The latest trend in team building programmes and corporate events near London is indoor skiing and snowboarding on real snow.

A unique team building experience at The Snow Centre in Hemel Hempstead, only 20 minutes outside London, is The Mountain Challenge. Visitors are split into teams and, with help from their local mountain guide, they have to devise the quickest route to reach the summit of The Snow Centre’s slopes and raise a flag. Before they can start the climb, the teams have to undertake a series of challenges to raise the necessary funds to compete in the expedition.

Instructors Steve Cross and Greg Price developed The Mountain Challenge to help teams improve their team working skills, negotiation, budgeting, project management, creativity and lateral thinking.

The Snow Centre also is a popular off site local destination for breakfast and lunch meetings, offering a unique view, wireless Internet and Costa Coffee. There are two fully serviced conference rooms for 45 or 55 people available.

The site offers free car parking and full disabled access. Both conference rooms have air conditioning, wireless Internet access, overhead projectors and a TV and DVD player with all the necessary computer leads. The delegate rates include room hire and a hot or old buffet lunch. Refreshments such as tea and coffee will be brought to your room.

Businesses can also take out a range of snow side activities such as Ski and Snowboard Lessons, Recreational Lift Passes for all abilities or the World Cup Slalom. This last activity is an excellent method of promoting a competitive atmosphere as well as stimulating the team spirit. The World Cup Slalom includes race training from a highly qualified instructor.

The group will be split in two teams after the training, and these teams will be pitted against each other to race through the gates and see who wins. After the entertainment on the snow, visitors can head back to their conference room or to The EDGE for food and drinks.

The Snow Centre offers corporate memberships. The discount depends on how many people sign up at the time of purchase.

I’m sure if you enjoy going through youtube, listening to music covers of your favourite artists, then im sure by now you will be very familar with nick pitera.

I decided to catch up with him to ask him some tips for upcoming music artist, especially those using youtube for some kind of promotion.

If you dont know Nick, quickly check out his youtube page, before you start reading this interview.

Ok, now with that out of the way, check out what we talked about.

Hi Nick, it’s great to finally have you here on YHP, How are you doing?

I’m doing very well thank you!

Tell us a bit about your background, how did you get involved in music?

I have been singing my entire life. I don’t remember a time where I wasn’t running around attempting to belt out whatever song was currently stuck in my head.

So how did you get involved in making videos on youtube?

My first YouTube video was a contest entry. A fellow classmate sent me a link to a Disney singing contest that required you to submit your entry via a YouTube video. I thought it would be fun, but never thought very much of it. To my surprise the video view count started to rise rapidly. My friends then told me I should record myself singing a duet, and post that as well.

I decided to post “A Whole New World.” That video then went viral. After that I thought YouTube would be a great musical outlet, and decided to continue posting videos.

Since you’ve started, what are some of the advantages, opportunities or edge uploading your videos on youtube has given you?

YouTube has been an amazing experience. Since first posting I have had the opportunity to travel the country singing at various venues and colleges. I was also lucky enough to appear on the Ellen show twice this past year as well as a couple other local and national TV spots.

What are some of the tips that you can an upcoming singer/songwriter that are just getting into the youtube world, what are some of the tactics that worked for you?

Since I sort of stumbled on the YouTube world. I’m not sure what advise to give. A lot of it depends on timing and luck. I think the best thing to do, is make sure you are creating content that is true to you and that you are proud of. If it’s good, and people like it, hopefully it will get spread around and receive some exposure.

What is your source of inspiration, what motivates you to write or sing each day?

My inspiration comes from a variety of places. I get inspired by films, musicals, play, musicians, other YouTube singers. I credit the Disney films of the 90’s for teaching me to sing, and artists like Mariah Carey, Michael Jackson, and Whitney Houston, for showing me how to belt out a power ballad.

How does 23 years old get himself working at Pixar animation studios? That’s kind of a big deal right?

Lots and lots of hard work.

I know you get a lot of critics attacking your voice, how do you deal with it?

I don’t pay attention to it. I am too grateful for all of the opportunities that singing has brought me to focus on the negative. Thankfully the shock value of how I sing seems to have worn off a bit. Now those that view my videos do so because they genuinely like it and want to hear more.

Do you think getting a record deal is as important has it was couple of years ago, you know we’ve seen people leveraging the power of social media and making it work for them? How can an upcoming really leverage the power of social media?

I still think it helps quite a bit. That being said, with the Internet providing people with the means to self promote, I feel self produced and released projects will continue to increase.

What tools do you use to brand yourself and promote your materials?

I use YouTube, Twitter, a Facebook music page, and occasionally a blog to promote my music.

Can you share with us some of the mistakes you’ve along the way and how upcoming singers/songwriters can avoid that?

I am just now getting into my own original music, and really starting to shape who I am as an artist. I think it’s important to know what you want to do, and not be a cookie cutter version of someone else. I’ve learned that finding your own sound and voice is extremely important.

What do you get up to during your me-time?

Since I work full time in the animation industry, I spend a lot of my me time working on music.

What have been some of the key lessons you’ve learnt so far?

I’ve learned how to deal with negativity. I’ve also learned the importance of constructive criticism. When people feel safe and distanced on their computer they tend to be very honest. It’s important to know what your audience wants and likes. Posting online has really brought that to my attention.

What has been the highlight of your journey so far?

Appearing on the Ellen show as a guest was extremely exciting and and experience I’ll never forget.

What should we be expecting from you next?

I just worked on a cover of Taio Cruz’s Dynamite with some produces from the UK. That track is now up on iTunes and Amazon. I am now working with them on an EP of covers being released to iTunes sometime in October. I am also working on original music which will hopefully soon follow.

Thanks nick, hope to chat up with you very soon, good luck!

Thanks so much joseph!

Dont forget to also follow nick on twitter @Nickpitera

Support his cover of Taio cruz’s Dynamite on iTunes

Finally met up with sabirul islam, the famous entrepreneur that sold 42,000 copies of his book “The world at your feet” in 9 months, when he was 13 he got fired from working with his cousin only after 2 weeks.

Now to the interview , hope you enjoy it.

You got into business from such a young age, from my research its says you got into business at 13, but started your business at 14, what inspired you at such an early age?

Having been weighing up my options for GCSE at 13, I was lucky enough to be given the opportunity to work for my cousin, who at the time was 14 years of age. He ran his own business designing calendars for teachers in schools. Not the greatest of ideas but I was really inspired by his work. I had the role of a production director, designing the calendars. But I didn’t really live up to the expectations and 2 weeks later got fired!

I have to say it was the most difficult moment in my life, to not only have been fired but fired by my own cousin. It was hard to take in…However, he made £60 profit in one whole academic year and I was on a mission to prove my cousin wrong for firing me.

I wanted to run a business that made more money than he did which led me to setting up my first web design business at the age of 14, which was really successful having ran it for 2 years. Until I realised at 16 that web design was too common so I left the business.

How did you come about writing your book “the world at your feet”?

Having become an entrepreneur at the age of 14 and an investor at 16, it was somewhat outside the norm of what the community expected. Therefore, I had a lot of young people asking me constant questions on how they could do the same, which led me to writing The World at Your Feet book.

For every person I answered the question on how to become an entrepreneur, I believed that it straight away went through one ear and came out of the next. Therefore, I had to give something back in written evidence, which I believe they can always refer back to and seek as inspiration.

The book has a vision to inspire young people about the successes that lie ahead when opportunity is created and most importantly when young people strongly believe in who they are as a person and their abilities to make the most of their talents.

Reading your story, it says you sold over 42,000 copies of your book? That’s right, right? Or how many copies have you sold so far?

Yes, I did sell 42,500 copies of the book and in a space of 9 months.

Can I just “ how the hell were you able to sell 42,000 copies in the space of 9 months”, I’m sure everyone is curious about your tactics, strategies, how the hell did you pull that off, can you share some of your tactics with us, especially with people that are looking to publish their books?

I believe it is all about empowering people to believe in themselves and others that we are all extraordinary. Having written the book, I straight away became a motivational speaker, and spoke at 379 events within the 9 months (333 secondary schools) which led me to selling the 42,500 copies.

I felt that selling directly to young people will not be possible, therefore targeted the education market which I thought was fantastic.

But it’s not about being a sales person standing on stage and looking to sell. No! It’s about the power of inspiration and influence, enabling people to grow in self belief and being passionate about the topic in which you are talking about. Getting more people on board with your vision or topic enables greater opportunity for them to be a part of your network, purchase your products and see you as a role model and an inspiration.

Take us back to when you went to New York with Merrill lynch, how was the experience, how did it come about?

This was totally unexpected and to be honest, I wasn’t really keen to go to the States. But I was convinced
by my parents that it would be a fantastic experience.

Before the summer holiday period, I received a phone call illustrating the opportunity that lies ahead in learning about business and investment in New York. Having been convinced to go, I learnt how to trade in the stock market at the age of 16, working with professional traders in the New York stock market and entrepreneurs from Wall St.

I came back to the UK and put what I learnt to action…becoming a stock trader at the age of just 16. But I felt I was bit too young for this sort of commitment therefore only really bought stock for about 9 months. But it was a fantastic experience!

So you will be speaking at TEDx Youth Event in Amsterdam this November, how did you go about getting involved in that?

Once you develop a strong personal brand with a vision to inspire, and encourage the growth of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial learning…Opportunity will come to you rather than you having to seek for it. As an entrepreneur, unexpected things happen, which is exactly what happened here. I received an email from the organisers of the TEDx Youth Event from Amsterdam and was invited to speak at the event.

That is the great thing about being an entrepreneur; opportunities can arise any moment in time. So always expect the unexpected!

You’re no longer the teen entrepreneur, how has the journey been so far?

I believe that everyone is still a teen until they reach 30! I’m currently aged twen-teen (20) which I’m sure still makes me a teen 

But it’s been an unbelievable experience. I always look back to the moment I got fired at the age of 13 and think, what if I hadn’t been fired…Would I have been working at McDonalds at this point in time. I just don’t know!

But having become an entrepreneur, motivational speaker and an author, it’s been a fantastic journey. Having turned 18, I launched my own business board game which is titled as ‘Teen-Trepreneur’ hence that is where the name comes from.

The game has been used as part of the business BTEC academic learning which is quite extraordinary as I wasn’t really expecting it to achieve this accolade. Having turned 19, I started speaking in countries around the world such as Nigeria, South Africa, USA and now 20; I’ve launched the new business start kit for young people to encourage future growth and learning of entrepreneurship and will be on a world tour!
So, I say it’s been quite a fascinating few years but hey it’s still early days!

What inspires you and keeps you motivated as an entrepreneur on a day-day basis?

Every day is a new challenge and as an entrepreneur it is fascinating to tackle new challenges and obstacles on a day to day basis.

With my passion to inspire many young people around the world, I believe that every person out there is taking in the words of inspiration and trying to make something happen. I’ve had many people come back to me and state that I’ve changed their life…That is the biggest and most inspirational thing a person can hear.

And the fact that as an entrepreneur new ideas are always looming! So I believe both these two factor keep me going!

What are your hobbies? What do you get up to when you’re not talking business or giving inspirational/motivational speeches?

Over the past year or so, I’ve somewhat been attached to the Playstation which is quite a change for me, as I wasn’t attached to games before. But these modern high tech gizmos are quite rewarding and relaxing!

I also like travelling and taking breaks…so I do go out with friends and family and enjoy myself!
One thing which my mother’s not happy about is the fact that I bought a 6ft snooker table a few months back, which is now sitting in the living room! Have been playing that when I haven’t been working. Good fun!

What would you like to see more of happening as a young entrepreneur?

I just love doing business abroad…I would have to say that I would be delighted if more opportunities to speak or trade in countries that could really do with the products and services I supply.
But it’s all about taking one step at a time…That is where I believe the thrill of the journey comes from!

For the people that haven’t read your book yet, what can they be sure to learn from it?

The World at Your Feet follows a vision to inspire, educate and provide opportunities to jump on to the entrepreneurial platform. It provides a direction and choice of learning about the successes behind entrepreneurship and setting up a business.

The new launch of the Teen-Trepreneur Trilogy books supports life choices, for those who don’t know what they’ll do for their future.

The books help gain interest in the topic of entrepreneurship, help develop your personal brand and teach the core steps to setting up a real business.

There are many people out there full of scepticism and doubt about who they are and their talents. The World at Your Feet book aims to inject belief and hope that ordinary individuals who do something unique make them extraordinary.

And no, it’s not a 40 year olds views on successes in life…Its views from a teenager who was aged 17 (myself ), that had unlocked the beauty of success. So the gap between, those who need help to the person who wrote the book aged 17, is minimal. So there is hope that we can all achieve success.

You been to a lot of countries, giving inspirational talks, what has been your best experience so far?

Without a doubt my time in South Africa was amazing. I spoke at a conference which had listeners of over 2 million people on radio from over 170 countries.

Had great responses from people in South Africa and the people I stayed with will truly live long in my memories.

I even had my books and games sold in South Africa and now have constant orders from country…Great for business. One great thing that happened was when I spoke at a school in South Africa, one of the student bought my book from a local store and wanted my autograph.

She then searched online, asked people around and found out where I was staying…She came over with her dad just to have the book signed having searched for 2 days. Which I thought was awesome and really inspirational.

It will take something really special to beat the experience I had in South Africa.

What has been your most memorable moment so far?

It has to be when I was awarded the Mosaic Entrepreneur of the Year award by HRH Prince of Wales and HRH Princess of Jordan in 2008.

There have been a lot of extraordinary moments during my time but this has to top it, as I was nominated by Merrill Lynch, and was the youngest person nominated for the award, up against top business owners in their 30s and 40s. Which I thought was fantastic!

What has been some of the key lessons you’ve learnt so far on your journey as an entrepreneur?

It is very important to follow the 3 P’s as an entrepreneur…You have to remain Positive at all times. It’s important to always see negative influence as a means to doing positive things and to prove others wrong. I learnt about the importance in being Passionate about what you do, because without passion there is no hope. And finally, what I’ve learnt is that illustrating Perseverance is key. Hard work and determination, even through tough times is how true entrepreneurs succeed.

So what’s next for you?

I’ll be starting my World Tour in October, speaking in 20 countries in 12 months. In November, I’ll be launching the new Teen-Trepreneur Speakers Bureau and from next year the Teen-Trepreneur Board Game will be selling globally.

So there is still a bit to do, but I’ve always said to myself…Duncan Bannatyne became an entrepreneur aged 30 and is now a multi-millionaire. I started at 14 and am now aged 20. Well, I speak for many young entrepreneurs when I say that we are already more success than he is! 

What tips have you got for young entrepreneurs especially those looking to publish their books?

It’s easy and simple…All it takes is for you to write a story, design it yourself or find a designer and publish on Lulu.com…It’s simple, its free and it will make you more successful than those who take their manuscripts off to a mainstream publishers and get rejected! Give it a try. It won’t cost you to publish a book!

Thanks for your time sabirul, hope to catch up with you soon.

I recently got the chance of speaking to Suleman Sacranie, founder of 99pshopper.com, a really cool guy with an interesting idea and something that i will think will go far, it’s definitely going to be huge.

Rather than walking to your favourite shop, or maybe you forgot to do your weekly or monthly shopping, or you recently cut down the budget for your weekly shopping.

99pshopper.com offers you products for 99p with delivery, just think 99p store but online and delivery. Cool right? Now start ordering!

Now to the interview, hope you enjoy it!

Hi Suleman, how are you? Great of you to join us on YHP

I’m very well thanks, before we proceed I just wanted to say what YHP do is an inspiration to why today we have successful entrepreneurs that take the chance and start up their own business, it’s a pleasure speaking to you Joseph 

Thanks man, i truly appreciate that, I’m so psyched about this interview, so let’s dive in.

Before we start talking about how you started your business, can you quickly give me some background information about yourself?

Well, my name is Suleman I was brought up in Leicester a city in the midlands, on the day my mum was giving birth to me my dad opened his first Supermarket in Leicester a former Co-Operative store which for the next 15 years of my life I grew up in, living above the shop meant when it got busy my mum had to bring me in the shop to keep an eye on me and as you can imagine a child never stays in one place so I had a box tied to the shelf so I couldn’t move, but this is where my entrepreneurial spirit all started, as I watched my dad develop the business from scratch into the backbone of the family .

(Laughter) this is probably the funniest, most random and favourite introduction I’ve had so far, i like it

Let’s first go back a bit, how did you get into business? What was your motive then? What inspired you?

Business has been going way back from my granddad and my father, and my father has always been the one that inspired me to go into business.

We talk nothing else but business between us and it really frustrates my mum and my younger brother as we are always looking at what we can do then realise it’s like 3 AM!

I can relate to that, time flies when you’re talking business

I always thought I would go down the academic route having completed my A- Levels in Chemistry, Biology & English Language. I started my degree course off at University Of Leicester in Chemistry when I realised that this was not for me whilst in lectures I would always be thinking about business, coming up with ideas that I wanted to pursue without any research.

My motive was financial freedom and to be self employed, when i was 17, I realised I couldn’t work for anyone whilst working at a bank call centre, I always used to say to myself, how could this people be in this position, I used to get in trouble for telling them how they could improve and later realised and told myself ,if this is the working world then It’s not for me as I need to voice my opinion and the only way I can do this is by developing my own business and being my own boss! However I realised it was easier said than done

So you sold your first company when you were 19, tell us about this company and why did you decide to sell it?

At 19, I applied for BBC Dragons Den Online, my video pitch appeared online and never did I think 8 hours later I would be planning a flight to the US, the concept was a software to teach children to keep away from guns and knives to be honest I didn’t have a clue where I could take the business, like I said I used to have the most crazy ideas but not know what to do with them and when the offer came up to cash in I knew it would be the best option as it would enable me to further myself and having some capital to embark upon something else

What were you doing before you started this company?

Before I started this I was doing my A-Levels at college. I am not academically the most able but I get by, and surprised myself by managing to get a place on a degree course at one of the best Universities in the UK.

So to 99pshopper, how did the idea come about? What is the story behind it?

Well, you are going to laugh Joseph when you hear the story behind it, me and my dad were just having a laugh about it earlier. It was about midnight a year ago and I was in the bathroom and something just hit me like a bolt of lightning.

I always knew internet was the way forward and then thought to myself people don’t have time to even do their weekly shopping, we are in a recession we all want things cheap.

I ran out of the bathroom and my parents were sleeping, i switched on the light and shouted 99p Shopper!
My mum thought we had a thief in the house and my dad half a sleep goes “what an amazing idea”, this is where it all started.

But going forward it was easier said than done, I thought I could develop a cheap website so i found a company in Bangladesh thinking within two weeks’ time I will be launching 99p Shopper, without a clue of what stock I was going to have on the site, the company doing the website had no clue about what they were doing, I was doing more of the web design than they were and lost £500.

I finally decided to tell them to stop the work and for a month I walked the streets of Leicester wondering how am I going to make 99p Shopper happen, I was getting lots of web quotes equivalent to prices of houses which was really shocking for me, but like they say “if you keep trying something will eventually come up”, I went to London, Glasgow, Bristol searching for a web company and i finally found one which was based in Nottingham less than 30 mins from me.

I met the most amazing web company Eventure Internet.

Mark Storey the Director at the company has been the man behind the success of 99p Shopper, he has put all his knowledge in making sure we launch the most exclusive food site on the internet, without him we would not have built 99p Shopper today. We used to meet up every week in Nottingham working on designs going through the development features and 4 weeks ago we launched 99pShopper.com.

I was just browsing through the website and let me get this straight; customers come on the website and order products and get them delivered to their doorstep?

Yes, it’s that simple Joseph, simply add the products to your basket, we have a Save With A Case option which enables bulk buyers to save more money on their shopping so you can buy an individual product or purchase a case, once you complete the checkout process we receive the order at our picking centre, the order is then picked and dispatched to the customer usually within 48 Hours.

So let me get this straight, you guys have a delivery centre, and this is where all the products are stocked, once a order is made, you go to your delivery centre and get the item delivery to the person, right?

Yes simple as that

How much items do i need to order for my stocks to be delivered?

There is no restriction like you have with many other supermarket sites you can spend what you want and order how much you want, the concept is to give flexibility to customers hence why we have no restrictions

You know what i know some of the YHP audience will be wondering how you’re making money, what is your business model?

The business model has always been to keep the company as an online brand; we buy stock in quantity enabling us to pass the savings onto our customers hence selling branded products at 99p & less. But over the last 4 weeks we have had 200 franchises enquires to open stores across the UK. With Supermarkets making huge percentage mark ups, we don’t work on the high profit scale yet working on quantity and keeping all our customers happy.

To be honest, i really like the idea, you know the idea of buying things online for 99p an then you have the delivery aspect of it, it’s pretty cool, i just saw crunchy nut on there for 99p, i guess i will start my weekly shopping as soon as this interview is done, you know by the time i spend £20, I’m sorted! And i do believe that this is something that is really going to go viral or crazy as soon as people start realising it exists? University student will love this

This is the concept joseph, by launching 99p Shopper we are enabling everyone to shop for big brands at low prices, with families having to make cut backs etc. food shopping has been made a lot harder this way for example Crunchy Nut retails for £2.39 in the Supermarkets by the time you add your weekly shopping to your supermarket bag and with our prices of 99p and under you can clearly see the huge savings customers will be making.

To be honest it has been viral crazy the media are picking up on this and writing about 99p Shopper, I am getting text messages from friends saying I have just seen you in the Mail on Sunday etc. not even being aware it is pretty cool.

But the growth of the company in this month has smashed all expectations I had and I am looking forward to developing the company and taking it as far as I can, I think the ex-pat market place is another that we didn’t think we would get any response from, Mark suggested lets have European option in doing so we are shipping customers weekly shopping to Paris, Munich, Madrid, Milan and many other places across Europe.

One problem that i think a lot of people have with the whole 99p issue, is about quality, how are you able to keep your prices low and still maintain quality and I’m sure making profit at the same time?

This is where the experience of my father has been so needed, as he has over 30 years of experience in t
his trade when it came to sourcing the big brands in doing so at the prices I wanted, he has the knowledge of where to go and the methods of doing so and since we have had suppliers contacting us and this has enabled us to go from 200 products to a range of over 2,000 products and this has continued to grow.

Have you started getting orders so far?

So we far we have had 12,000 orders from customers across the UK & Europe

How have you been advertising and generating awareness so far?

To be honest, this has been going on for a month now and with our fasting month I have not really had chance to focus on any kind of advertising, but clearly word of mouth is the biggest kind of advertising out in there as people are hearing about us from their friends and the word is going round

You secured a £100,000 sponsorship from eventure funding to set up the website right? How did that
happen? What do they get from the deal?

Well Joseph as i mentioned earlier, the way I wanted the website was not going to be cheap and I am a very hard person to please and having discussed this with Eventure, they are investors in people and they invested in me. All our internet marketing and campaigns that will be working will only be done by them.

I rate them as the UK’s best web company as they care about delivering the very best and I am already looking at developing new concepts with them

Have you got any plans in expanding the business up a bit? I read something about you looking to go into partnerships with Tesco? Is there anything concrete on that?

I’m not sure where the Tesco thing came from but we’ve had major Supermarkets contact us in going into partnership, but at this moment in time this is not something or direction i want to go in, I want to make 99p Shopper a household name and looking forward to developing a franchise model to open retail outlets across the UK.

Although the offer from a UK Supermarket was concrete it just seemed to be going away from what I wanted to do with 99p Shopper, it was the biggest decision of my life but I stand by not agreeing to it but there is no truth in the Tesco deal, we have not had any contact from Tesco.

So guys are actually not distributing, you have an agreement with a distribution firm to deliver the products right?

This was the initial agreement until they realised that it was not going to be 100 deliveries a week and this is where the biggest nightmare happened as the distributors could not cope with the number of orders, we had to make sure we held the stock and dispatched it to our customers so before customers were receiving their shopping in two different deliveries now all shopping is delivered to the door in one package.

I guess with business you start off in one way and things change as the business develops but if you are making changes like this within a week it is very difficult and we had to make these changes as well as
making sure all our customers’ orders were fulfilled and by working 24/7 we pulled it off.

This is crazy, but before we go forward, i want us to go back a bit; you were studying chemistry at Leicester university right? First of all, how did a sales man/business man end up studying chemistry?

To be honest Joseph I get asked that question every day and even I don’t have an answer to that question, all I can say is I had an amazing Chemistry teacher in Julie Russell and she made me a good student at Chemistry and really I was not going to do anything else but looking back Chemistry taught me many skills that i have used today such as problem solving, calculations and many other things that all link back to Chemistry

Why did you decide to drop out, i mean you have just a year left right? Why not finish it off and then concentrate on your business?

My parents said the same thing to me, but when you want to do something so badly, no matter how much you want to delay it you will constantly be reminded of it and I am one of those people that has to do something as soon as it is in my head I can’t hold it out for 2 years to carry it out.

I guess it’s good you din’t wait for 2 years, I might be the one running 99pshopper now ..Laughter..

Suleman: Laughter

You could say i tried postponing 99p Shopper but couldn’t get it off my head, I tried the uni stuff out but my heart wasn’t in it, I just wanted to be my own boss and when I want something I have to work on it instantly and constantly this was no different, and looking back I don’t regret it, not one bit.

And when you read about 150,000 students not getting into University and here’s me saying the economy can only grow with new business coming into the market to enable jobs to be created, i guess you could say it is an amazing time to start your own business!

What has been the hardest part of building the business so far?

Where do I start, I told you about the website dilemma, at the moment Joseph it’s all really hard work but I would say raising that initial capital was the hardest part as they say there is support of start-ups out there I looked and couldn’t find anything I was fortunate to win an Enterprise completion at the University Of Leicester that gave me £5,000 funding to get going as well as the success I had later on with the sale of my first company

What would you say has been the most valuable lesson you’ve learnt so far?

Keep friends and business separate, starting up your business is very personal and when things are not going well I get very frustrated and angry and this sometimes can come across in the wrong way so I would always suggest build your team around yourself and don’t treat your business as a day with your mates.

Secondly never get your work outsourced, yes you will pay a lot less but if something goes wrong and you need to be able to have the matter resolved right way, you might end up waiting for two weeks just to get through to the company, I learnt one lesson, “pay monkeys expect peanuts” and that is what I realised when I initially outsourced 99p Shopper

If you could go back, what one thing would you do differently?

I wasted three months having the web site developed in Bangladesh and it drained me, I was left frustrated and didn’t know whether to turn left or right, I would have used a UK based company from the get-go but then again I believe everything happens for a reason and it was a lesson I learnt and it was hard at the time but looking back it was part of the journey to get to where we are today .

I know you’ve been so busy of late, i know you are fully booked during the week, i know how you had to squeeze me in for the interview, how do you keep the balance between work and rest? What do you do for fun at the moment, to take the edge off?

Balance between work and rest, well I actually have to think about that one, I am always on the go but I make sure I have a complete rest day on Friday, this is when I can catch up on TV, enjoy a day with the PS3 and do what every other 21 year old does. Saturday is my day to sleep I don’t get up till late afternoon but I need these two days just to take the edge off things.

Saying that I am 21 but my hair is nearly all white and my mum is chasing me with a hair dye every day so I know to take it easy but when you are so passionate about something it is very hard to relax and take your mind off things

What advices or tips could you give to aspiring young entrepreneurs looking to kick start their start-ups?

You will get days when you wish why am i doing this, we all do but remember this much just thinking about starting your own business is the biggest step forward, raising finance is difficult but look at what can you do to kick start things before 99p Shopper went live to raise funds I was running a pilot on eBay and raising funds from this.

Never let anyone tell you your idea is not going to be successful as with determination and hard work you can make anything work

If you are looking at using a web company, use a UK company so you have constant contact with your web company

Get a mentor in place from day one, someone you can go to and get advice not be told what to do, but get suggestions and then make your own decision.

Go to these free workshops to get you off the ground they are free and you will meet likeminded people and you never know the one person you may meet may just be the one to kick start your business

You get told by a lot of people focus on your business plan but my advice would be to work on making the idea happen, put all your effort in winning the hearts of your customers/clients and this will all come together
Look at funding around you, Enterprise Inc gives £5,000 to kick start your business dream, St Thomas White Charity give £12,000 interest free over 12 years.

Don’t give up I never thought 99p Shopper would ever go live looking back just 12 months ago, these were the hurdles I was going through and you have to fight though these things and come out stronger

So what should we be expecting from you next?

Over the next 12 months we are looking at making 99p Shopper a household name with meetings with Venture Capitalist coming up, I am looking at taking the company to the next level and fingers crossed we should be having 99p Shopper stores across the UK 

Thanks suleman, hope to catch up with you soon.

It’s my pleasure speaking with you Joseph thanks for this opportunity

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The Nacue Blog annouced that Victoria Lennox Nacue’s Founder is stepping from her role as CEO.

For those of you that don’t know NACUE – It is an organisation that stimulates university enterprise by supporting, connecting and representing enterprise societies, enterprising students and student entrepreneurs in Universities across the UK.

In this message, she thanks everyone for their support and talks about her journey as nacue’s founder and how it has evolved, although she doesn’t go in great detail about the reason she is stepping down, but she said “It is with the great pride and humility that I announce that I have stepped down from my role as CEO, to make way for the coming of age of NACUE”.

She is now set to join on the Chair of the NACUE Board of Trustees.

I will be continuing to work with you all toward the objective of unlocking the entrepreneurial potential of Britain’s youth. In this role I will be able to do more to vocalise the needs of student and graduate entrepreneurs and to work with decision makers at all levels to build an entrepreneurial Britain.

THE FUTURE

The New CEO of NACUE is Hushpreet Dhaliwal, I actually had the opportunity of speaking to hushpreet a while ago and she seems amazing and everyone from YHP wishes her the best of luck.

By Bobieh Ansah

“A feeling of agitation and anxiety caused by the presence or imminence of danger”(thefreedictionary.com)

Fear is one of the most distructive and negative emotions we as humans have. Combined with imagination fear holds us back and make us do horrible things.

The other day I went a launch party for a new brand called VA-G. There was some beautiful girls hanging out in the middle of the dance floor and i wanted to approach them but i couldn’t, I froze,I eventually got the courage and started walking up to them and then at the very last moment i diverted like a bus in construction.

Why did i stop? FEAR! The fear of rejection , the fear of failure, the fear of embarassisment (as my friends where watching what i would do keenly). This emotion is what stops us from achieving our dreams executing ideas and trying new things.

Blair singer refers to this as our “little voice”. The little voice in our head tells us not to talk to that girl or to that guy, not to ask that person for advice/help. NOT TO DO WHAT WE WANT TO DO!

So how do you combat this fear. The bad news is that you can never stop felling fear(trust me I know) but, you can stop it from controlling you.

Mystery(pick up artist) states that fear is like a cold swimming pool, you know the water is going to be freezing so you fear jumping in however, the first time you jump in you feel uncomfortable but, the more you keep getting out and jumping back in the more your fear disappears.

In business you must network to succeed, you must approach new people,create good impressions , convince people and make presentations.

Therefore, the mastery of our fear is one of the most fundamental things we need to do in order to improve our odds of survival . ( Why didn’t they teach me this at school).

I guess it’s the fear of rejection, the fear of ridicule and the fear of humiliation is what really holds us back (we care to much about what people think about us). Blair singer stated that the traumatic events in our past hold us back today. Like when you put your hand up in class and you got a question wrong people around you would make you feel bad for standing out.

So how do you control fear. I’m not an expert but these are some things I do to help me :
1. Feel the fear and do it any way- this point is pretty self explanatory but it’s very valid.

Sourced from Susan Jeffers, she makes a good point about embracing your fears and doing it any way. Read the book it’s good.

2.Prepare- fail to prepare, prepare to fail(says mum). Have you noticed that when ever you prepare for something you feel more confident. So, whenever your going to meet new people ( I know this sounds a bit creepy) do research on the person your going to meet and openly admit that you looked them up. It will give you something to talk about and most people will be flattered that you took the time to look them up.

3.Set a goal to talk to one new person each day- This not only enhances your network but improve you public speaking skills.

4.Practice public speaking. i.e at open mic nights and karaoke

5.Seek professional help-speaking to someone about the traumatic events in your past can really help.

To conclude there is no way to eliminate fear for good but, why woud you want to. Fear can be a good thing at times. It stops us from jumping onto train tracks or putting our arm in to a lion cage at the zoo.

At best all we can do is master our fears.Putting ourselves outside our comfort zones is the only way we learn.So I put it to you.

1.When was the last time you let fear control you? (let us know we wanna hear funny stories.)

2.How do you deal with fear?

I and a friend were talking about the best entrepreneurship schools to go in the uk, especially those that have good programs an opportunities for entrepreneurs, so we ended up rounding it up to the top 10.

They are in no particular order, as i couldn’t be sure of what school to come first, but after some research and contacting people for some help, these are the 10 i came up with, let me know if i missed anyone one out.

Imperial College Business School

London Business School

London School of Economics

Cambridge Judge Institute

Oxford Said School

Edinburgh University

Manchester Business School

University of Bristol

CASS Business School

Warwick Business School

I decided to put up a list of entrepreneurs who dropped out of high school/college/university, I guess just a way to let you guys know that university doesn’t really determine your chances of being successful, at the same time, a lot of graduates also have become very successful, i will producing a list of top graduates that have money.

Mark Zuckerberg

Dropped out of Harvard University to Pursue Facebook, Now a Billionaire..Good choice or not?

Ashley Qualls

17 years old high school dropout. Made more than $1 million. Earns as much as $70K a month Starting whateverlife.com

Ben Kaufman

The 23 years old entrepreneur missed much of his senior year in high school while getting his first manufacturing line running in China, has a startup called Kluster, dropped out of college to pursue a career in world domination, a process he began by creating funky iPod cases?
Currently Running Quirky www.quirky.com

David Karp

David Karp is a high school dropout who founded Tumblr.

Dustin Moskovitz

One of facebook’s co-founder, Dustin attended Harvard University as an Economics major for two years before moving to Palo Alto, California to work fulltime at Facebook.

Pete Cashmore

Pete is the CEO and founder of Mashable.com. He founded Mashable in a small Scottish town in 2005 at age 19.

Matt Mullenweg

He dropped out of college and moved to San Francisco from Houston, TX

Kristopher Tate

At age 16, Kristopher launched a photo sharing page, Zooomr. He finished high school five years early, notoriously known for driving his parents’ car from San Diego to Cupertino at the age of 16 to launch photo-sharing site Zooomr.

Aaron Levie

He dropped out of college and moved to Palo Alto, Calif., to run Box.net, his online file sharing start-up with his friend and co-founder.

Blake Ross

Co-creator of Mozilla Firefox browser, A Stanford dropout

Adam Hildreth

He left school at age of 16 to face Dubit limited full time.

Derek Johnson

Derek dropped of the University of Houston Entrepreneurial program, Derek has raised half a million dollars in investments for the company from private investors and the Bellingham Angel Group.

Fraser Doherty

Doherty left school at the age of 16 to work on his jams full time.

Mr. Doherty borrowed $10,000 from a bank to cover general expenses and more factory time to produce three flavors: Blueberry & Black Currant, Rhubarb & Ginger and Cranberry & Raspberry.

Patrick Collison

Software wizard. Dropped out of MIT during his freshman year to help two friends develop and eventually sell Auctomatic for millions of dollars.

Kieran O’neill

After running HolyLemon and PSU while at school, He decided to leave the university to work full-time on Playfire full-time

The pro’s and con’s of working part time whilst starting your business

Article by: Bobieh Ansah of Flyprints

All entrepreneurs including I have the dream being free.  We’re all free thinkers who have the desire to step out of mediocrity and claim our rightful spots as masters of our universes. (Wow I need 2 stop watching Conan) doing what we want, when we want how we want to do it. FREEDOM (Brave heart accent)

However, it’s not easy especially if we don’t have parents throwing cash at us. The risks are high , you have close people undermining your confidence and you have other responsibilities. Funding is out there but it’s difficult to attain if there aren’t any social aspects to your business. So, most of us will  have to work a part time job whilst launching our businesses. I currently work part time at a supermarket and at times I have seriously considered quitting my job because the I’ve hated it.

The pros

One of the benefits of working part time whilst starting you business is that you can learn things from your job. Waitrose (supermarket) has excellent customer service and whenever a customer has a issues with a product or service Waitrose (supermarket) compensates the customer 9 time out of 10. I unknowingly adopted this trait. I had an issue with a previous customer of mine and responded in a Waitrose fashion.

What happened was I had printed some tops a day before a concert and needless to say I had spelt one of the names wrong.  I found this out at 12pm in the evening so, i had until 4pm the next day to replace the top. (i would also lose my profits and incur a cost). In the end i managed to replace the top (free of charge) and I said i would give her a free top if ever she needed it. This allowed me to protect my company’s (FLYPRINTS) reputation and also generate positive word of mouth.

(Click link to read the article about this particular example http://flyprints.co.uk/blog/flyprints-dances-to-diversitys-beat/)

One of the most obvious Pro’s is receiving financial stability. When you start a business it may not bring you financial returns instantly and you still need an income to live as a result, a part time job allows you survive whilst launching your company in the difficult stages.

You meet people. At my work place almost everybody has a degree or skill so I have access to an a huge pool of resources for example Legal advice, Connections to india, Graphic designers, Film producers and dancers etc. Consequently because I know these people I can get information or services for free or at at a discount.

The cons

One of the major cons of working part time is that it can interfere with your business. Whilst in the process of doing an important job I have had to stop and go to work. This always seems to happen when I have little time to complete the job. Consequently, in these situations I’ve had to rush the job, loose clients and in general miss opportunities.

Because the part time job isn’t my passion it can be so boring. I sometimes feel as though I’m losing my intelligence because I’m not learning anything new. One of the principals I live by it to work to learn not to earn and at my part time job I’m not learning anything new, I’m only in it because it pays the bills.

Tips to help you cope though this difficult stage:

Save your holidays and sick days- At my part time job there are a specific number of times you can call into sick work without getting into trouble. So therefore if I really need to be away from work at a short notice I can call up sick. I know it’s unethical but at desperate times it can be a life line.

Build strong relationships with your managers- A while back I needed time of work and I had used up all my sick days. Because I had a good relationship with my manager I was able to leave early on the condition i would work of the hours another day.

Be friendly with your fellow employees- This should be done naturally and sincerely, when you have a friend at work you have someone who can cover for you.

Do you research- Whilst at my part time job I found out that they subsidies small courses. This meant I was able to take a course related to my business at a fraction of the price.

Complimentary job- Find a part time job that compliments your current business, so you can learn skills that directly apply to your business.

To conclude, at times I hate my part time job and in a perfect world you would spend 100% of my time working on my business however, life is unpredictable and  you need to find happiness in the here and now. I’ve realized that I have made some good friends and had some good times.

HOW DO/DID YOU MANAGE  THIS DIFFICULT STAGE SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS?