as well as being chosen as a Microsoft Bizspark company which should help his disruptive startup make big strides in 2012!

Kevin Flood and Mike Harty (Shopow)

Kevin & Mike started the company, a social shopping engine and community, straight out of university raising £830,000 in angel funding.

Founded in early 2010, it was launched in May 2011 and currently works directly with over 22,000 online retailers to help give them the most accurate price comparison.

Currently available in the US & UK they look to grow further in 2012 and with the social nature of the site and strong community it has the ingredients to  rapidly accelerate growth as members share recommendations across there networks.

The company is expecting to surpass £3million in revenue in it’s first year has already seen it’s popularity abroad with 50% of revenues coming from overseas.

It has been dubbed the ‘Facebook of shopping’ & the two founders have already been named in Growing Business Young Guns.

Chris Prescott and Daniel Noz (Fantasy Shopper)

Fantasy Shopper is a social shopping game, only launched in October 2011 and has already seen massive interest. Users spend fantasy currency to buy clothing & create a virtual wardrobe full of different outfits from over 300 real high street shops. It’s a bit like creating a wishlist but what’s great is you can then buy your virtual outfits from the real life stores.

It’s a fantastic idea that Chris dreamt up one night and has proved very popular to date. apparently it is very addictive and it shows. Within 2 weeks of launching, the platform was seeing a fantasy sale every 14 seconds.

One feature that brings users back for more is that every hour you gain more credits, so users login multiple times a day to collect their virtual paydays.

The fact that it is linked to your Facebook also helps increase awareness of it to your network and this social sharing will greatly help with it’s growth.

Chris has come up with a great idea and is described on the Fantasy Shopper site as “having all the traits of a mad inventor… i.e. he’s a little bit nuts!” Which is good right? Even better is he is backed up by Dan, the tech guy who ‘get’s stuff done’.

All this will help Chris & Daniel take Fantasy Shopper to the masses in the next year.

Fiona Wood (Naturally Cool Kids)

As a mum Fiona has had to deal with all sorts of skin allergies which led her to search for natural skincare products for her kids, but to her surprise found a lack of natural skincare products for kids.

She entered the ‘Barclays Take One Small Step’ competition, where she was one of the 10 regional winners, after mum’s across the country voted for her idea. She started the company in July 2010 and has not looked back since.

Fiona spotted a gap in the market and is taking full advantage of this. She has the passion and determination to see her products being sold across the world. After her initial plans to launch two skincare products, she actually launched with six products and has already seen them in over 20 retail stockists, including John Lewis & Tesco Nutri centre, as well as online.

She has big plans ahead and look out for her products across the UK this year as she looks to further expand the number of stockists.

Luke Hood (UKF)

Luke Hood is a 19 year old from Frome, Somerset who is taking Youtube by storm with his UKF channels. After starting putting up his favourite dubstep tunes up on youtube and showcasing fresh new music he found his subscribers rocketed and he was soon over 1 million!

What started as a hobby has become a business. He is super passionate and since this was what he was passionate about in the first place it will help in growing it as a business.

He has started expanding into events and live online events as well so youngsters into dubstep and drum n bass who can’t get into these events can view it from online.

There is lots of scope to grow and he already has the subscribers, maybe in 2012 he can do what Jamal Edwards has done in 2011.

Jack Smith (Vungle)

Jack Smith is the founder of Vungle, a mobile app user acquisition platform focused exclusively on video ads. The company helps those with apps to show the apps full potential through video advertising rather than just text descriptions and user reviews. Using video to help acquire quality users.

Although just 22, Jack has a fair bit of experience having started his first company at the age of 15 and then while at uni, set up ideabox an undergraduate business ideas competition and was MD at Mediaroots.

He has now seen Vungle expand to the US with an office in San Fransisco and I wouldn’t be surprised to see Jack get funding for Vungle this year.

Joshua March (Conversocial)

Joshua March is now onto his second business, Conversocial an integrated Social CRM and marketing software which helps companies with marketing and customer support via social media.

With social media becoming a mainstay in our day to day lives it is essential for all businesses to be active on social networks and be able to effectively monitor conversations around your business and industry.

Josh saw this and started Conversocial a couple years ago and has developed it too a position where they can expect to grow rapidly as more and more businesses start realising the potential of social media.

Josh previously founded the first preferred Facebook Development company in the UK with Dan Lester and has lots of experience in the social space from it’s early days.

Helen McAvoy and Naomi Kibble (Rocktails)

Helen & Naomi two Cardiff based young entrepreneurs tapped into the huge popularity of cocktails drunk by the population on nights out. Despite this there isn’t a competitive offering for easily making cocktails at home.

These two cocktail fans went about changing that spending over £20,000 developing frozen cocktails in a pouch. Great for consumption at home with friends, the two friends managed to secure a six months trial with Sainsburys which could lead to a wider deal.

Helen & Naomi have already secured a big deal early on in the companies life & are ahead of their forecasts, this should hold them in good stead as they look to expand in 2012.

Mansoor Hamayun, Christopher Baker-Brian & Laurent Van Houcke (BBOXX)

Christopher, Laurent & Mansoor started BBOXX a company which develops methods of distributing renewable energy to developing countries. The three young entrepreneurs have spun off the company from e.quinox, a charity at Imperial College London.

With power consumption growing in developing countries, solutions to cope with the increased demand for energy will be more in demand than ever and these two entrepreneurs are making sure they are in a position to supply a suitable solution in the way of portable solar products.

They will look to rapidly expand on their partnerships in developing countries over the next year.

Emma Sinclair (Target Parking)

Emma Sinclair is a passionate young entrepreneur. She had the high powered, high paid city job but she left it to start Target Parking. After investing in a small car parking firm she set up Target parking which offers services for car parks across Britain. Including cash handling, security & facilities management.

The 29 year old is the youngest person to float a company on the Alternative Investment Market and her business acumen has seen her tie up some big deals which helped the company see revenues of just over £1million and she fully expects that to grow further in 2012.

She is excited to see what the future holds and determined to make the company the best in it’s industry and her background suggests she has what it takes.

Russell Whitter (Rate Your Player)

Russell Whitter (right) is the founder of Rate Your Player (RYP) an online social football network. Having started it after seeing his favorite football forum close it’s doors he has developed the website into a fully fledged social network based around football.

Russell is the brother of footballer Wayne Routeledge (left) and has therefore been able to call on him and his footballer friends to help endorse the site and increase it’s popularity. He was able to call on his friends to help him build the site and keep costs down and hopes to see the site increase in popularity as social networks do. Since this is targeted specifically to football which has more fans than any other sport in the UK he has a large market to tap into.

Russell hopes to expand the network into other sports as well and looks to grow the number of users quickly in 2012 as the social aspect snowballs with more and more users helping it grow further.

Rashid Kasirye – (Link Up TV)

Rashid Kasirye started Link Up TV, an online music and talent platform, straight out of college and has seen it grow from humble beginnings to a strong online community, which sees their YouTube page hitting over a million monthly views and thousands of fans on Facebook and Twitter.

Rashid has already seen the company make music videos for artists on some of the top UK music channels and his popularity is sure to keep growing in the industry. As we journey through 2012 and Link Up TV step up their video production capacity I’m sure you will see even more music videos in the charts made by Rashid and his team.

–

Who have I missed? Who are your young entrepreneurs to watch in 2012?

Let us know in the comments we would love to hear from you!

Follow @rishi_chowdhury

Be sure to check out the YHP magazine and subscribe for news and the latest articles from YHP.

So much has been said over the past few years about: The rise of the ebook, the death of traditional publishing, the emergence of self publishing and If your moving away from physical books into the Kindle and ibooks world then you will probably love Readmill.

I invited the founder, Henrik Berggren on YHP to learn more about the company.

Can you give us some background information about yourself, were you the entrepreneurial type growing up?

I was born in the south of Sweden in 1980, my parents moved around quite a lot so I ended up living in all bigger cities in Sweden. I don’t know if I was entrepreneurial but I was loud As the middle child of three I always had to scream for attention. But I remember selling an old family tv set to a friend from school, my dad was so happy about both getting rid of the old thing and getting money so he gave me half.

Tell me how the idea for Readmill came about?

It was born out of frustration for Kindle and iBooks which both provides pretty crappy experiences, especially when it comes to social. So we went to San Francisco where we met Caterina Fake, founder of flickr. She showed us this book which made us realize how important and cool highlights are.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hinkeb/5232293964/

What is Readmill? Tell me how it works?

Readmill is a simple, social reading platform. We currently support a range of apps where you can share what you read and highlights you make. We also help you finding your next book to read through your friends.

Tell us about the first few months of running the business? What would you say was the hardest part of starting the business?

Wow, a lot of things. I think the hardest part is knowing what to focus on. The todo lists are endless and you have to make the right decisions.

How have you been able to fund the business?

We raised a small seed round last year from two London based VC firms.

How has the business evolved comparing to the your first year of running it, the business model? Strategy?

Strategy wise everything changed. From only recommendations and integrations to becoming the iTunes for reading.

What is your business model?

Premium subscriptions for publishers offering extra features.

Are you profitable?

No

How many users do you have? Paying customers?

We have quite a few users now and we’re growing fast.

What makes you different from other competing platforms out there?

We care a lot about design and focus on helping other readers become social.

What could you say has been some of the key things you’ve learnt so far as an entrepreneur?

Good question, it’s probably that building a team is extremely fun!

What has been your most memorable moment so far on your entrepreneurial journey?

When me & David were raising money we did a really bad pitch to a group of investors. It was kind of a done deal but we really fucked it up and ended up lying on the floor in the apartment we had borrowed, crying.

What trends, startups, technology are you personally looking forward to in 2012?

I’m mostly looking fwd to the continued rise of ebooks. And hopefully we’ll see more tablets on the market.

What are your other plans for Readmill in 2012?

We’re still working hard on making Readmill available for everyone. This year we’re launching iPhone support, better recommendations and much more.

What pieces of advices could you give to aspiring entrepreneurs out there looking to start their business?

Don’t look, start

Editor’s Note: Michael Tyrimos is co-founder at Synups and the Cypriot Enterprise Link. He was awarded as the “NACUE President of the Year 2010”, and as a “Leader of Tomorrow” at the 41st St Gallen Symposium. Michael is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and an Associate of King’s College London.

Picture via Tech City

Over the years there have been several discussions about how hard it is to be an entrepreneur in the UK – pointing at the absence of an appropriate infrastructure to support entrepreneurial clustering and the lack of a risk-taking culture, which can embrace failure as a lesson learned.

Taking a step towards change, last year the British government joined forces with entrepreneurs, students and major corporations, aiming to transform East London into an uprising technology cluster. Following the unveiling of the TechCity map by the Prime Minister in November 2011, the “Digital Capital of Europe” (as it was proclaimed) was now in the spotlight. Would the “Silicon Roundabout” be Europe’s equivalent to Silicon Valley in California, or the new Silicon Alley in New York?

By definition a technology cluster is a place where intelligence is connected and the “knowledge spillovers”, as the Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman describes them, become prominent as a result of the free knowledge exchange by the various local actors (firms, entrepreneurs, supporting institutions, etc.). According to Bresnahan, Gambardella and Saxenian (2001), the development of a cluster divides into the stages of formation and growth. The formation starts with the first investments towards new innovations and the bundling of talent (which is exactly what the government is now trying to achieve), while the growth phase begins when the cluster actually captures its target market and begins to attract more talent and supporting institutions (e.g. VCs, consultants, legal firms) to join it. As a result, the benefits to a single firm are also of benefit to the entire region, hence a greater accumulation of talent and expertise at a local level is creating an unparalleled competitive advantage that “distant rivals cannot match”, Porter (1988) explains.

Despite the general enthusiasm around the Techcity, there have been various concerns regarding its future and long term development in terms of: a) the funding available to the region’s new businesses, b) its geographical location against the organic development and structure of the Silicon Fen (in Cambridge) and the Silicon Glen (in Scotland) (Source: The Guardian, Nov. 2011) and c) the fact that the current development programme, created around the Techcity and provided by Entrepreneur First, is only offered to University graduates. Hence Zuckerberg, Gates, or Jobs would not qualify as a Wall Street Journal article describes – nonetheless there’s a misconception here. Let’s be honest 1) if you launch the next Facebook, Microsoft or Apple, I highly doubt that you will ever need to join any enterprise development programme and 2) for that reason Entrepreneur First is focused on graduates, which don’t see themselves in a corporate environment, yet are looking for an alternative route to help them develop as leaders and put their creativity and skills into practice; to become entrepreneurs. As Matt Clifford (CEO, Entrepreneur First) states: “these are the people most likely to postpone the entrepreneurial dream in favour of something else – only to find that they never find time to make the dream a reality”. Therefore, Entrepreneur First gives you the chance to break away from the conventional career path and work on your ‘thing’. If you ask me, this is awesome to say the least.

Whatever the case, one should not forget that Techcity is currently at “version 1.0” and many upgrades as well as “bug fixes” are expected in the future. We should not fail to acknowledge the bigger picture and connect the dots. In my opinion, here are three (of many) reasons explaining why Techcity matters:

It constitutes the next link to an entrepreneurial chain: As previously mentioned along with Techcity, comes Entrepreneur First – backed by the UK government and launched by McKinsey & Co, Entrepreneur First aims to support talented students, who wish to build and grow their businesses, for a period of up to two years. This could be a significant extension to the tremendous work of NACUE (National Association of College and University Entrepreneurs), which launched in 2009 by students and is now supporting more than 40,000 members in 100 colleges and universities. The two organizations could complement each other at a great extent. Considering NACUE is providing leadership training and student enterprise society support at University level, while Entrepreneur First’s curriculum picks up after graduation by helping students to launch their business and put their ideas to market, the two entities automatically create a continuation in the entrepreneurial path of a student, ultimately contributing to the creation of a new generation of entrepreneurs.

It is a new hub in an entrepreneurial ecosystem: The initiative came to fit in nicely with grand enterprise events, such as ‘Silicon Valley comes to the UK’ (SVc2UK) event series, which was hosted at multiple universities in the UK, as well as Techcity itself (at the SVc2Techcity). Moreover, the Techcity initiative also came to feature the activities of rising British startups, such as Enternships, which connects student and graduate talent to startups and small businesses with more than 3000 companies (including Groupon, Paypal, Huddle and others since 2009), and that now supports the operation of Entrepreneur First’s website. As the region develops, further entrepreneurial collaborations will undoubtedly become prominent.

It bridges two contrasting worlds: To some extent the development of Techcity managed to bridge the two contrasting worlds of entrepreneurs and corporates, via the investments and mentorship of major corporations such as Google, Vodafone, Intel, Cisco and other non-tech related companies, towards the development of the region and its startups. During the creation of Entrepreneur First for instance, it was remarkable to see how the McKinsey associates, engagement managers and even senior partners sat down with other corporate executives (even with competitors), university professors, student leaders and young entrepreneurs, to create a joint plan of action on how the programme’s curriculum should be designed and implemented. Everyone had a say and everyone’s opinion mattered.

In this regard, Techcity as an initiative is not an island, but a powerful addition to an enterprise revolution, which began a few years ago by many contributors – NACUE, Sandbox, Enternships and many other enterprise activity-based hubs (including the website you are currently reading!) As Abraham Lincoln once said “I will prepare and some day my chance will come”. Without a doubt, a new wave of entrepreneurship is now underway in the UK, ready to make its landmark in an ever-dominating global digital economy. The nodes are being connected, the synergies and relations around Techcity are becoming denser, and for the ones prepared to jump in the loop, it looks like the day has come – your chance is now.

This post is written by Ben Jenkins and is brought to you by Purecontent, Purecontent is a leading web content production company.

Regulations abound for health and safety at work, and in some occupations there are obvious hazards connected with specific environments. A factory floor or a construction site are two examples where workers often need to deal with heavy machinery and equipment, and where protective clothing or other safety gear has to be worn. In large offices there may be issues around how rooms are laid out and where equipment is placed, and normally a risk assessment or audit will establish key areas where certain precautions need to be taken.

For both large and smaller companies, including those whose workers sometimes work from home, it may be that few people give any thought to health and safety issues when employees are spending most of their time simply working at their computer or at a desk. In fact, employers and employees alike ignore these issues at their peril. It is possible to sustain harmful injuries as a result of long-term deskwork and, as employers can be held liable even when employees work from home, it makes sense to take advantage of health and safety at work training to ensure preventable injuries simply do not happen.

What could go wrong?

The kinds of injuries that are frequently sustained include pain in the hands or arms from repetitive use of a keyboard or mouse; eye strain, headaches or pains in the neck or lower back. This often occurs because the worker has adopted a poor posture, their seating arrangement or screen height is wrong, or when computer use is uninterrupted for a long time. There are some basic tips that help to ensure these injuries are avoided.

Seating

An adjustable chair enables employees to select the right height for their desk or computer. Wrists and forearms should be straight and parallel to the floor, not stretched upwards or bending downwards to reach the keyboard. The chair should support the lower back and supports for the feet may also be needed, so that the hips are level with the knees, and the legs are not crossed, which can affect circulation.

Computer screen and keyboard

Monitors should be at eye level and at arm’s length to avoid eyestrain and prevent computer users from having to bend their necks into uncomfortable positions. Use a stand if necessary to change the height of a screen. Reduce unwanted glare from a screen by changing position or adjusting brightness levels. Keep wrists straight when using a keyboard and use a wrist rest if necessary between typing sessions. The rest might be attached to a mouse mat, and the mouse should be kept close to hand to minimise stretching and strain.

Desk accessories

Keep frequently used items, such as telephone, paper, or pens close by, so they can be reached easily. Do not stretch or twist to retrieve objects, and if a telephone is used a great deal, opt for a headset.

These are a few pointers, but there is no substitute for a good health and safety training course which will provide comprehensive information on staying healthy and avoiding injury, and this is a good investment for employers and employees alike.

I recently interviewed Jens Lapinski, the founder of aiHit, a London-based, VC-backed business information services company and recently one of the new members of the entrepreneur in residence at Forward Internet Group.

In our interview, he shares some of his knowledge and advices on starting a business, raising investment, bootstrapping and advices for aspiring and first-time entrepreneurs.

Hi Jens, thanks for doing this with me, I know you are very busy at the moment

Hi, thanks for having me.

Can you give us some background information about yourself, were you the entrepreneurial type growing up?

I grew up in Dusseldorf, Germany, which is a city of about 550k inhabitants close to the Dutch border. I wouldn’t say I was massively entrepreneurial in school. The only thing I did was to give maths classes to younger pupils. Mind you that was pretty well paid at 15 Marks per hour (about Euros 7.50). I became more entrepreneurial in University.

Tell me about what you do?

Until the end of 2011, I was the CEO of aiHit, a London-based tech startup, which I co-founded in 2007. I hired a new CEO who started in January 2012 and am now a non-executive director at aiHit. I am very excited to now be working as an Entrepreneur in Residence with Forward Internet Group. Forward has some 250 staff and >£100m revenue. I am working full-time with a small team that is focusing on startup up new products using lean startup techniques.

Tell me about the early days, how did the idea for aiHit came about?

I was working at Library House, a business information and research outfit based in Cambridge. In 2006, I went to Germany to watch WorldCup football with about 10 VCs. Later on, one of them, Simon Cook, the CEO of what is now called DFJ Esprit introduced me to my co-founders. They had the technology to automatically extract from the web the data Library House was generating by hand. My thought was that when somebody can automate what had previously been done by hand, this has the potential to revolutionise any industry, so that is why we started aiHit.

What would you say was the hardest part of starting the business?

Starting a business is easy. The hard part is to get to the point where you have sufficient critical traction with your idea in order to pay all the salaries.

What is aiHit? Tell me how it works?

aiHit is a provider of automated company data to business information companies, credit reference agencies, and business directories. The company uses advanced artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies to automatically create feeds of structured company data from unstructured sources on the Web. Our customers use these feeds to improve their existing products at an attractive cost point.

How has your market changed in the past few years?

Our market has accelerated in our direction. When we started selling, we had to continuously justify that data generated from web is a good idea. That has completely stopped in the last 18 months, which has been great.

What would you say has been some of the most crucial things that you’ve done to grow aiHit?

Pivot. We initially had the idea to sell business information to customers in a retail model, but that never worked for us. We then pivoted towards selling the data in a wholesale model and that was much more successful.

Coming back again to investments especially in the UK, a lot of people have talked about how difficult it has been to raise money, how have you seen this change over the few years?

I think this has remained more or less the same. The players have changed. How web savvy they are has changed. But in terms of how hard it is has remained more or less the same.

aiHit has been very successful raising money, What kind of advice could you give to startups looking to raise money, is there a special route or process that you have?

Yes, we did. It is described on my blog here: http://jenslapinski.wordpress.com/vc-fund-raising-manual/
Overall though, I think about this as follows: raising money is all about the confidence investors have in you. This means you either have a strong personal relationship with them or you have actual data from your business that proves your business is worthwhile. If you have neither, you probably won’t raise money (unless you are in a very very frothy market).

What would you like to say to an entrepreneur contemplating bootstrapping or getting investment?

The big difference between bootstrapping and getting investment is where the money comes from. When you bootstrap, it is your money. When you take investment, it is somebody elses money. In any case, just make sure you are realistic as to how long it will take and how much money it will take to get to break even. If you bootstrap, you could be both broke and in debt, so make sure you are building a bridge to somewhere where you can recoup that investment. If you take external money, the same applies. Also, when you deal with external investors, you are in fact bringing them into the company. It is like hiring. So screen your investors with the same routines you would screen employees for.

What is an average workday like for you?

That has changed totally for me! Since November last year, I am a father and now I work with Forward. Give me a few months and I will tell you what my new typical day looks like.

What pieces of advices could you give to aspiring entrepreneurs out there looking to start their business?

I have a list of learnings that is as long as my arm. My key learnings are as follows. There are three things that are important: strategy, people, and execution. What this means is as follows:

1. Strategy: When you start, really make sure that there is a market for what you do, before you do it. Read Steve Blank’s “4 Steps to the Epiphany” and Eric Ries’ “Lean Startup” before you start doing anything. Make sure there are a lot of potential customers and that this market is growing fast.

2. Team: When you build your company, make sure you have a small, dedicated, high quality full time team of people who all sit in the same little room, in the same boat, and work their asses off to get out of that small little room. Get co-founders whom you have worked with for a long time. Get mentors to help you for free (or a bit of equity over time).

3. Once you have product market fit, it is about execution, execution, execution. Hiring will be the most important aspect here, as well as building the right company structures and procedures.

What are you personally looking forward to in 2012?

Working at Forward.

Anthony Silver, the former President of the LSE SU Entrepreneurs incumbent ‘Pitch It!’ business planning competition has decided to take his business planning competition a step further to start ESS. It all started after the initial success of ‘Pitch It!’ and feedbacks began to roll in, some of it stated the obvious need of a platform that can close the gap between student entrepreneurs and investors.

After realising that many aspiring entrepreneurs could benefit from the Pitch It! competition to receive prizes that would help them start up their businesses, an opportunity for student entrepreneurs to pitch their businesses to select angel investors and venture capital firms.

Anthony then partnered with Bjoern, becoming Co-Presidents, who together started building an executive team and continued to mould the concept. The brand image, including the name ‘European Student Startups’, was then created in a joint committee effort, lead by Nagehan and Riccardo. Further development of all aspects of the competition also came from Faisal and Veronika.

He also partnered with the continent’s best university entrepreneurial societies to access a much wider pool of applicants, European Student Startups is set to be a very unique event and a fantastic opportunity for young entrepreneurs looking to start up their businesses.

There will be three rounds where entrepreneurs will pitch their businesses to a board of investors and those that make it to the last round will then have fantastic opportunities to start up their enterprises.

European Student Startups is Europe’s first Venture Capital Competition exclusively for students. It is hosted in London, UK and sponsored by the London School of Economics Entrepreneurs Society.

Apply NOW: Deadline is January 27th, 2012.

http://www.europeanstudentstartups.com

I recently spoke to Ville Vesterinen about his latest startup Grey Area Labs. Ville Vesterinen is the Co-founder and CEO of the Location-based mobile company and prior to joining Grey Area Labs, Ville Co-founder ArcticStartup – dubbed as the Northern European TechCrunch and he is also a member of the Investment Council at Finnish Industry Investment Ltd.

This is what we talked about.

Can you give you some background information about yourself, were you the entrepreneurial type growing up?

I have always been very entrepreneurial. I started my first company after high school. Back then snowboarding was my life and we started a retail outlet in the small town as I’m from in Southern Finland. I have also co-founded two media companies and I’m still involved with one of them, ArcticStartup which is like the Northern European TechCrunch.

Tell me how the idea for Grey Area came about?

Grey Area was originally started by Mikko Hämäläinen, Andreas Karlsson and Teemu Tuulari. One summer day we got excited and decided that we want to build it out together. It was a pipedream of three guys who become four guys and who were really excited about the intersection of games and cities. We believed we could build something that would change the urban landscape and games forever. And we did, but are far from done.

What is Grey Area?

Grey Area is a game developer company based in Helsinki, Finland. We released Shadow Cities – a location based MMORPG for iPhone – globally in 2011. It has became a category defining game title. If you ask our fans, they will tell you there’s nothing like it.

Talk me through the first few months of running the business? What would you say was the hardest part of starting the business?

The hardest part is always the starting. Taking that first step and going all in. You need to really believe in what you do and be passionate because everything will not go smooth and if you’re in it for the wrong reasons you will give up when you hit the first rough path along the way. And there will be a lot of those days.

How were you able to fund the business?

I still remember when Mikko posted to Jaiku (a Twitter like service back in the day) that he had quit his job and sold his car. The guys funded the early days from savings and minimal client work. When I jumped along we quickly raised €100,000 with which we launched the game in Finland. After that we raised €1.9 million to scale the company and launch globally.

Would you say the initial idea for the company, or that your business model has changed since 2010?

The big idea has not changed. We’re still out to crack the location based game play although the road to that has not been linear. If you have a strong and big enough vision, it does not matter even if everything won’t go as planned.

Your first game is called shadow cities? Tell us about that and how the whole idea came about?

We tinkered with different ideas, UI sketches and data sets for a long time before Shadow Cities was what it is today. It was a process of rather long iteration and getting feedback from our friends who played the game. We are super grateful for all those friends in Helsinki who played with us all those months.

How is it doing at the moment? Downloads?

We have a policy of not disclosing exact numbers, but we’re very happy with how Shadow Cities has succeeded.

I know its currently free for download at the moment, will you be adding any paid features to it?

Shadow Cities was build for iOS and at the time it was the only platform with in-app purchase capability. We build our business model around this free-to-play model and it has served us well. It will always be a free game with virtual goods for those who want to buy them.

How does someone who want to get their app discovered do? In other words, how do you succesfully launch your app? what are the procedures?

That’s the million dollar question. It really goes back to what you’re building. Shadow Cities brought so much innovation into the space that it was easier for us to build the marketing around that. Cross-marketing can be really powerful in the app space, but the best way to get discovered is building something that people really want and making it easy for them to tell their friends about it. Nothing beats a great game.

How big is your team now?

We’re currently a solid team of 17.

What would you say has been some of the most crucial that you’ve done to build the company to this level now?

Hiring more skilled people than I am myself. By looking at the raw skill we have in the company and the high standards in hiring I don’t think I would ever get a job at the company if I would have to apply for it.

What is your business model?

Free to play mobile games.

Is the business profitable?

The business model works great. I think it’s the future for all mobile games if you want to build a significant business.

What’s been your most memorable moment so far on your entrepreneurial journey?

It has to be the launch of Shadow Cities in Finland when we were at the office at 5am watching server logs and trying to figure out how we could bring to server down for a minute when there were tons of players playing through the night. I still remember Mikko sending people push message saying ‘Please go to bed people. It’s late’

What pieces of advices could you give to aspiring entrepreneurs out there?

Refuse to give up no matter what. Persistence correlates most with success. Much more than intelligence, network or experience. If you’re still thinking what’s the best time to start a company in your career the answer is yesterday. The second best time is now. You learn so much regardless whether you will be successful or not. You can always go back to where you were, but starting your first company won’t come any easier when you get older.

What kind of things can we expect in the emerging mobile gaming industry in 2012?

There will be more quality games that will push the boundaries of what a mobile game is. The games will become social. Social like we have used to in the web services space. Games will also start to be more like services in that they change every day for the players and are always connected. Playr data will play a much bigger role than it does currently. It will become part of the experience, not just metrics to optimize.

What can we be expecting from you and Grey Area in 2012?

We are currently working on two new games, which will come out in early 2012. That said, we’re just warming up. 2012 will be the year that mobile gaming experiences will stop looking like a shrink down Facebook games and start looking like something designed for mobile handset. 2012 is also the year when location will be cracked. We plan on playing a key role in both of these developments.

Where do you want the company to be in five years

I’m way too impatient to think five years ahead. I don’t think those places are yet invented where we are going.