http://yourhiddenpotential.co.uk/2012/04/30/10-best-startup-logo-designs/ http://yourhiddenpotential.co.uk/2012/04/30/10-best-startup-logo-designs/#comments Mon, 30 Apr 2012 15:21:40 +0000 Guest Post http://yourhiddenpotential.co.uk/?p=14314 If you like this post, why not stay updated to our contents as soon as they are published. Subscribe to our RSS Feeds, Facebook Fanpage and Twitter.

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With the emphasis now placed on branding, many companies are investing tens of thousands on cross-platform marketing initiatives. These deep pockets often edge out the smaller competition. But if you look closely, they’re compensating for quality with quantity. As you’ll see in the ten examples included below, many startups are using the opportunity to innovate – producing increasingly creative brand personalities that easily separate them from almost any other competition.

By using affordable web-based platforms like Free Logo Services, your startup can create a professional logo with a free logo design that incorporates the highest quality images and an endless variety of fonts, colors and sizes – equal to or better than any of the examples you’ll find below.

Now let’s take a quick look at the 10 best logo designs to emerge from startups in 2011 and the first half of 2012.

1. Lytro – One of the simplest yet most effective of the logos in this list, this innovative photography website has taken their name and replaced the “o” with the same shaped lens as the camera they offer.

2. Fab – With a name like “fab,” you might expect something over-the-top. But the creators of this classy design inspiration site have formatted the name in a modern sans-serif font and then tacked a subtle heart image in sub-script at the end. One of the highlights of this design is that it works equally well on any format, free of the need for color printing.

3. Goodsie – Created for those looking for an easy way to set up an online storefront, Goodsie put a slight retro feel into the font they selected, recalling the signage of vintage shops from the 1950s and 60s. Again, they’ve maintained a very simplified design that is crafted from white lettering against a black background, enabling them to add colors to the font for a variation on the brand.

4. Chloe + Isabel – Offering a wide range of jewelry and fashion accessories, this boutique online retailer has produced an enticing combination of text and art, formatting their names in a script-based font beneath two tiny birds perched on a branch (a design similar to some of the necklaces and other jewelry available through the site).

5. Sojo Studios – With its unique platform for youth-oriented education that’s centered around making learning fun, the Sojo Studios logo features four vibrant colors to evoke the playful theme of the brand and further accents their sense of whimsy by staggering their placement on the horizontal plane.

6. TaskRabbit – Hiring help seems to take on a certain expediency when you look at this inviting logo for TaskRabbit. Featuring a determined-looking hare and the company name formatted in italics, every element of this logo implies speed and efficiency.

7. SONALIGHT – An innovative new app that lets you text hands-free through voice recognition, SONALIGHT includes both a succinct tagline (“Text by voice”), their name and two graphic elements that are commonly associated with software applications and, in particular, audio or speech. This provides an interesting example as the tagline is actually formatted to be more noticeable that the name of the product, which is a good thing. Because without the tag, this logo wouldn’t be nearly as effective.

8. Lore – Formerly known as CourseKit, this web-based platform is designed to collate classroom material and assignments for students. With the letters L-O-R-E stacked into two columns and formatted into a more traditional serif-based font, this simple logo is set against a red circle, mimicking many of the same circles that appear on countless fill-in-the-blank standardized tests.

9. Percolate – Acting as a content curator, this unique service harvests content from around the web for publication in social media. In line with their brand personality, they’ve selected the shape of a liquid drop and have followed it with their company name, formatted in a serif font as often found in coffee shops and cafés. Even the colors they’ve selected, orange and dark gray, reflect the rich tones of coffee, tea and similar brewed beverages.

10. Rocketr – Pardon the pun, but this logo is a blast. Featuring a simple yet easily-recognizable rocket and the brand name highlighted in italics, this is another logo that has effectively used all of its elements to imply speed, efficiency and the enhanced productivity of its core offering.

Dylan Mazeika is an online writer with a background in marketing and small business. He enjoys writing articles and guest posts on the latest business and design trends, and helping small business owners with free logo design.

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They were favourable to the idea, and we got our first batch of posters sold earlier this week. So far we’ve made a (small) profit. Along the way, I learned a lot about the ground-level, tactical details of running a business that weren’t apparent before. I’ve spent a lot of time reading about business, both in books and online, but you know what? You can get a basic grasp of the high-level strategy that way, but you really have no idea until you actually go out and do it.

 

I sold this. (Not a Warwick student? See this. Not British? See this.)

It’s like the sports fans that know exactly how the team’s manager should be doing their job. From an outsider’s perspective it all seems so easy. Why doesn’t Costa copy Starbucks and have staff write down customer’s orders? Why doesn’t Transport for London copy Hong Kong’s MTR and clean their tube stations? (And maybe make their service actually affordable and reliable while they’re at it)? But viewed from the inside, there’s a million more pressing details, any one of which could kill the whole enterprise if it went wrong.

Selling posters was a tiny venture, but it brought up a whole bunch of business issues. And this was for a project that involved a handful of people, about two weeks time and a few hundred pounds in revenue; I can’t imagine the pressures of running a billion-dollar corporation with tens of thousands of employees. Here’s a summary of what I learned.

Lesson 1: The Lean Startup Approach

I wasn’t sure where to begin at first. Was it worth paying to get posters printed without knowing if people would pay for them when they arrived? And how much could I charge? I needed to ascertain if there really was a demand.

Then I remembered the “Lean Startup” approach, which suggests making a minimum viable product to gauge demand. The MVP might be a working demo or prototype, but it can be more minimal then that. I decided to make a pre-order form for the posters, with a range of prices on offer. Although the form wouldn’t take payments, it would be a pretty strong signal of intent to purchase (or lack of it). It would also gauge how much people would be willing to pay.

It worked. I got my first pre-order about 5 minutes after setting up the form. The orders came so rapidly after that, watching them come in was addictive. The idea was validated.

Lesson 2: Manufacturing

The next step was getting the posters printed. There were lots of little issues here — tweaking the designs, getting the files in the right format — but they were mostly straightforward.

The hard problems were deciding which posters to print, how many, and from whom. The printing industry has massive economies of scale, and it works out a lot cheaper per item if you get a larger print run. That is, I would be better off getting many copies of one or two designs. On the other hand, we had five designs offered on the pre-order form, in four different sizes (big mistake there, eh?), and people had ordered a whole range of them. If I didn’t satisfy these people, would I be leaving money on the table? And some people had said they’d pay extra to get their posters early. Would it be worth using two printers, one fast and expensive, one slow and cheap?

These problems seem a lot simpler when it’s not your money at stake. In the end, we decided to order two designs in two different sizes, and use a slow-and-cheap printer. Right choice? No idea.

Lesson 3: Pricing

Students are pretty cheap, and keeping the price low would increase demand. But some pre-orders had been willing to pay £18 for their posters, and if you undercharge people who would willingly pay more, you’re leaving money on the table. It’s the classic price-demand curve. Again, it’s a much harder problem when you’re faced with the prospect of people calling YOU a rip-off and a terrible person if your prices are too high (which happened), and losing money if your prices are too low (which also happened).

What you really want is for everyone to pay what they’re willing to pay. Except that’s not feasible. Another way is to have a tiered pricing structure, like Starbucks has with their coffee. Small black coffee? £2. Want more coffee, fancier coffee, flavoured shots? Price goes up. Remember how I made the big mistake of offering too many options? It’s not a mistake from this perspective. People could order an A3 poster for £5, or an A1 poster with fast delivery for £18 (people did, too), or somewhere in the middle. In the end we ended up one print run of A3 and A2 posters, so people who might have paid £18 ended up paying a maximum of £10. Mistake? Hard to say.

Another issue was whether to lower the prices from the pre-order form. After printing in bulk, the price per item turned out to be quite low, and it would have been possible to lower the prices a fair bit and still make a per-item profit. But people had been willing to pay the existing prices. It seemed people who wanted the posters felt the prices were fine, and so lowering the prices wouldn’t have attracted more customers, only left money on the table. And like most retail businesses, despite a high per-item profit margin, our overall margins were low, mostly due to unsold stock. In the end, we kept the prices the same.

(Why did I order so much stock? Because of the economies of scale, it worked out a lot better to order too many than too few posters. Again, one of those things that’s easier to appreciate when it’s you running the numbers and your money at stake.)

Lesson 4: Marketing

Marketing, I think, was the biggest weak point of the venture. Most of our traffic came from the Facebook group, but people were posting constantly to the group, meaning our advert would disappear quickly. We posted a few times but didn’t want to spam people.

We also did some offline marketing, by sticking flyers up around campus. Considering the business, getting hold of flyers wasn’t hard (we just used some of our excess posters), but sticking them up took a long time. Flyering is an effective way to get the attention of university students, but you have to be ubiquitous (we weren’t). We flyered some of the “designated flyering points” on campus, but not everyone walks past those. If you flyer other places, they might get taken down quickly, wasting your time.

There’s a few guys who occasionally hold a proper poster stall at Warwick, and they stick up proper signs all around campus, along with a notice saying the signs will be removed at the end of the day (so campus security doesn’t remove them first). Both more effective and efficient than our approach. I’m definitely going to try and market our next stall more seriously.

Lesson 5: Sales

Actually selling the posters was the biggest “grind”, though also the most rewarding part. The few hours I spent at the stall by myself, not making sales, were really tough. I just felt incredibly stupid accosting people and trying to get them buy silly posters. And the buzz when people actually turned up and began forking over their hard-earned was amazing. I also realised the benefit of having good salespeople — it’s not something that comes naturally to me, but I was doing an OK job. Then my friend Teenie showed up (she owed me a favour for helping her set up her blog) and immediately began hustling to get people to come over and buy. Impressive to watch.

I can also see why business programmes like The Apprentice make such a big deal out of selling. As well as being the business function that directly brings in cash, it’s also the best way to get a ground-level, detailed view of your market. You’re on the frontline, seeing directly who is buying, who isn’t, and what it takes to get them to open their wallets.

Lesson 6: Legal

We didn’t break any laws selling the posters, but we did, er, stretch a few campus regulations. Warwick in general does not look too kindly on students selling things on campus, especially if it takes away profits from Warwick Retail or the Student’s Union (“UK’s most entrepreneurial university”, yeah right). Aside from that, we also needed a space to set up the stall. It’s fairly cheap to rent space inside the SU, but foot traffic there is not that high. We had a hard time getting hold of clear information about where else we could sell on campus.

In the end, we took an “easier to ask forgiveness than permission” approach and used the library. I didn’t know if this was permitted or not — I found out after setting up the stall that it wasn’t — but no-one from the library said anything during the 8 hours we were there.

Lesson 7: Public Relations

People in general have funny opinions about making money. I know I used to. So I was pretty apprehensive that I’d get shit from people once I actually started making sales.

In the end, most people were supportive and approving of what we were doing. Some people said they thought it was really cool (what can I say, some Warwick students are really fond of the Koan). There were a few people who declined to purchase once they found out it wasn’t for charity — fair enough, their money. There was only one guy who gave me serious shit about it, and posted on the Facebook group that we were fraudsters, mercenaries, etc.

It was pretty hard to not react emotionally to that, though I managed not to (imo). Most people were on our side so not much damage control was required. Still, the whole thing occupied my mind for way too long.

(I calmed down when I figured out what the guy was actually complaining about. It wasn’t that we’d stolen the designs (we hadn’t), it was the fact that the original “koan” meme wasn’t our idea. Which is a pretty flimsy criticism, and I realised the guy was mostly just trolling for the hell of it.)

Lesson 8. Making money is easy

Wealth isn’t money. Wealth is matter that’s in a form favourable to humans. So if you rearrange matter into such a form, you create wealth. Sounds easy? It is, really. There’s so many opportunities to make the world slightly better or more convenient for people, and you just need to find and exploit one.

Despite the complexity detailed above, all we really had to do was make some designs, get posters printed, and sell them to people.

Lesson 9. Making money is hard

We made a few hundred pounds selling posters. It also cost a few hundred pounds to get them printed, so we were only just breaking even. That’s not factoring in our time. We have a lot of stock left over and I think we can hold another stall and get more sales, but still, we’re unlikely to make a fortune. I’d be happy if we ended up making minimum wage for the time we put in. There’s almost no chance of making what I’d earn as a professional web developer.

So although there’s a lot of opportunities out there, big opportunities, and especially big, scalable, opportunities, are scarce. That’s one reason why a lot of these same university businesses crop up year after year. Every year, students begin reselling textbooks, running events, or printing t-shirts. If they’re lucky, they make a few hundred or even a few thousand pounds, but then find out they can get way more in a graduate job. So they quit, until someone else comes along and spots the same opportunity, and the cycle repeats.

The upside of this is that there’s always small opportunities out there. You could probably quantify the expected value of unexploited opportunities with a variation of the efficient market hypothesis. Obvious opportunities over a certain size will already have been gobbled up, but the small ones might still be worthwhile (And of course, there are plenty of big, but non-obvious opportunities).

Was it worth it? Yes. Although the financial rewards were miniscule, actually getting out there and hustling has taught me an incredible amount.

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This guest post was courtesy of Isaac Lewis and was originally post on his personal blog here. Do check it out it is a great blog & it is a pleasure to have Isaac contributing to YHP. Read more of his posts here.

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Twitter.

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After reading Robert Greene’s The 50th Law, I wanted to learn more about the life of Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson from the man himself.

So I ordered his autobiography, “From Pieces to Weight”, which is focused mainly on his days as a drug dealer and gangster in Southside Queens, New York. His entry into the music industry and rise to fame is left until the end of the book. It’s a shame; I’d have liked more details about how he applied the hustler’s mindset to the rap music game. Still, there’s a lot to be learned from both parts of his life story.

It turns out the drugs business is a lot like any other business. Marketing, finance, manufacturing and strategy all come into play. In addition, operating in a ruthless, Darwinian environment like the ghetto forced Fifty to be resourceful and scrappy to survive. Although I don’t condone Fifty’s behaviour in general, there’s a lot to be learned from his approach.

Here’s 4 lessons I took from his life story.

Lesson 1: Understand Your Master’s Motivations (and your Master’s Master’s Motivations)

One of the funniest stories in the book was about how Fifty got out of rehab.

He was in rehab, not because he was doing drugs (most crack dealers won’t touch their own product), but because, according to him, he’d ingested it by accident. In his own words, he’d be so busy cutting up and preparing crack that he wouldn’t have time to wash his hands when he grabbed lunch. When Fifty and his partners were arrested, his partners were imprisoned, but the cocaine in Fifty’s bloodstream got him sent to rehab for 18 months.

Fifty didn’t enjoy being in rehab, mainly because, as a non-drug-user, he didn’t appreciate being patronised by the stadd. Protestations that he didn’t have a drug problem were seen as a failure to leave the “denial” stage. More patronising feel-good “support” from the genuine addicts didn’t help. But Fifty eventually learned he’d have to play the game if he wanted to get out.

So he pretended to be an addict with a real desire to recover. He learned to speak the jargon of the programme, and he learned low-level conversation hacks that made him appear trustworthy and honest (like sheepishly looking at his shoes, then directly into the other person’s eyes). Soon he was seen as a model patient, enlisted to support and mentor the other addicts.

His tricks worked because Fifty understood the motivations of the people with power over him. To the staff at the rehab centre, he looked like a good patient, and that was good enough. The centre’s boss was more concerned with looking good to visiting politicians than whether the programme was truly effective.

That changed when the centre got a new boss. Suddenly, there was someone at the top who realised that the programme wasn’t working. Sure, it looked like it was working, but it wasn’t getting results. She began paying more attention to the addicts’ progress, and she saw through Fifty’s tricks. He was close to the end of his 18 months in rehab, but she suggested that his time there be extended.

The case was taken in front of a judge. Fifty brought his “model patient” A-game. She brought detailed evidence that the programme wasn’t doing what it was supposed to, that the programme pumped addicts full of buzzwords and bullshit, but produced no results, and that this young man was an example. The judge didn’t buy it. He didn’t want to buy it. It was too inconvenient to be true.

He told the centre leader that she’d only been on the job for six weeks, and how, in that time, could she have found flaws in a programme that had been running successfully for years? He praised Fifty as a model patient, and ruled that he be released on schedule.

Within a day Fifty was back on the corner hustling.

Lesson 2: There’s Less Competition For the Big Opportunities

At one point, Fifty and his partner were amongst a bunch of small-time crack dealers working the same estate, all competing for the custom of the same drug fiends. With so much competition, profits remained modest.

Then Fifty remembered a relative of the local drug kingpin, who a few years ago had succeeded — if only for a brief period — in taking over the drugs trade for the entire estate. The strategy was simple. Sell top quality crack at a low price, sacrificing short-term profits, but ensuring the fiends only want your product. Once that happens, suggest that the other dealers become your resellers. If they’re still inclined to scratch out meagre profits as independents, a few armed threats might persuade them otherwise. (Business can be easier when you operate outside normal regulatory frameworks).

It was a simple strategy, but it required boldness and ambition. Any one of the other dealers could have attempted it. But they didn’t. It was Fifty who realised that he had the resources and capabilities to pull it off. Taking over the neighbourhood wasn’t easy, but it turned out easier than expected. Why? Because no-one else had the guts to try. There was no competition.

Selling drugs on the corner is doable, so everyone does it, so it’s hard. Conquering the whole estate seems impossible, so no-one does it, so it’s easy.

Lesson 3: Sometimes the Winning Move is Changing the Game

Fifty was finally moving up from small-time hustling to building a drugs empire, and making a name for himself as an aggressive gangster, someone not to be fucked with. But his life was never safe. The higher he rose, the bigger target he became.

He realised that there were few good endings to the drugs game. If by chance he didn’t end up in jail or shot, even as a kingpin he’d be in constant danger. That’s when he made the decision to switch to hip-hop.

It turned out he was quite good at rap. After years of hustling, he wasn’t afraid to work hard, either, and this work ethic meant his music fast became really good. Strategic self-promotion and mixtape campaigns helped build his name when his record label repeatedly dropped the ball. A fortunate encounter with Eminem and Dr Dre was his big break, and he took advantage of it, moving to their label and rapidly rising from obscurity to international super-stardom.

And of course, he made far more money along the way than he ever would have selling drugs.

One frustrating thing about the book was that Fifty doesn’t go into much detail about his rise to fame. It only takes up a few chapters. But then again, I’ve read a few autobiographies like that. Malcolm X’s autobiography involves years spent as a petty criminal, and then he quits and joins the Nation of Islam. It turns out he’s pretty good at building a movement — and BOOM, soon he’s the organisation’s number two guy and an international political figure.

So I suspect that lots of success might be just as rapid. You get someone who’s floundering and struggling for years, trying to win at the wrong game. Then they switch to the right game, and BOOM. Rapid success.

Lesson 4: Consolidate

This isn’t a lesson I learned directly from Fifty’s life story — rather, he made the major mistake of not consolidating, and it almost killed his rap career before it started. Let’s trace the steps backwards to see where he went wrong…

How was his rap career almost killed? When Fifty himself was almost killed, shot 9 times by a drive-by assassin.

Why was he shot?  He’d pissed off too many people, and most notably, lost the favour of the local drugs kingpin, so he wasn’t protected.

How did he fall from favour? The kingpin had tried to engineer a meeting between Fifty and a rival dealer, but Fifty didn’t attend the meeting. He was too busy trying to build his music career.

If he was moving into music, why was he still involved in the ghetto? This is the key part. Fifty had tried to make a clean break from the drugs game. But when the record company repeatedly dropped the ball, he found himself low on funds (at one point he was forced to live with his mother-in-law) and so was pulled back into hustling.

If he was a drug dealer, why was he so short on money? He’d blown the profits made from dealing on cars, clothes, jewellery — he wanted to look good. He’d assumed he be dealing forever, and so hadn’t bothered to keep any savings.

This, here, is the fatal mistake. If Fifty had put some money aside during his years of hustling, if he’d consolidated his gains just a little, he’d have been able to quit drug dealing for good when he made the move into music. But he didn’t, and he was forced to to stand half-way between the two worlds. Hustling didn’t work, couldn’t work, as a part-time commitment, and it almost got him killed.

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If you enjoyed this, I suggest you check out these stories from the man himself — here’s his autobiography for sale on Amazon. The 50th Law is also good.

I read a lot of biographies and autobiographies, so I write more of these “life lessons” posts. I’ve just finished Steve Jobs biography and I’m working through a book about the Medicis, so they’ll probably be next.

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Betfair, a brilliantly simple idea. An online betting platform that uses trading technology, matching odds set by individual users to prospective bettors, cutting out the bookmaker. To learn more about the business, we need to first look at the man behind the idea. Who is Andrew Black? It seems like a simple question; The grandson of a former Tory MP, a gambler, entrepreneur, software developer…oh and a secret agent of GCHQ. Yet none of these quite answer the question, If he’s a gambler, why is he running a business? If he’s a businessman? Why in gambling? If a secret agent…well, you get the idea. The answer to this question lies in, as Steve Jobs put it, connecting the dots; “It was impossible to connect the dots looking forward..[in my life]. But it was very very clear looking backwards 10 years later”.

In much the same way, connecting the dots of Black’s life experiences will tell us about what inspired the idea, how he met Edward Wray, and how they together moved Betfair from simply a conceptual idea into the business that revolutionised the gambling industry.

As the grandson of Tory MP Sir Cyril Black, you may think Andrew had it all, but the beginning of his adulthood was not without it’s challenges. His brother suffered a sudden brain infection and fell into a coma, after which Andrew put everything else aside for two years to care for him. However, upon overcoming this difficult period, he set out on his career and never looked back. He started work at 26 in software, exposing him to the trading environment and triggering an interest in gambling; “When you’re at the sharp end of trading you’re trading very much in the short term and it is very, very similar to gambling”.

He pursued gambling further, and despite initial success, began to lose money and interest, returning to trading only to be sacked over disagreement on business ethics. From this string of failures, he was able to discover his talent for computer science and love for gambling, all the while learning the technical aspects of trading. If you told Andrew Black at the time that getting fired and gambling money away was the best thing that could happen to him…well, the conversation will not last very long. However, we see how all those experiences afforded him the motivation and knowledge to come up with Betfair, as well as the time to explore it. Black himself was able to connect these dots looking back; “In my career I’ve worked directly with the stock exchange, been a professional gambler and built websites. I’ve been there on all three”.

However, the step from idea to business was too big to take alone “I understood the exchange, gambling, the internet and could deliver the product. But with the business side of things I needed help”. Despite some difficulty, he would get it in the form of his best friend’s brother, Edward Wray, a J.P Morgan employee familiar with the business end; “I remember..(talking to him about the idea)..and it appealed”. A few months later, their partnership was born. What followed from here would make a pretty good film! A journey which took them from a small office in Wimbledon to the front cover of the Times business section; overcoming obstacles and rivals along the way to creating a business which in 2010 valued at £1.5 billion.

The difficulty of raising finance became apparent, as they quickly learned that Flutter, a company offering a similar service, had beaten them to the punch, making it difficult for another company in the same market to raise venture capital. They resorted to other means to raise money; (Ed Wray) “I got a hold of the banking bonus calendar…I worked out when the bonuses were announced… when they were paid, and then we tried to see people in between those two dates”. Through this, and investments from friends family, the duo managed to raise £1 million, which Ed marks as his turning point “That was really when it became serious, certainly for me…you suddenly felt a real sense of urgency to make it work for them”. However, this was not necessarily bad; “Looking back now, one of the best things that happened to us was that we didn’t raise lots of money”, as it forced Betfair to be more innovative with the funds they did have.

Using the slightly unconventional theme of a funeral procession as their marketing strategy, the duo carried around coffins which had “Death to the bookmaker” written on them. Whatever the controversy, it was clearly effective. Their antics hit the front page of the Times business section, which Black recalls “was spotted by a lot of people, and got us off to just a little head start”. In the first week, Betfair traded £30,000, and how much of that money came from people who happened to be reading about funerals in the Times business section three days before is anybody’s guess.

The competition from flutter did not go away, but neither did the success of Betfair. Black and Wray went from £100,000 in the first year to £35 million in the third. Despite a short battle between Flutter and Betfair; in 2002 the latter had 97% of the market share, and merged with Flutter. The rest is history; Ernst & Young awarded them “Emerging Entrepeneurs of the year” in 2002, and the business has only continued to grow and expand into different countries, incorporating smaller businesses. Today, Betfair boasts 3 million users, and over 1,200 employees. In short, they got very big very quickly, but Ed Wray still find’s this hard to comprehend “We weren’t planning on getting 1,200, we were planning on going from 22-30, to 35 or whatever” (Ed Wray).

That said, the vision and belief in the business came from the man who forged the idea. Whilst £30,000 of trades in the first week was not bad, it did not meet the expectations of investors, but Black maintained belief; “I always thought it would be one of those sites that would creep..(people) come to us, have a look, go away, come back, have another look, go away again, but come back and bet.” Judging by the numbers after, he wasn’t wrong.

While connecting the dots of Black’s life shows how the idea arose, Betfair as it is today moved beyond this. Where Black needed Wray to guide him on the business end; it was Black’s initial idea and vision which carried the business forward. Nevertheless, success does not come without a price, and several critics have questioned the integrity and legality of Betfair, arguing that the risk of anyone gambling for any, potentially criminal reason is too high. Like any new industry area, what is legal and what is not is a grey area, and in exploring ideas there is always the risk of prosecution/legal challenges. Black and Wray took the risk of setting out to corner a new market, weighed the odds, and succeeded.

The gamble paid off, but would they take such risk again? Andrew Black says yes; “It would be a difficult choice. I’ve got everything I need, but I would do it all over”. If you’re wondering why, it’s that entrepreneurial spirit, and I’m sure if you asked Edward Wray, he’d say the same thing.

[Editor's Note] Milos Bezanov is a second year student currently studying International Politics at King’s College London.

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You have worked hard to grow your business. You have invested your time, money and talent to create a successful company that you may wish to pass to your children one day. Perhaps you have a business partner, or several partners? You may have employees. The common factor that unites all of your family, partners and staff is their dependence on the continuation of your business even if the unthinkable should happen and you are no longer at the helm.

Life insurance pays out a lump-sum benefit to the person or persons named as the beneficiary by the policy-holder in the event of the policy-holder’s death. For a small monthly payment, a business owner can obtain the peace of mind that comes from knowing the company is protected in the event of his or her death. Level term life insurance is one of the most economical choices and is available from a variety of vendors. Terms vary from five to thirty years, and the premium is guaranteed to remain the same over the life of the term, ensuring the business owner will pay the same amount every month.

By creating a lump-sum payment, life insurance protects not only your loved ones, but also your business partners and staff as well. Many small companies have an agreement between the partners that if one should pass away, the others will buy his or her share from the heirs. Few people have large sums lying about to make such a purchase a possibility. Life insurance can be set up to cover that cost, offering your loved ones and your partners practical support at a difficult time. The lump sum may also help bridge the gap between the sudden loss and the time it takes to get the business up and running again.

Another key advantage of having a policy is the benefits it can bring in attracting and retaining top talent in today’s competitive market. It may be possible to save money by buying into a group policy and extending life insurance cover to your employees as part of their benefits package. Offering benefits such as life insurance can be a sweetener that draws in the highly qualified staff you need to make your business a success. It is even possible to create a life insurance policy that covers your interests in the event of the loss of one of your key employees. Losing a highly skilled staff member may mean an expensive search or necessitate making heavy investments in the training of existing staff to take over their job. Key-person life insurance can help cover the sudden loss of a difficult-to-replace staff member and provide peace of mind that integral positions in the company are covered.

Life insurance is a necessity for the small-business owner. While you may be gone, the business, complete with debts, operating costs and obligations remains. Without life insurance, your business partners may face having to shut the company down, your staff will lose their employment, and your loved ones may be saddled with debts that could lead, in the worst cases, to bankruptcy. A life insurance policy can help negotiate that difficult gap between their devastating loss and a re-structuring of the business that allows it to continue on after you’re gone.

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Between the 18th – 20th March 2012 the O2 arena will host Business 2012 one of the biggest free business events in the UK. With over 200 workshops, exhibitors & seminars over 3 days there will be plenty of expert advice to help take your business to the next level no matter what your business is. With a vast array of workshops covering hundreds of topics this event will certainly be worth your time!

Not to mention the great list of speakers at the event from the legendary founder & CEO of the Virgin Group, Richard Branson to Amstrad founder & star of The Apprentice, Lord Alan Sugar. Other keynote speakers include Nigel Botterill, Cherie Blair, Daniel Priestley & Nikki Hesford.

Competitions

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On the evening of the Sunday 18th of March, Richard Branson will be hosting a cocktail party and we at YHP are giving you the chance to win 2 tickets to this event! (Worth over £1,000)

All you have to do is let us know, what your burning question for Richard Branson would be if you met him in person?

To enter leave your question in the comments and share your question on twitter with the hashtag #YHPcomp. You can also leave your questions on our Facebook page.

The more retweets & likes you get the more chance you’ve got of winning!

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We also have the chance for you to meet Richard Branson and spend 30 minutes with the man, just enter your email and share the competition here: http://www.huddlebuy.co.uk/c/richard-branson/42C2F34X

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About Business 2012, Richard said:

“I will be at Business 2012, answering your questions and I am looking forward to meeting the competition winners. No one has a monopoly on good ideas and events like this can open the door to better connections and business opportunities: something we all need during these challenging times.”

Register for free tickets to Business 2012 here!

The event is brought to you by BlakPearl, which was founded by young entrepreneur Vishal Mishal. His company specialises in hosting large scale business events, to offer cutting edge training and talks from some of the worlds top business speakers.

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Follow @rishi_chowdhury
Follow @officialyhp

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What Is It?

Intuit 100Up is a co-ventured campaign between Intuit and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), supported by the National Association of College and University Entrepreneurs (NACUE), to create a new and unique enterprise community of 100, high-potential start-ups and aspirant entrepreneurs.

100Up will create a unique community of entrepreneurs at the beginning of their careers. It is an initiative that will seek to celebrate, inspire and accelerate their full potential. It will build on BIS’s ‘Business in You’ campaign, a partnership between private enterprise and Government to highlight support for start-ups and growing businesses and encourage entrepreneurial spirit in 2012.

The community will come to life at the Global Entrepreneurship Congress and will continue to exist as an inspirational group that will learn, share and champion the ideals of enterprise:

What Will The 100 Receive?

If your business idea is chosen as being one of the best 100 then you will be invited to join the Intuit100Up as a founder member and you will receive:

A one day ticket to the Global Entrepreneurship Congress (GEC) in Liverpool on 13th March 2012, the largest gathering of start-up champions from around the world.

Travel by train up to a value of £100. Must be booked via designated travel service.

Free entry to and participation in an Intuit Financial Fitness Workshop on 12th March and an exclusive 100Up drinks reception with the Minister for Business Mark Prisk MP.

Overnight accommodation on 12th March at the Jury’s Inn Liverpool.

Plus ongoing access to and participation in the 100Up Community.

How Do I Get Involved?

We are looking for 100 entrepreneurs from a wide range of backgrounds, with real, inspiring stories of how they aim to turn their passion into action. If you would like to be considered for the competition to win one of the 100 prize places:

• Create an ‘elevator pitch’, telling us about your business idea in no more than 150 words.
• Send it with your name, business name, address, email and mobile number to intuit100Up@promoentries.com
• Applicants are also encouraged to submit a link to a one minute YouTube video telling us about your business, however this will not form part of the judging criteria.

All entries must be received by 11.59pm on 26th February so you had better move fast!
For full entry conditions and details please see www.promoterms.com/intuit100up

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Want to change the world? Sir Richard Branson has just launched an online competition looking for the next big ethical or socially aware entrepreneurs and businesses ideas, so here is a chance for all you budding social entrepreneurs to be involved in something truly amazing and win an amazing prize, details below:

WHAT IS IT?

In conjunction with the launch of Richard Branson’s brilliant new book ‘Screw Business as Usual’, Sir Richard has launched a competition looking for the next ideas or businesses that are a force for good (the mantra of his non profit foundation Virgin Unite) and are screwing business as usual.

HOW TO ENTER…

An entry can be a story or brief description of a business or social enterprise in action anywhere in the world. An inspiration – in words, thoughts or on film – that shows a new way of creating or transforming a business, or will create a consumer movement that will create demand for better products or services.

Just log on to http://virginunite.screwbusinessasusual.com/uploadyourstory and share your idea or business that is screwing business as usual.

WHAT’S THE PRIZE?

Every month, the top five entries on the leader board – those with the most social shares (votes) – will each receive a prize. The top 10 ideas, as voted for by the online community, by 17th April 2012 will be evaluated by an Independent Judging Panel who will select the Grand Prize Winner !

THE FINAL WINNER

Firstly, the winning ideas or companies will be included Richard Branson’s next global business ‘book’, where they will be showcased as part of a growing community focused on business as a force for good.

There is also a Grand Prize which is a money-can’t-buy spot on a Virgin Unite Connection Trip with Richard to South Africa in 2012 for the winner of the competition. When you join a Virgin Unite Connection Trip you get to join Richard and a small group visiting and learning from front-line leaders who are making change happen in beautiful South Africa! Then you’ll spend time with an extraordinary new breed of emerging entrepreneurs creating new business models and turning capitalism on its head.

Lastly, you’ll spend a few days at Richard’s home in Ulusaba relaxing and sharing a unique time with an inspirational group of individuals. A once in a lifetime prize.

Here are some case studies for inspiration, if you really need – http://virginunite.screwbusinessasusual.com/casestudies

Richard hosts Connection Trip to South Africa from Virgin Unite on Vimeo.

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Follow @rishi_chowdhury

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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

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