Serial entrepreneur Simon Prockter has done it again…

Introducing Housebites, the company that offers freshly prepared home-cooked food delivered straight to your door. Simply enter your postcode to find experienced chefs in your area, choose from an ever-changing unique menu, and wait for dinner to come to you! The aim of Housebites is to merge the ease of a takeaway with the quality of a restaurant whilst simultaneously closing the gap between the diner and the chef. All feedback is welcomed and Housebites has created a unique database of ‘taste-tested’ chefs from which you can choose, providing they operate locally.

Launched in September 2011 by people who love food but lack the time to cook, the service also allows, as Prockter explains, a business opportunity for quality chefs who can’t afford to own their own restaurant. Chefs can sign up to Housebites, design their menu and set their prices whilst earning 85% of the takings, promoting their professional position whilst providing a high quality service.

The idea behind Housebites was initially a dining model similar to that of Come Dine With Me, which would involve strangers being invited to your house for a dinner party. However it quickly came to the attention of the founder that this idea challenges the way in which people would usually behave thus leading to Housebites as we know it. After ordering a takeaway Prockter examined and subsequently solved the problems that he encountered through the creation of his new business, a method, which he asserts, does not always work, but in this case it has.

Initially Housebites received funding from two investors including Paul Birch, both of which grew to know that the original idea wasn’t going as well as planned, leading them to ask for their money back. But after asking to keep the money until the end of the weekend, Simon managed to hold on to his investment which led to the birth of Housebites.

One of the most used tactics for getting the word out about Housebites is through flyering directly to peoples’ houses and by getting influential people involved to spread the idea; and with loyal customers such as Stephen Fry and an ex-prime minister, I would say they’re doing a good job.

In the future Housebites plan to extend their reach so that they cover more cities in the UK, thus growing their staff and therefore allowing for more demand.

Cutting out the middle man never tasted so good.

Linus Olsson, a member of the Flattr team, explained that one of his biggest challenges was articulating exactly what it is that the business does; for such a simple concept it can initially be a bit baffling. So here goes nothing…

Peter Sunde, founder of Flattr, stated that the aim of the business was to “encourage people to share money as well as content”. The idea behind Flattr is to create a payment system so simple that people would donate a small amount of money for free content that they happen to like and therefore think deserves some kind of support. Payment systems are often long and extensive, which can deter people from paying for things they need online, let alone donating willingly; so here’s where Flattr comes in.

Flattr users pay a small fee every month, more like topping up an account, which they can then donate to various websites via a simple click of a flattr button, providing the website has one. At the end of the month the user’s fee is divided by the amount of clicks that they have made, and the money is split and transferred directly to the supplier of the ‘flattred’ content. Similarly, if you are supplying content online you can get your own Flattr button so people can donate to you! With a flat rate fee you can Flattr people – it’s that simple.

With a background in technology Olsson explained that it was not financial knowledge that led them to Flattr, but more an understanding of how humans behave. In that respect Flattr was created in order to help humans support the things that they find important, thus challenging existing economic structures.

Flattr, labelled by many as a ‘micro-payment’ system, has over 80,000 users since its launch in 2010, with the majority situated in Germany. Olsson is confident that Flattr will work wherever people care about supporting those who supply genuinely good content, but also believes that one of his principal challenges is implementing Flattr where it needs to be implemented. To overcome this he hopes to make the technology increasingly easier and find partners in order to help spread the word.

Sounds great, but how do they make their money?

Flattr takes a 10% cut of the money received by the suppliers of ‘flattred’ content, a figure which Olsson sees as a kind of necessary evil which he hopes to reduce in the future.

Although the Flattr team have not revealed the source of their funding, in February of this year they received a €1.6m in Venture Round Funding, which will hopefully give the team the boost they need to grow their business and spread the word: ‘Flattr’.

Information sourced from: http://flattr.com/

Are you thinking about buying time or at least something close to it – Minutesforsale allows companies and individuals to buy time for every minute of the day.

So basically this is how it works – You pay a small one off fee and get your will website displayed on the Minutesforsale homepage for the amount of time purchased.

Meet Jason Ting, the 20 year old founder behind the project, Jason is currently studying at the London School of Economics.

Hi Jason, How are you doing, great to have you on YHP?

I am great thank you, though it’s mainly down to the sun being out right now. It’s great to be on YHP, thanks for having me.

Could you quickly give us some background information about yourself?

Sure thing. My name is Jason Ting, I’m 20 years old and I’ve lived in London all my life. I’m half Chinese hence my awesome surname, and why I look half Chinese. I have numerous interests which include sports (football and gym more specifically, but really its an endless list), reading, cooking (I can make quite the dessert), movies, restaurants… You get the picture. Oh and I’m a massive fan of American Pie.

Tell me how you got into business? Were you exposed to entrepreneurship as a child?

Well both my eldest brother and my father are self-employed, so I’ve always been surrounded by people who work for themselves to fit the lifestyle they like. So really for a long time I’ve felt I could try and do something different with my life, something that I could call my own to push as far as I can. As well as that I am currently studying at the London School of Economics, so I continue to be in an environment that is business orientated.

So tell me about Minutesforsale and how the idea came about?

Well I found myself surrounded by mates who were busy doing part-time jobs to make their way through university, or to help pay off their student loan. And so I thought now was as good a time as any to try and create a unique way of paying mine off. I wanted to create something that had never been done before. Having been flooded with advertising my whole life it made sense to start thinking about possible ideas in that field. In the end I thought of time, and from there I challenged myself to sell something almost unsellable that no one had tried before.

What is Minutesforsale and how does it work? What are you trying to solve?

Minutesforsale is a website that I have created and the basic concept of the website is that I’m trying to sell time. I know, it sounds strange just hearing it. But basically I am allowing companies and individuals to buy every minute of the day. Every minute of every hour.

They pay just a small one off fee and I will display their website on my homepage at that exact time, every single day. I’m not just displaying their advert, but their actual website in full, for one minute a day. They also get a permanent link in the timetable page where people can click on any time of day and see who has purchased it.

How have you been able to fund the business?

Well it didn’t cost too much to start up. Just the web hosting and things like that. I had enough saved up to cover those things. I learnt to code the website for free online. So thankfully my costs have been quite minimal.

What is your business model?

When I started, I had the price at a one off fee of £10 per minute. With every hour sold, I am increasing the price slowly. So after every 60 minutes sold, the price goes up. It will keep going up every hour until all the minutes are gone.

A nice added feature I have is that once all the minutes have sold out, people will then be able to re-sell their advertising spot if they wish to do so. Imagine you purchase a minute now, where the current price is £20, and by the time the last hour sells, the price is £240 we’ll say as an example.

You can then sell your minute for £240 to someone else, and you will get your initial fee of £20 back, plus half of the difference as profit. So for the £20 minute you bought, you will get back £130 if you sold later on.

It’s not my intention to have people selling all their minutes, but it’s a nice added bonus and maintains value in the spot they purchased.

What has been your most memorable moment so far?

Well being the fan of page 3 that I am, it has got to be getting a big article written about me on page 3 of a newspaper!

What can we be expecting from your company in 2012?

Well so far I’ve sold just under two hours in a couple of weeks. With a little more exposure and more people becoming aware of my site, I’m hoping to sell out every minute of time in 2012. That would be a great achievement, but there’s a long way to go yet.

Beulah London is a unique company that combines high-end fashion with ethically sourced products, maintaining its elegance and beauty whilst promoting social justice. The company was started by Natasha Rufus Isaacs and Lavinia Brennan, two young women with an inherent ability to help others without sacrificing the quality of their product.

Before the establishment of Beulah London the pair spent a large amount of time in India where they worked alongside numerous charities and organisations to promote justice, but the women found their passion after spending two months in the southern slums of Delhi helping women who had been rescued from the sex trade. Natasha and Lavinia worked in an aftercare home called ‘Atulya’ which provided a refuge for these women whilst also teaching them relevant skills which would allow them to be financially independent and prevent the women from falling back into the underworld from which they had been saved.

Their harrowing yet inspiring experiences in India created the momentum needed for the women to create their own company which could continue to deal with the issues presented to them both abroad and at home in the UK; thus Beulah London was born, the aim of which is to provide a new life to victims of the slave trade whilst creating a luxury brand of clothing which is both easy to wear and naturally elegant.

The production of the clothes takes place in a small cottage industry in Kolkata which creates employment in the area and also teaches important and sustainable skills. Although currently the women are not sufficiently skilled to create the garments themselves, they are making accessories such as scarves and bags in order to gain the necessary experience so that one day they will be involved in the whole production process along with members of local communities.

Their first collection ‘Amazing Grace’ which launched in the summer of 2011 represents the transformation and the potential for women to change their situations; Lavinia explains: ‘Our goal is to produce beautiful clothes that empower the women who wear them and the women who make them’.

Although neither Natasha nor Lavinia have any background of fashion, their brand has grown dramatically, with the likes of Kate Middleton being seen wearing their garments. Both women studied history of art, Natasha at Oxford Brookes and Lavinia at Durham, and then went on to gain experience in PR and at an art auction house whilst also being involved with social projects at Holy Trinity Brompton. The company received funding from bank loans and family and friends, plus the supervision of a mentor at TiE UK (The Indus Entrepreneurs) which helped the company to grow in the right direction. The pair admit that it has at times been a struggle and that they were heavily dependent on their parents throughout the establishment of the company, but that their motivation comes from the people at the heart of what they’re doing, the people that need their help.

l-r Adam Balon, Richard Reed and Jon Wright

The Innocent story starts in Cambridge, where three friends met whilst working towards their degrees. The recent graduates Richard Reed, Adam Balon and Jon Wright then moved to London where they started the process of coming up with a variety of smoothie recipes and buying £500 worth of fruit to get them started.

In the summer of 1998 the three friends travelled nervously tothe‘Jazz on the Green’ Festival in Parsons Green; a spot full of the kind of people that would drink their smoothies. It was here that they would receive public feedback on their recipes which would determine whether they would proceed with the huge but exciting task of giving up their day jobs to start a business, or whether they would dump the fruit and rush back to their careers in consulting and advertising. Originally the trio had designed a feedback form but traded it in for a less corporate approach.

The idea was simple and succinct: people would try their smoothie and dispose of the (hopefully) empty bottle in one of two bins; one labelled ‘YES’ and the other ‘NO’. Above their stall was the question ‘Do you think we should give up our jobs to make these smoothies?’ At the end of the weekend the ‘YES’ bin was full with only three bottles in the ‘NO’ bin, so the boys went home, flipped a coin for some last minute reassurance, and quit their jobs the next day to go to work on the building of what would become the UK and Europe’s favourite smoothie brand.

Next was the problem that all start-up businesses face; the issue of funding. The boys applied to, and got turned down by, 20 different banks. They pitched at an event for entrepreneurs only to find that nobody was interested in hearing any more about them. On paper the trio were a risky investment; they were friends, they had no experience in their field, they would be competing against massive companies, and they’d never set up a business. This realisation, however ‘soul destroying’#, did not deter the trio. They continued on their path to funding by emailing everyone they knew hoping to find somebody rich, until they got an email back from Maurice Pinto, who they’d heard sometimes made investments. Despite the fact that Pinto thought the idea was ‘dumb’, he agreed to invest £50,000 in the company, which then grew to £250,000 when the other investors he usually works with refused to invest.

The trio then found a manufacturing partner Mike Lord, who had been manufacturing orange juice. He said to the boys “I don’t think it’s going to work, but there’s something in your eyes that reminds me of myself when I was your age, so I’ll do it.”

Advertising was the next step, and with no money to afford it, the trio had to come up with inspired (and cheap) ways to spread the Innocent name. After over-producing, they handed out their smoothies for free to around 50 different shops with the hope that they would call and order more; which they did. They also wrote little nonsensical messages on the products themselves about their natural origin; the idea behind their brand was ‘to make it easy for people to do themselves some good. And to make it taste nice too. We wanted people to think of innocent drinks as their one healthy habit; like going to the gym’#. They also left smoothies on every floor of a building packed full of journalists which again earned them a large amount of phone calls in return for their hard work.

Innocent Drinks continued to grow and grow, with their staff size growing from just three to two hundred and fifty between 1999 and 2010, with their market share growing from 0% to 77.5% within the same time period#. On April 6th 2009 Innocent Drinks announced its decision to sell a stake of 18% to The Coca-Cola Company which was then increased in April 2010 to 58% with the three founders retaining full operational control over the company.

However, Reed maintains that it wasn’t until around 2007 that he reached full confidence with their idea: “Every time something good happened I still didn’t believe – it was just temporary respite from the paranoia that it was destined to fail”

Information taken from:
An interview with Courtney Rubin, July 26 2010 featured: [http://www.inc.com/articles/2010/07/building-englands-favorite-smoothie-company.html]

[http://innocentdrinks.co.uk/]
# Market share source: IRI Infoscan 2006

I recently had the opportunity of speaking with Sarat Pediredla, Co-founder and Partner at Hedgehog lab – A company he set up in 2007 with his co-founder Mark Forster.

Hedgehog lab is a full-service mobile agency that specialises in building mobile experiences and touch screen interfaces.

In the full interview below, Sarat talks me through his journey so far as an entrepreneur and why he decided to start his own business.

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

I was born in India and moved to the UK to study at Uni. Fortunately, I met my wife while I was at Uni and decided to stay in the UK permanently. I worked for a long time as a freelancer with a few jobs in the digital industry, before finally taking the dip into starting a software company of my own.

I have always had big ambition and entrepreneurial instincts as I was growing up. However, growing up in a middle-class Indian family, the expectations were that you studied really hard, achieved academic success and went to the US to Harvard or Stanford, and ended up working for Microsoft (then) or Google or Apple. My family were especially risk averse, and generations had been brought up on the theory that having a secure “job” and employment was the only way.

I am very grateful to have an extremely supporting father who encouraged me to pursue what I wanted without worrying about the risk of failure. I wanted to be a billionaire by the time I was 20 and I was willing to work day and night for it by dropping out of school. However, I am sure that had I kept on at that pace, I would have burned out before I reached my goal. It was just too much pressure for someone young to handle and it could have gone horribly wrong.

My father helped temper this by insisting I not skip school and that I get a decent education first. He taught me that it’s not how fast you get to the top but how long you stay there. This gave me a chance to try out education and employment both before I set out by myself and really helped me broaden my experience and understanding.

Tell me how the idea for Hedgehog lab came about?

I’m afraid there is no grand story behind this. After I got married, I decided that it was very important that we were able to buy a house to get on the property ladder. To do this, I felt I needed a full-time secure job that will allow us to take a mortgage. With this in mind, I took one of my very few employment roles at Newcastle-based digital agency TH_NK.

Although I joined TH_NK as a low-level developer, my passion for my job and the general start-up environment that the organisation had then, allowed me to rapidly progress to a level where I was leading teams and taking responsibility for delivery of multi-million pound projects.

As well as my job was going, I was never satisfied with how quickly I was progressing. I felt I hit a glass ceiling and the size and type of the company didn’t allow any more growth. Combined with this, I was starting to really be a thorn in the management’s side as I don’t respect authority very much unless that authority is myself. I really wanted to run my own company and be my own boss.

While I was mulling quitting and starting on my own, I got to know my co-founder, Mark Forster very well as he worked with me on my team. I got the general feeling that he too wanted more from his work and over many cholesterol-induced fast food lunches, I convinced him that starting a company with me would be a great idea.

It sounds hare-brained in retrospect given we both had families, very well-paid jobs, and mortgages/debts with no real savings. However, it sounded like the right time to do something.

We weren’t entirely sure “what” we wanted to do. All we knew was that we wanted to start a software company where we could bring our own style of management, liberal ethics, open organisation, and ideas to fruition. We literally thought, “If we get a bunch of really good guys together, give them great tools, and get out of their way without crappy rules and processes, we can do great things.”

What is Hedgehog lab?

We officially describe hedgehog lab as “a full-service mobile agency that specialises in building mobile experiences and touch screen interfaces. We architect, design, and develop great software for mobile devices, tablets, touch screen kiosks and devices that you use on the move. We specialise in building apps for smart phones and mobile websites.”

I think this sums up what we do.

Why mobile?

I believe the future of computing is mobile. Desktops, laptops, and other PC devices are going to be relegated to niche devices. Touch-enabled mobile devices like tablets and smartphones will deliver computing on a daily basis. We are seeing this already, with mobile devices outselling all PCs in 2011.

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

To be honest, we didn’t think at the time that ANYTHING was hard or impossible. We were so excited to finally start our business and get going on our own, that there was never any time to contemplate what we were doing or the challenges we faced.

I think the hardest part was the change in lifestyle and the impact on our families. We went from being in VERY well-paid jobs with a luxurious lifestyle of spending, to being conservative about costs and bargain shopping.

On a business front, we finally found out that acquiring clients and new business wasn’t as easy as we’d hoped with our background working behind desks and not having many people in our Address Book to reach out to. It underlined the importance of building and keeping relationships and always having a list of contacts you can turn to.

How were you able to fund the business?

The business was completely bootstrapped with our own money. Mark and I had some savings put away, which we exhausted in the first few months. We started out quite moderately by being conservative with cash.

Our first office furniture was an old garden table and chairs we had disposed at my house and were waiting to take to the skip. We tried to use as much of what we had to ensure our costs were low.

Would you say the initial idea for the company, or that your business model has changed since 2009?

It’s changed very radically. As I said, we started the business not knowing what we wanted to do. It was obvious we could be a software company working for clients, as that was our background. It was the easy thing to do and something we knew very well. We started out doing web-based software and products. We tended to do everything and had no real focus at that time, as we wanted to try our hand at all potential opportunities.

However, since we re-branded as a pure play mobile agency, we have had laser focus on what we do. Everything we do is about mobile or is related to mobile. We don’t get involved in infrastructure projects, desktop projects or other web-only projects. We could very easily do that work but it distracts us from our core message: “We are great at mobile and we love it.”

How big is your team now?

We are now around 12 people and growing at a rapid rate. We expect to double this by this time next year.

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

I would say experience is the most vital thing that has helped us grow the company. Sure, there are glorified stories like Facebook & Google, where young founders with no experience became billionaires, but the reality is that for 99% of businesses, you have to work long and hard at it to succeed.

This is why I feel all the problems, hardships and struggles of our earlier years have enabled us to build a concrete foundation for a business that will last, and if we get lucky, make us very rich!

What is your business model?

As a digital agency, we work by charging our clients for the time we spend on their projects, which is akin to consulting.

Is the business profitable?

As of this month’s accounts, it is

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

I don’t think I have had that 1 defining moment yet. There are plenty of memorable moments that I cherish but none of them stands out. I think just starting up was one of the best feelings ever but it was also great to sit down with our accounts earlier this year and realise we are going to turn out a huge profit for the first time company history.

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

‘Just do it’ is my constant mantra and will remain so for years. Entrepreneurship is a difficult, risky, and often thankless path. I know people in my personal and professional network who really want to break out of their 9 to 5 job and do something on their own but are worried about the consequences. 

If you are truly passionate about something, ignore the critics and take the risk. Once you do that, failure doesn’t seem such a scary idea.

What can we be expecting from you and Hedgehog lab in 2012?

We have just started to break into the London market and are working hard to establish ourselves as a national player. So, you will probably hear a lot more about us in the local and national trade press but our aim is to become the biggest mobile marketing agency in the UK. I think we are 1% on the way to achieving that. Only 99% to go

Before starting Arena Flowers, Will worked at a private equity firm in the city and before then he was one of the marketing guys at eBay UK. Will explains to me that not everything is as perfect as it looks or pretty as in the case of “flowers” a lot of setbacks happen behind the scene he said.

After being convinced by his business partner to go into the flower business, he eventually cracked and started Arena Flowers. Will explains his journey so far running the business.

The idea for Arena Flowers came jointly from myself and my business partner and long time friend, Steve France. In summary we saw a large market not very well served by existing old fashioned incumbents and poorly executed online. So we thought we’d have a go at doing it better. Five years later, it’s been some ride!

The Start

At the time, I had already done five formative years in private equity in the City, then spent three years in marketing at eBay UK in the period when eBay really exploded into the pubic consciousness. That surge was nothing to do with me, mind you, but it was fascinating to watch it from the inside. Steve was already in the flower industry. He was convinced of the opportunity of selling flowers online and I was, quite frankly, rather sceptical about it – “surely the customer will want to see the product?”, ran my logic. However, I realised quickly that I was wrong; flowers have been sold at distance for a long time, using the telegraph originally, so no reason the internet couldn’t be used similarly. Furthermore, the internet could actually be used to ameliorate the experience. Which is why we decided to go for it. Flowers, but leveraging the internet.

We have come a long way from the early stressful days. I had no idea what a tricky business we were getting in to and it was very very hard the first few years. We didn’t raise enough money, we couldn’t afford enough senior people, we really weren’t that sure what we were doing. We had some bad luck: our three phase electricity exploded blowing all power at Flowers HQ; our internet went down for 6 days (a man in a digger genuinely cut 6,000 cables AND a water main and destroyed thousands of businesses’ internet access); our main courier (a household name) tried to play silly buggers and charge us an extra £20K for Valentine’s deliveries with one day’s notice; and many other improbable bombshells that we couldn’t possibly list here.

This meant we learned one essential lesson: “manage the downside and the upside will take care of itself”. We genuinely never expected so many things to break or go wrong. But now, having learned to assume that they will, we take bumps in our stride. In my City job, I used to laugh derisively like everyone else at my investment bank and the “disaster recovery” planning we did – “what’s the point of this nonsense?!” We certainly learned the value of contingency in the first few years of Arena.

The Middle

The opening of our second warehouse in the Naaldwijk flower market near The Hague in Holland was a big part of what made Arena what it is today. Being located on site and now able to cut out all middlemen, we could guarantee full control of the quality of our flowers and their cost. We reviewed our pricing strategy and managed to improve our profit margins while providing more low and mid-price range products. We’re still looking to improve our product range, quality and price, this is why we carry on dealing with growers direct.

Last year we signed a deal with a Kenyan grower which allowed us to offer some of our bouquets at a cheaper price for the same high quality, even during peak periods; it also means the odd trip out to Kenya for our product development manager, which he enjoys! We also work with growers in Thailand to complement the variety of our range. We’ve always been very demanding on the quality of our stems and have over the past months started to institute a testing routine especially when starting with a new grower or product.

Arena Flowers is all about the experience so every single detail is important to us. This is why we offer such a wide range of add-ons (luxury chocolates, greetings cards, soft toys, champagne, balloons…) as well as the possibility to add a personalised photo (or even a video message) to any order. All that stuff might sound quite simple and pretty boring but it is actually part of a very complex operation which in its whole makes Arena Flowers unique selling points strong assets against the competition.

Our Dutch warehouse was also a massive asset in our development and expansion. In 2008, we launched our Dutch language site and quickly had a German, French and two Belgian sites running as well. Offering the same high standards as our English site; fresh flowers, personalised service, competitive prices, next day delivery and International flower delivery; the popularity of our European sites grew rapidly. Our strong presence in the European market and international delivery service (through a highly qualified third party) also opened doors to an amazing deal with ProFlowers for which we manage the site ProFlowersInternational.com.

They started pretty much like Arena did and grew very fast to now be the leading online florist in the US after only twelve years. Pretty outstanding and they have been an inspiration for us and we are very proud that they chose us to handle all their international orders.

The Future

When starting Arena Flowers, we didn’t have a fixed idea of what the business would become, more like a concept we believed in and still keep driving today. We wanted to offer product excellence at affordable prices while adding something to the service (like our photos and video messages) as well as attention to detail. This is as true today as it was yesterday and we will continue to work on getting the message out in the future, in particular with some very exciting developments coming in Q2 of 2012. Watch this space!

3 Things We’d Do Differently

Raise more money – it wasn’t possible at the time and it took us a long time to dig ourselves out of the holes that resulted from being grossly undercapitalised. But we got there in the end, via the hard way!

Hire an accountant – we didn’t have a full time bookkeeper at the beginning and we should have done as neither Steve nor I had the time or training for this detailed work. It’s boring but very important.

Have more senior managers – linked to the first point and being under resourced. There was simply too much work to do and not enough good people. So huge opportunities go begging, which is very frustrating. If you have substandard people it can be even worse; they can develop a project, just really badly and lose you a fortune. Woops. Resourcing is something we still suffer from a bit but hopefully it’s something that we’ll put right in the not too distant future. Good people are priceless as in a business like this, you simply cannot do it alone.

I caught up with Monique Needham, one of the co-founders of The Startup Crowd – The Startup Crowd is a series of events (Ideation, Build and Pitch) that is focused on bringing together start-ups and entrepreneurs together to solve their business challenges.

In the full interview below, Monique talks me through her journey so far running the company and how the idea for The Startup Crowd came about.

Hi Monique, Thanks for doing this interview with me.

No problem at all!

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

I want to say I wasn’t. I didn’t come from an entrepreneurial background as such. When I was younger the idea of being an entrepreneur was not something I thought I was. I had ideas, self taught myself things I wanted to learn, often challenged the way things were done at school, and as I got older, at work. Something inside me never seem completely satisfied working to create someone else’s dreams come true. I had dreams of my own I wanted to see come to life. Still do! I just thought, I want to do something that I enjoy, do it the way I want, how I want, when I want and work with the people I want. Some called it being spoilt, in hindsight I call it my untapped entrepreneurial spirit.

Tell me how the idea for The Startup Crowd came about?

Tayo (my co-founder) and I were having lunch one summer afternoon after working on a project together. We talked about our own start-ups and the struggles of working alone. We wanted to meet like minded people, other entrepreneurs. The types of conferences and events we had come across that we would love to attend were very expensive, way out of our ‘startup’ budget so we thought well if the type of events we want to go to does not exist lets start up one ourselves.

What is The Startup Crowd?

The Startup Crowd is a series of events (Ideation, Build and Pitch) that is focused on bringing together start-ups and entrepreneurs together to solve their business challenges. We understand first hand the difficulty of starting up and working alone so our goal is to provide 6 hours of rapid incubation and start-up support. Through collaborative problem solving with the start-ups who attend and our superb business mentors The Startup Crowd aims to provide attendees with the mental models needed to help entrepreneurs think differently, develop concepts, build a strong network and propel their business forward. (All the things Tayo and I wanted when we first came up with the idea)

How’s has the first few months of running the business been? What would you say was the hardest part of starting the business?

The first few months has been a HUGE learning curve. Since we are our own target audience we have been able to come up with what we think start-ups would need and within months of coming up with the idea we had already ran the first event, Ideation Camp. We both have invested a great deal of time and our own money into this as we believe in it so much, so the hardest part for me was the fear of will people turn up, especially since we are new company, and will people enjoy it and take something from the day’. (My heart was pounding throughout the whole day of Ideation Camp) That feeling in my chest and that voice in my head saying ‘will this work, I pray this works’ and thankfully the first event was a success.

What is your business model?

Our main aim is to make our events affordable without cutting any corners on quality, so for the short term sponsorship. However we hope to be able to scale the business through a licensing format which will allow others to run The Startup Crowd , hopefully around the world *smiles*

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

Believe in yourself! Self doubt is something that constantly makes a surprise visit in my mind from time to time and I have moments where I think ‘I can’t do this’. I don’t have anyone telling me how great a job I am doing so I have had to sometimes step out of myself, motivate and praise myself for my efforts.

Also listen to your instincts! I can honestly say I have not gone on my gut feeling this much ever before until now. I have been in situations in the past were things just don’t seem right yet I have chosen to ignore that feeling, lets just say I should have listened.

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

Don’t sit on your idea trying to make it perfect before you tell anyone about it. I know we can be very protective of our ideas due to the fear of someone coming along and stealing it, however how do you even know what you are offering in your business is even something that people want? Not only just that but I found that when I had a new business idea, when I shared elements of it to others it enabled me to develop it in ways I could have never done alone. Being in my own head when trying to grow a concept was not always a great thing, getting different perspectives, using others around me as a sound board was one of the best things I could of done. Give you idea some air, let it breathe as long you hold on to the heart and the core of what it is, no-one will be able recreate it the way you plan to.

What can we be expecting from you and The Startup Crowd in 2012?

Everyone can expect 12 camps over the next 12 months. This year is all about testing the framework of how our days will work. We are very hands on with everything and taking on board every ounce of feedback we get. This year is beta year, so that by 2013 we can scale The Startup Crowd beyond just London and even, we hope, the UK.

Where do you want the company to be in 5 years?

Helping support start-ups globally! Knowing that something we created was helping entrepreneurs all over develop and grow would honestly put a huge smile on my face.

The Startup Crowd will be holding their first event of the year: Build Camp on the 18th of Feb 2012, Click here to book your tickets now with a special discount code (UNLOCKYHP) for the YHP readers.

I caught up with Jon Penn, one of the co-founders of the newly launched startup – Goodfibres which launched last year August. Goodfibres is an ethical fashion brand that provides a platform for artists and up and coming artists to upload and submit graphic designs.

In the full interview below, Jon talks me through his journey so far running the company, how the idea for Goodfibres came about and what Goodfibres is all about.

Who are you?

Goodfibres is an ethical fashion brand that provides a platform for artists and up and coming artists to upload and submit graphic designs. Once the designs have been uploaded other artists within the Goodfibres community will rate the designs and will give feedback as to how the design could be improved if at all. Every week we look at the most popular designs and then turn them into funky t-shirts paying the artist a 10% royalty on every sale.

How did you start?

I have always had an entrepreneurial spirit and find myself consistently evaluating companies that I admire and wondering how they can be done differently and better. I find that I have to reign myself in at times as I continuously come up with new business ideas that I want to pursue. Due to the routine constraints of life, I try to put the blinders on and think about the big picture; you need to focus on one big goal at a time. I originally started out in the tech sector working for the big banks and realised very quickly that it just wasn’t for me. My business partner Damon Bonser has a similar mindset- he has a creative spirit and likes to do things in a manner that blazes new trails rather than following existing ones.

It was about a year ago that we were looking online for a site that offered a good selection of t-shirts that had great designs and something a little different from the high street. During our research we came across a few sites in the US but found that although they had some good designs the quality was quite poor and you had to pay a lot to get them shipped over.

It was at this point we thought there might be an opportunity but rather than build the traditional model of employing in-house designers we thought it would be a great idea to build an online community of artists. One thing we noticed whilst building Spinning Hat, our product design company, was we were finding that there are so many talented artists out there but many of them were never really taught on how to promote themselves in a big way so we thought by building a platform we could do this for them.

Before setting up Goodfibres Damon and I were already successfully selling products to the same demographic through Spinning Hat. Fashion apparel and Funky T-Shirts are always popular items for this target audience and are often sold into existing retailers that Spinning Hat supplies. The plan was to create a complimentary brand able to draft on Spinning Hat’s success whilst also helping us to enter new markets and leverage additional retail accounts. The plan was to create a sexy retail product that had a bigger purpose and story beyond the actual tangible item.

What do you offer?

Goodfibres designs are curated and created by artists, so by wearing a Goodfibres t-shirt you’re actually wearing a piece of original artwork. Goodfibres works hard to champion the contributing artists, so in addition to placing their names on every creation, the designer keeps the rights to their artwork, and receives 10% of the proceeds on every sale.

Breaking Through

When we saw the competition begin to adopt attributes that we were using to differentiate ourselves I knew they were keeping their eyes on us and that we were on the right track. We will continue to be agile and to focus on serving our customer base. If we do this we will just go from strength to strength.

Setbacks

The two biggest challenges with Goodfibres from day one was going to be how do you grow an online community from scratch and the second challenge was how are we going to find artists to submit artwork for the initial collection when we didn’t have a brand/site just an idea. We also needed to make sure as part of the launch we had a great collection of cool t-shirts to sell so we could drive sales from day one.

I think a lot of the success of this was probably due to the fact that we have already built a successful business so when we started to actively contact the artists they could see that we had potential to take the idea forward and implement it.

After a few months of contacting various artists we soon found ourselves getting inundated with artists contacting us and expressing their interest and wanting to be involved. After a few months we had close to 300 submissions of artwork for t-shirts which was really amazing. We then spent the next few weeks going through all the artwork to filter it down to a collection of 45 T-Shirts that were designed by a mixture of artists from all over the world and had different artistic styles as we didn’t want to create a genre that stopped certain artists from submitting their artwork.

Once we had built this collection of artists we then started to actively contact other artists offline and online and were introduced to friends of friends and it kind of snow balled from there. Within a few weeks of launching we had over 1,500+ artists sign up which was really amazing.

Pointers for others?

• -Check what is already in the market place?
• -Identify who is going to buy your product?
• -Is the product design realistic?
• -Can you achieve the right price point with the chosen design?
• -Is the volume you are expecting to achieve worth the effort of even designing the product?
• -Surround yourself with talented people as you cant do it all on your own.

Future

I would like to think that in 5 years from now Spinning Hat is a well established, recognised high street brand with its products being sold all over the world. Within that time we should have built an experienced, talented design team that could allow us to move into other industries or areas within design. As long as I am surrounded by talented and creative individuals who continue to challenge me, I will be happy. Goodfibres will continue to grow and will service more and more people but at the end of the day the game will still be the same. If it continues to be fun I won’t need an exit plan.

I briefly caught up with Tim Morgan, founder of Picklive – Picklive has the fastest sports data in the world and uses it to create games that people play while they are watching football on TV. In our conversation, I ask Tim a few questions on his journey so far as an entrepreneur and running Picklive.

This is the full interview below

Hi Tim, How are you doing, great to have you on YHP?

I’m doing great thanks Joseph– very happy to be here.

Could you quickly give us some background information about yourself?

I’m from Wales. After I graduated I qualified as an accountant and then advised on mergers and acquisitions for about 5 years.

How did you get involved in entrepreneurship? Were you exposed to entrepreneurship as a child?

I met a friend for lunch in 2004. He said he was going to leave his job and start a business. He asked if I’d be interested in helping him. I agreed. That business was Mint Digital http://mintdigital.com/ – a fine web technology company.

I was not exposed to entrepreneurship at all as a child. Growing up in the South Wales valleys during the 80s and 90s, most people were lucky if they had a job and didn’t have the luxury of sitting around contemplating industry disruption.

So tell me about Picklive and how the idea came about?

I was having breakfast one Saturday with some friends. We had developed some real-time technology at Mint that allowed us to build ‘playalong’ games to TV shows. We thought, “wouldn’t it be good if instead of having to wait 9 months for a result you could play fantasy football in short 5 minute games” – BOOM Picklive was born.

What is Picklive and how does it work?

Picklive has the fastest sports data in the world and uses it to create games that people play while they are watching football on TV. These games feel like something between sports betting and social gaming. Picklive is a ’2 screen’ experience designed to make even the dullest football match worth watching.

What is your business model?

Gambling. Each players pays a small amount (£1 currently) to enter a game. The winner takes the pot and we take a cut.

How did you initially attract users to Picklive, and how do you do it now?

Initially word of mouth. Now we have media partners, a referral system and make use of social media.

What makes Picklive different from any service out there? What problem does it solve?

It’s the world only ‘in-play’ fantasy football site. It makes the dullest football match on TV feel like El Clasico.

What are the most crucial things you have done to grow your business?

Hired great people, listened to our customers.

What was the most challenging part of starting the business?

Obtaining the gambling license.

Would you say the business has changed from the first initial idea?

Yes it was originally just about live fantasy football. Now its about a range of games that people play to pep up their football viewing experience.

Who are your competitors?

There are no direct competitors. Similar products include any fantasy football site, any sports betting site and any social football game.

What were you doing before you founded Picklive?

I founded and was CEO at Mint Digital.

How have you been able to fund the business?

We have both self-funded and raised VC money.

What can we be expecting from your company in 2012?

Lots of new games.

What three pieces of advice would you offer entrepreneurs starting out today?

1. Test the market. Make sure there is demand for your product before you spend too much time on it;
2. Know why you’re doing it. Are you trying to change the world or are you trying to make money? Those are often not the same thing;
3. Hiring is the riskiest most time consuming activity, be certain you need headcount before you attempt it.