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

Picture via Tech City

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

After our feature on him a while ago, I decided it was time to do an long overdue catchup and interview with him.

This is my interview with Chester Mojay-Sinclare – Founder of Charity Checkout

Hi Chester, Its’ great to have you on YHP, how are you doing today?

Great. I’m in a really good place right now; things are going my way both in business and my personal life right now.

What about you?

I’m great Chester, thanks for asking, as you know we launched our digital magazine, so that’s been great.

Can you give us some background information about yourself?

I was born in London, but grew up in Devon. I was a difficult child and got expelled from primary school at a young age. I went on the ‘straight and narrow’ during secondary school and went on to read Philosophy at UCL, were I set-up a couple businesses. I graduated last year and am now the Consultant Entrepreneur at UCL Business Plc and I also run one of the businesses I founded while at UCL.

How did you get into entrepreneurship? What was your first business?

I started my first business washing cars at the weekend, when I was about 7 years old. I started selling CDs in the playground by 13 years old and I formed my first company at 17 years. I used to import jumping stilts and other daft items from China for UK market traders, but I closed that to finish my A Level exams and then take a year to travel Australia, before university.

Tell me about your university experience, graduating from UCL?

Yes, UCL is where my passion for wheeling and dealing was nurtured into something more sophisticated. I won several entrepreneurship awards while at UCL and received a lot of support and investment from UCL Advances, the universities centre for entrepreneurship. I still have tied with UCL, as I am the Consultant Entrepreneur at UCL Business Plc and they have invested in my business.

What would you say was some of the biggest lessons you took away from your university experience?

I learnt that a university has much more to offer than a good education in your chosen subject and that it is the things you do when you are not in class that really matter.

How did the idea for Charity Checkout come about?

The idea was inspired by the very first charities to register on our not-for-profit site, AliveandGiving.com. When we launched the site in 2009 I made a real effort to speak to as many of the new charities as possible. I noticed many were telling me they were intended to use the site to accept donations via their website. I did not think this was a good idea, sending donors off to a third party site to make their donation. Then I realised this was almost the norm amongst smaller charities, so I figured we could build something more flexible and suitable for this purpose.

What is Charity Checkout?

Charity Checkout is a donation-processing gateway for charities. We provide a utility that allows charities to easily set-up branded and customisable donation pages for their own website, email newsletters and social media profiles, so they can take donation easily via the web. We also process Gift Aid on behalf of our charities and are the only provider in the UK to offer discounts to smaller charities.

Since the last time we wrote about your company, what has been happening?

We’ve actually made some really positive changes. We have gone commission free, which means we do not take a cut of your donation for ourselves. This means we have the lowest transaction costs in our industry. We also offer free trials and we have been acquiring new clients much faster.

How have you been able to fund the company?

We’ve had various investors; UCL Advances and UCL Business Plc have been a great support.

What’s your business model?

We charge a small monthly fee for access to our system and we are now also offering websites to small and medium charities.

Is the company profitable?

We run a subscription based revenue model, so this will take time as the number of charities using our platform grows month on month. We’re making sales and growing our user base a good pace so we’re looking good.

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

The launch party AliveandGiving.com was pretty memorable; I’d never launched anything like that before and was very optimistic about the whole thing. It was great fun, although someone broke my laptop that night.

What has been some of the most crucial things you have done to grow your business?

I’ve managed to put together a very experienced and talented team through a partnership with another company. That’s protected me from making some major mistakes that most young entrepreneurs will probably make.

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

Can I give a quote instead? Nolan Bushnell said, “A lot of people have ideas, but there are few who decide to do something about them now. Not tomorrow. Not next week. But today. The true entrepreneur is a doer, not a dreamer.”

What plans do you have now to expand your business further in 2012?

We’re going to significantly increase our sales effort and affiliate scheme. This year is all about sales. We’ve also got a few little tricks up our sleeve…

Very few things in life are as rewarding as a higher education. Not only can a college experience help young people to clarify their interests, it can also open up a much broader range of career opportunities to them. Even more importantly for many people, those careers are likely to be in fields that the individual finds inherently enjoyable. In addition, a college degree generally enables individuals to earn a living with their minds rather than their hands. In general, this means a less strenuous lifestyle – but ironically, it also means a more lucrative one.

Benefits of a College Education

College graduates earn more than those who never attended at all or attended but failed to complete a degree programme, and this ‘earnings boost’ only accelerates as students pursue additional levels of university training. In the UK, university graduates earn approximately 25% more than students who never progress beyond their A-Levels. That differential may not sound like much, but when it accrues year after year, it can add up to as much as £160,000 during a lifetime.

College is not free, of course, but the wide availability of education loans means that it well within the reach of the common man. Universities UK has even determined that the earnings boost is greater for those from poor backgrounds than for those who come from wealthy families, making it even more essential for such people to seriously consider taking out education loans in order to secure their future via higher education.

The Career Boost

The earnings boost is far from the only reason why a college education is beneficial. In many businesses, it also opens the door to new kinds of careers. Many managerial and administrative positions require a college degree as a prerequisite to advancement. Those who lack such a degree can never get very far in their careers in such companies; no matter how long and loyally they have laboured, the firm will adhere to its policy of advancing only college graduates up the ladder toward the most prestigious positions available.

Companies have excellent reasons for such policies. They have learned through experience that possession of a college degree is a highly accurate indicator of valuable qualities such as confidence, perseverance and keen insight. University graduates also possess the ability to work cooperatively to complete joint projects, a skill that is in high demand across many industries. Businesses need leaders as much as they need followers, and a university education encourages the development of a wide array of leadership traits.

Financing a College Education

Those considering college should enquire at several different sources to learn about current terms and conditions for today’s education loans. At the same time, they should investigate the true costs of attending a university. In order to determine the right amount to borrow, prospective students should factor in all sources of revenue, including a part-time job and any grants or scholarships that can be obtained. Any remaining shortfall can be borrowed with the expectation that higher earnings in the future will enable full and prompt repayment of the loan balance.

It was back in the Summer of 2010 when I had just finished the first year of my BA Hons degree in Media and Communications at Birmingham City University, that I had the idea for my business. As a vegetarian I and had become increasingly concerned by some of the ingredients in many well know High Street beauty products and cosmetics. Animal fats, crushed beetles and pig placenta are common ingredients as well as harsh alcohols. These ingredients are used predominantly because they’re cheap and they’re used as fillers but are clearly not ethical or good for the skin.

Over the summer I started to research halal products as I found their stringent criteria matched my own beliefs. I then found that actually there was a demand for these products not only from the Muslim community but also from vegetarians and vegans. In Islam, ‘halal’ means permissible or what is allowed in the Muslim faith. Where beauty products are concerned animal ingredients, animal testing and haram alcohol is forbidden. Halal certification is a strict process whereby the products are tested and certified halal meaning they comply with Islamic law. I was convinced that there would be a demand for these type of products.

Initially I was going to run the business online and thought that maybe I would be able to combine business and studies. One day whilst shopping, I came across a very small but perfectly usable unit in The Pavilions Shopping Centre in Birmingham. The unit had been empty for many years basically because it was too small for most businesses. I managed to get the unit at a very good price and with the help of friends and family painted it and did it up myself to keep costs as low. I soon realised that I had created something very special and was determined to dedicate all my time and energy into the business in order to give it a chance to grow.

There’s no way I could have combined both the business and studies so I made a choice and put my degree on hold. I believe I made the right decision and I found that I had learnt many useful things on my degree course that were very much transferable to the world of business, so my studies were certainly not a waste of time. At first there were so many new things that I had to get to grips with. Everything seemed so confusing; corporate tax, vat, rent and business rates, importation duties, my head used to spin with it all. As time went on though, I did plenty of research and sought advice from people like business link and my local chamber of commerce and things became a lot clearer. Everything in business is a learning curve and every day presents new challenges and obstacles to overcome. Pure Halal Beauty is a unique concept and the first store of its kind that sells solely halal certified beauty products.

When our store first opened in December 2010, we received a lot press features and articles from around the world from national press, international press, local press, bloggers and we were even on television.

As the months went by I realised that some products although they are halal are not particularly natural with regards to their ingredients. I knew we could improve on the products that were available which is when I decided I wanted to create my own natural, halal collection that was completely ethical and eco-friendly.

In the Autumn of 2011, just before we reached our 1st birthday, we launched The PHB Collection- the worlds’ largest range of natural, halal and vegan beauty products. The collection includes, skincare, body care, hair care, cosmetics and men’s and baby products also. Most of the collection is made by hand in the UK, and our packaging is 100% recyclable.

I am incredibly proud of the PHB collection and we have had some amazing reviews and feedback about the quality and efficacy of the products. We did a lot of research before finding a manufacturer that we were happy with and who could offer us what we needed with regards to the ingredients and ethical stance of the products. I didn’t want to use any chemicals, parabens or petro chemicals which are common ingredients in many beauty products, mainly because they’re cheap. We researched and selected ingredients that are gentle, natural and effective. For example rosewood, gardenia and rosehip have some fabulous anti-aging properties, so we use these in our Elixir of Youth range. Whilst ingredients like grape-seed, rose and aloe-vera are used in our Pure & Natural range for Very Sensitive skin because they’re incredibly kind to skin. Also it is important to me that none of our products or ingredients are ever tested on animals or contain any animal ingredients. The halal certification and vegan society registration serve to add extra assurances to my customers.

Since the release of the PHB collection we’ve been inundated with interest from around the world and had a number of exciting opportunities. We’ve had a lot of enquiries about potential distribution and franchise opportunities in the UK and Internationally – so this is something exciting that we are exploring. We hope to expand our number of store in the future also, as we are constantly getting calls from customers who can’t wait for us to open up shops in London, Manchester, Leeds, Bradford etc. So overall 2012 looks like being a very busy and exciting year for Pure Halal Beauty!

For more information visit: http://www.purehalalbeautyproducts.co.uk/
Follow them on twitter

I continue with my series of interviews with members of the NEF programme, as mentioned in my first interview yesterday, I will be interviewing and releasing interviews of all the members of the NEF programme throughout the month.

Today, I have Ushma Soneji. Ushma is a Graduate from Oxford University currently placed at DFS based in Doncaster and also shadowing the CEO, Ian Filby.

Here is the interview

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

I’m great thanks! Just enjoying being back home over the festive season.

Before we move on, could you quickly give us some background information about yourself so that the YHP audience can get to know you better?

Sure- I’m working at DFS in role that is vaguely entitled ‘Project Assistant to the CEO’. It involves a mix of business development and shadowing the CEO, Ian Filby. I got this role through the New Entrepreneurs Foundation, an organization that aims to nurture entrepreneurs by giving them tailored training and mentorship as well as experience within small to medium sized companies.

How did you get into entrepreneurship, what was your inspiration?

If I had to narrow it down, I’d say it came about when I first got involved in Young Enterprise at school. I decided to apply for Managing Director and loved the whole experience. I’d considered a number of career options by the time I reached university, but I realized that business, and especially big businesses, gave you the opportunity to touch lots of people’s lives in a small but positive way. That was what really appealed to me.

What was your first business, how the idea came about and tell us your experience running that?

Our Young Enterprise company, Route 17, made cushions with embedded speakers that could connect to MP3 players. We won a lot of awards for having an innovative product- but in all honesty, somebody in our team had a speaker cushion on them in the first meeting and said ‘we could do this’! Everyone got behind it, and it made sense to put the effort into creating a new product that everyone was passionate about. The most important lesson I learned that year was how much fun you can have when you throw yourself wholeheartedly into anything.

You studied PPE (Politics, philosophy and economics) at Oxford University; tell us about your experience at Oxford University?

It was an experience I feel very privileged to have had. The best thing about Oxford, by far, is the people. The friends you meet; the people you work with; the speakers you see; and the tutors that give you so much of their time. Terms are short and intense, but I loved my subject so it made sense to work hard and play hard!

I guess there’s been a lot of talk about going to university, the value of having a degree, entrepreneurship becoming a viable option, what made you realise that this was the right choice for you?

It’s problematic if you believe a degree is just a signal to future employers. When you start to consider self-employment, and particularly entrepreneurship, it doesn’t appear to be fully necessary. For me, however, my degree was a natural extension of everything I loved learning about and had little to do with employment opportunities. I was brought up to believe that while you are young and have few responsibilities, you should put your education first as it is the most natural time to focus. Similarly, you are also in a position to take financial risks and try new things, which is a key requirement for entrepreneurship. I therefore saw education and entrepreneurship as complementary, rather than conflicting.

You were quite involved in the oxford entrepreneurs society, tell us about that experience and some of the key things you learnt from that and opportunities that it has given you?

I became involved with Oxford Entrepreneurs when I took part in one of their OxPrentice events which involved pitching, creating and selling an ice cream flavour! Following that, they invited me to interview to join the society as the secretary. Taking meeting notes and writing the weekly newsletter allowed me to find out everything that the society was involved with. It’s a hugely successful and powerful society, but the best thing for me was meeting like-minded individuals. Your average week in Oxford will include at least one free meal/drinks event powered by a law, finance or consultancy firm and a lot of people fall into those careers because they are well-represented as well as being respectable and well-paid. It was nice to meet people who were considering different routes and trying something new.

You were also the president at SIFE during your time at oxford university? Talk us through how that happened and some of the key things you learnt from that also?

It’s a great story. I told the President of Oxford Entrepreneurs that I was interested in social enterprise, and he said I should meet with the current SIFE president to talk about it. I went to meet him for the first time over coffee and the conversation went a little something like this:

Him: ‘I’m leaving for India tomorrow. Can you take over?’
Me: ‘Er, sure. How can I get into contact with your team?’
Him: ‘I’ll send you their emails. But most of them are exchange students and leaving soon. You might want to recruit new ones’

And so I did exactly that. I recruited a great team, with really passionate people, and we began a couple of consultancy projects including working for a cruelty free milk organization (www.ahimsamilk.com), a Kenyan microfinance project (www.mashfoundationtrust.org) and sold our own paper pads for schools in India. I learned a lot over the year about how to recognize people’s skills and passions and delegate accordingly. It’s a tough lesson to learn, but a very important one.

You are also a member of the Kairos society, tell us about that organisation and why you decided to apply for it?

A few of my friends told me about the Kairos Society and said it sounded like something I’d enjoy. The Kairos Society aims to connect future leaders and entrepreneurs across the world through a passion for a better future. The real appeal lay in a trip to New York to meet entrepreneurs from around the world. The whole experience was a really positive one- there were so many passionate students who had started up innovative businesses, and it opened my eyes to the impact of disruptive technology on businesses. It was a trip for building friendships, as opposed to ‘networking’ and I really value the people I met here.

You did all of these things while you were in the university and still graduated with a 2:1 in your degree, how were you able to balance your time and keep focus?

Oxford can be intense at the best of times, but I think that all the extracurricular things I did actually forced me to focus my time better. Since I enjoyed it all, it felt more like a break from work than an additional workload most of the time. More practically, I didn’t have exams in second year and my final year counted for 100% of my degree, so I tried to cram as much into my second year as possible!

What would you say was some of the key things you learnt from that experience?

Being busy makes you more efficient.

Tell us about NEF and how you got involved?

I applied to the NEF because I felt I needed guidance. There’s a lot of agreement around the fact that the best way to start up a business is to get stuck in as soon as possible, but I still felt that I wanted to explore different industries and learn as much as possible about the process itself. The NEF seemed like the perfect opportunity for me, because I didn’t want a long term commitment to one role in one company, and to keep my ambitions to start up a secret. There is such a wealth of experience within our NEF class and we are all trying to achieve similar things. It’s been a hugely supportive experience and I’m grateful to be involved in it.

What company are you currently working with, what do you do and how’s the experience been so far for you?

I work for DFS and am based in their head office in Doncaster. I am working on and managing a few projects that will be tied into the company’s brand reappraisal and extending our customer base. It’s a fascinating time to join as it’s going through a lot of internal change in tough external retail conditions. I was also trained as a salesperson and spent two weeks in store to get to know the product and the customer experience. I’ve got three mentors and am trying to understand the company on different levels.

The first is the director I work most closely with on the projects, who has a lot of experience in the industry. The second is the business development director, who helps me get an overview of how the projects come together to create future growth for the company. Finally, I get to understand the overall company strategy from the perspective of the CEO.

What are some of the key things that you’ve learnt so far from working at DFS?

1. Know how to sell.
2. Relationships and people come first.
3. You can’t know everything about a business, but you do need to know how to get relevant information when you need it.

Is this something that you would recommend to other aspiring entrepreneurs? What value can they get from the experience?

Definitely. I think the biggest benefit of the programme is the constant reassurance that entrepreneurship is a viable path, and that there are concrete steps that you can take and people you can talk to, to help you in this direction.

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

I really enjoyed the opportunity to go to Richard Branson’s house for a Q&A session with other young entrepreneurs. I asked him his views on social enterprise, and he gave a really well- thought out answer on the different priorities of a business as it grows. It changed my perspective a little on social enterprise, and just goes to show how much advice you can get by talking to the people who have already achieved what you aim to do.

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

Meet as many people as possible with similar interests to you. They are likely to be the ones that push you in the right direction.

What are your plans after NEF programme? What can we be expecting from you in the future?

I’m keeping my options open and prefer to set long term goals. My aim is for my next steps to help me with my goal of starting a meaningful and value-led business, and to meet some interesting people on the way!

I am delighted to announce that throughout this month, we are partnering up with NEF to feature all the graduate entrepreneurs currently on their programme.

NEF (New Entrepreneurs Foundation) was launched by a group of successful business people who give 25 of the UK’s brightest, entrepreneurially minded young people the opportunity to work for a year with some of the country’s leading entrepreneurs in the hope of developing a new generation of outstanding entrepreneurs who will play a role in Britain’s future growth and prosperity.

Some of the entrepreneurs have been placed in companies such as: Skrill, Monitise, YouGov, DFS, Liv-ex, Travelex, Seatwave, Better Capital LLP, LBi, HomeServe, TalkTalk, 2 sisters food group, Virgin Active and Cognitive Match etc..

Here is my first interview.

Hi Simon, It’s great to finally have you on YHP, how are you doing today?

I’m doing really great, thanks for having me. I am just wrapping up in work before catching a flight back to Dublin tonight for the Christmas break. I am really looking forward to a week off as we have had a really busy run up to Christmas where we worked very hard at Better Capital to close a new fund in a turbulent market.

How did you get into entrepreneurship? Who or what was your inspiration growing up?

My Dad ran his own company along with a few of my uncle’s, but it was always very important to both my parents and I for me to get a strong education. I guess this was the focus of my youth. However, my idols have always been entrepreneurs such as Richard Branson, Chuck Feeney, and more lately Michael Bloomberg, Steve Schwarzman and the Candy Brothers. Despite harbouring entrepreneurial aspirations from a young age, it has been the NEF which has been the real catalyst in my entrepreneurial journey.

What was your first business, how did the idea come about and tell us about your experience running that?

My first entrepreneurial endeavour was founding the London Irish Graduate Network (LIGN) in 2010. During University, I was a member of the Junior Chamber of Commerce (JCI) in Dublin, and this was a great way to meet business people of a similar age and mindset. Upon moving to London, I planned on joining something similar to build a solid network in a new city. However, after trying a few of these networks, I just felt none of them gave me exposure to the kind of people I wanted to meet (i.e. young ambitious students/ graduates in top business jobs).

After discussing this with a friend who was having a similar problem, we decided to build a networking platform that would give us the kind of exposure we really craved. We appointed a board, and the first iteration of LIGN was formed. At the time, the other board members were studying for Masters in Cass Business School. Using this as a launch pad, we formed the Cass Irish Business Society (CIBS).

We ran a number of events as CIBS which were focused on business/ finance students and graduates. We got a number of graduates in from some of the top employers in the city, and they gave speeches on how they went about securing their jobs etc. This proved very successful and throughout the year we held a number of similar events focused at helping our members to meet people in their desired roles and industries.

During the year, the International Irish Business Network (IIBN) which is London’s largest business network became interested in what we were doing and we ran an event alongside this well established network. It was at this time that we felt we needed to incorporate more universities into our model so we re-branded to the London Irish Graduate Network. As this model is specifically modelled around the foundation that Cass Business School provides, the board decided to pass over the reins to new members this year to keep things fresh.

My experience running this was really beneficial to my career giving me great exposure to some of the top Irish business people in London, as well as the new batch of ambitious, educated graduates.

I guess there’s been a lot of talk about going to university, the value of having a degree, and entrepreneurship becoming a viable option. What made you realize that this was the right choice for you?

I think my story of realizing that the entrepreneurial journey was something that I am very interested in is quite like that of Phil Knight, the Nike founder. I was not the Richard Branson type child who was selling everything and anything from eight. I went to University, worked very hard, did well and got a job in London from it.

My goal then was three to four years of consulting work, an MBA in the States, and then look at starting my own venture.

When Phil Knight started his MBA at Stanford, he had that “aha” moment when sitting in Frank Shallenberger’s Small Business class. Shallenberger defined the type of person who was an entrepreneur–and Knight realized he was talking to him. Like Knight, when I got involved with the NEF, it was due to a few entreprenurial-ish things I had done, i.e. setting up societies and my University experience. However, meeting some of the other incredibly entrepreneurial candidates, and hearing stories from some of the top entrepreneurs in the UK made me realise that this is what I really want to do with my life, albeit after securing a bit more useful experience.

Thinking back, I have always wanted to run my own company, but felt I needed to hit certain milestones before doing so. What I have learnt on the NEF is that every entrepreneur, aspiring or successful, has doubts. It is how the entrepreneur deals with these doubts that is the key success factor. My doubt was that I needed to have a Harvard/ McKinsey name on my CV before I could go out on my own. What the NEF has done for me is shown that although these are great options, nothing can really prepare you for the life of an entrepreneur, except becoming an entrepreneur.

Therefore, despite always wanting to be an entrepreneur, it has been my NEF experience which really made me realize that this is the option/ lifestyle which really appeals to me.

Tell me about your university experience?

I studied Engineering and Math’s at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. I have nothing but fond memories of my time in University. As is the nature of Engineering, we always had the longest hours on campus. But rather than this being a negative, I feel long weeks with the same group of people crystallized friendships that have lasted long outside University. On top of that, we had some great trips and great parties. When moving to London, I found Engineers were in high demand for some of the top jobs including investment banking and consulting. The skills learnt in my four years such as high numeracy and a good problem solving ability have served me well so far in my career. In my NEF placement with Better Capital, my ability to crunch numbers and solve problems was noted as key skills when Better Capital selected to interview me.

Tell me about your experience working for Turner & Townsend? What were some of the key lessons that you learnt from that experience?

Mostly my experience with Turner & Townsend was positive, but it was also an eye opener for me. Most people have a romanticized vision of their first real job after University. However, what I failed to realize was that not everybody has similar ambitions or life goals in the companies you join. I joined a firm where I thought everybody wanted a short term learning experience with as much exposure to as many things, as quickly as possible. However, this was far from the reality. Many people had a lot of commitments that took precedence over their career, and they were very comfortable in a well-paid job, running projects for some of the biggest companies in the world. For someone with a constant need to feel as if I am moving forward, this was a real eye-opener.

Most people in T&T were quite a bit more senior than I, and in retrospect, this was quite a good experience. I learnt to deal with seniority, and overcome the fact that as a young person, people always initially doubt you because they have 20 years experience on you. Also, due to the seniority of the firm, there are not many graduate hires. Not having a rigid support structure actually worked quite well for me and forced me to set my learning goals and targets and this was a great lesson to learn. Coming into Better Capital where you are expected to act for yourself, this strong self-dependency has been invaluable.

Tell us about NEF and how you got involved?

It is quite serendipitous actually. As mentioned, I was working for a consulting firm when I read an ad in the FT about the NEF. Initially I didn’t’t believe what it was promising. As it is a new program, I felt that some of the promises were over-ambitious. However, I was still intrigued by the prospect that such a program might exist. As I went through each interview stage, my interest and belief in the scheme grew exponentially. I really think what the NEF guys are doing is unbelievable, and being involved has really changed my life and my career trajectory. I feel once it starts to build alumni and has a number of successful candidates coming out, this program has the ability in the next 10 years to become as prestigious as the Goldman Sachs and McKinsey recruitment programs.

What company are you currently working with, what do you do and how’s the experience been so far for you?

I work for Better Capital, Jon Moulton’s new private equity company which invests in distressed companies and turnaround opportunities.

To start, Jon Moulton is one of the most prominent private equity industry leaders in Europe, so to even meet him was a fantastic opportunity. But getting selected at age 22 to work directly for him, sitting in an office where my desk is one away from his is quite extraordinary.
My three months with Better Capital so far have been really fascinating. I have been given exposure to all three of Better Capital’s business areas; fundraising, transactions and operations.

On the fundraising side, I have friends who are a bit older and work for some of the top PE firms such as Blackstone and Carlyle. They tell me that fundraising is usually reserved for top level Managing Directors. However, Jon was quite relaxed about taking me to a number of investor presentations with large institutional investors and high net worth individuals. This has been a great privilege.

As someone without an accountancy background, there is only so much I can do on the transacting side as some of this work is very detailed. However, the team in BC has been great at getting me involved in valuing opportunities, writing papers on Defined Benefits Pensions Schemes and analyzing many aspects of the transacting process. During down time, they are quite keen to take me to the side to run through some complex areas that I have not seen before. Exposure to transactions has really increased my knowledge of financial statements and valuing opportunities which is a great skill to take forward on my own entrepreneurial career.

Most of my time is spent on operations which is working with our portfolio companies streamlining operations or working on problems which the CEO/ top executives feel are important, but too time consuming for their full commitment. It has been great working directly with these different executives on issues that I can really get my teeth stuck into.

What are some of the key things that you’ve learnt so far from working at Better Capital?

When you go to investors, know your financials inside out. We were interviewing the CEO of a potential investment last month, and when we asked what his EBITDA for the last year and quarter were, he didn’t’t know. Straight away a red flag was waved and we lost confidence in him as a leader. Know your numbers, be realistic about your forecasts and definitely don’t try and sugarcoat things. Some of the people in Better Capital are some of the smartest I have ever met, and they have seen it all before. They don’t mind bad numbers, we deal with distressed businesses every day which probably have far worse problems than your company, but if someone lies or hides things, they are definitely compromising what could be a very fruitful relationship.

Another lesson I have learnt is that profits are important, but cash is king. Cash flow takes precedence over all other things and this should be tracked in a very detailed manner as often as possible. This is especially important for start-ups.

Tell me more about the experience of working at Better Capital particularly working with Jon Moulton?

Jon is an incredibly hard worker. He is a very wealthy man, and I have heard many people say – “If I had that money I would be on a yacht”. But Jon is one of the least opulent people I know and he is more than happy doing deals day in day out for the rest of his life. I deeply respect his passion for his work.

He also is one of the smartest people I have ever met. He has an opinion on everything and that is great to be around. He is the kind of guy who switches between reading a detailed financial report to reading about advances in the medical industry in the Lancet. He also has a great ability to read large documents fast whilst being able to retain a lot of the info contained within. I have seen how valuable this skill can be.

A great point about Jon is that he has no problem walking over to you in the office and saying that looks wrong, or complicated, or even asking you what are you doing. Constantly having his presence keeps me on my toes and it is great to see him getting involved with people who have far less experience than he does.

Is this something that you would recommend to other aspiring entrepreneurs? What value can they get from getting accepted in NEF?

If you are serious about entrepreneurship, I believe that the NEF is a launch pad that can take your business/ career to a much higher level.

If you have an idea, or are still searching, the NEF gives you exposure to some of the most talented graduates from a diverse range of industries, to some of the most successful entrepreneurs in the UK, and to some the best training out there for entrepreneurs (bar starting your own venture that is).

The NEF also gives you a story which has allowed me to approach potential mentors and idols with something which is far more interesting than the average graduate career trajectory (in my opinion anyway). Knowing people like Jon Moulton gives me great exposure and access to an array of investors which will be very useful when I decide to start my own venture.

Taking the contacts out of the equation, the knowledge one gains through being involved with the NEF gives you a real advantage over people your own age as not many can say they have exposure to working with a top management team every day. Having a year work experience with someone like Jon Moulton (or any of the CEO’s who are equally as impressive) gives a level of credibility that is hard to come by from most graduate jobs. Whether your goal is to start your own venture straight after NEF, or go into a corporate for more experience, you will end up in a pretty healthy position after a year on the NEF.

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

I have had plenty of memorable moments but below are some of the best.

1. Being asked to fly out to the Genoa boat show on behalf of one of Better Capitals investments to undertake a competitor analysis. Having worked closely with our investments CEO, I knew that the people who work at the stands at these kinds of shows are very cautious about giving information to competitors.

They are also trained to assess a customer’s likelihood of buying a boat, or ability to afford one. Therefore I had to go “undercover” and try and get as much pricing information from all these guys as possible. My back story was that I had been flown down on the whim of my billionaire boss (not totally unfounded) to scope out a new boat for beside his French home. I initially tried getting information without having to use this story, but after a constant stream of rejections (let’s face it, I can wear white chino’s and D&G glasses, but who in god’s name is going to believe I can afford a £3m boat), I resorted to my initial strategy.

This opened up a whole new world for me, with me being taken into the back of all the showrooms (they have secret deal rooms), getting VIP treatment on all boat viewings, getting to sea trial a few serious yachts and getting taken out for dinner by one of the luxury boat reps.

2. Meeting a top New York Hedge Fund Manager whose prodigious career to date saw her working at a PE firm at 22, before being plucked to a hedge fund at 24 and running a $100m fund at 29. She took a shining to me as she thought my career had similarities to hers and she recommended I meet her mentor who is FTSE 100 CEO and Burberry Board member. Getting an email from a FTSE100 CEO that he heard good things about me, and he would love to catch up in his office was a real confidence booster and a real highlight. He was a fantastic sounding board when we met and someone I look forward to keeping in contact with.

3. Having the opportunity to meet one of my business idols, and Irelands most successful business man for lunch in February 2012 to discuss my career.

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

Obviously the following is how I am currently thinking rather than from experience (having not started a company). But in terms of advice I would say:

Find what you are passionate about and test if it is just a nice thought or something you really want to spend a considerable amount of time doing. You often find the people who are most successful have known from a very early age what they wanted to do. If you don’t, think about industries that excite you and try to get some exposure to them. If they do excite you, try and get some real exposure in that industry and once you start to build your knowledge and contact base, look for disruption points and niches.

Once you think you have the idea, act quickly. Don’t waste time with business plans and trying to get funding. Develop a prototype and go straight to your customers. Test if it solves a problem they are really having and if not, iterate until it does. Also, test their appetite for your solution to their problem i.e. do they say, “that’s a great idea, but the problem is not a massively burning issue that I feel I need to change provider”. Fail fast and learn quickly and only when you have a product or service that has enough traction should you go to investors.

Obviously the above requires some capital, so my suggestion is to build enough capital to last you and your idea for 10-12 months. After this period, if you have still failed to prove a certain aspect of your idea, have a serious think about whether or not this is the right product/ service and act appropriately. Write a business plan only when someone important asks you to do so.

Don’t worry about telling other people your idea for fear of it being stolen. If you have decided to quit your job and put everything you have into this idea, you have already built up a buffer to it being stolen. Realistically there are five teams around the world trying to solve the exact same problem as you anyway, so talk to as many people to get as much advice as possible. Also, don’t fall into the trap of believing that first users are representative of your target market.

Typically, these guys are the ones who sign up for anything, and think everything is great. Get to the real core of who your customers are, solve their problem and all else will follow.

What are your plans after NEF programme? What can we be expecting from you in the future?

As I mentioned, I am still searching for that one idea that set’s my world alight. However, I feel I am in a privileged position to do so. In Better Capital I am learning how to value companies, assess teams and streamline troubled businesses. As such, I get exposure to many industries and companies on a weekly basis. I plan on keeping up this momentum whilst learning more about assessing companies from a financial perspective for the next nine months.

My thought process has changed so much in the past three months I fear saying where I think I will be next September, but realistically, I feel I will look at one to two more years corporate experience, potentially with Better Capital, or a large corporate with a high learning curve.

I will keep on trying to meet as many successful entrepreneurs and potential mentors as possible and learn as much as I can from them. I am also in touch with a number of people (particularly guys from the NEF) who are getting involved with start-ups so this is an interesting avenue for me to explore.

Also be sure to check out the YHP magazine and subscribe for our latest profile and interviews.

The UK entrepreneurial scene is certainly coming together, with all its inadequacies – Investment, Billion dollar exits etc. It is certainly coming together.

In a year where other businesses have been forced to close down, others have being unable to keep up with competitors. It’s always good to take some time to reflect, praise and encourage those startups that have done a great job in remaining resillient, competitive and profitable.

2012 is already gearing up to be an even more successful and exciting year in the UK startup scene, we are already seeing a lot of exciting companies starting up.

As the year gently comes to an end, I decided to put together a list of companies who I thought came out on top this year.

This is in no particular order.

OneFineStay

Imagine being able to rent some of central london’s elite houses (which cost up to £1 million) for the price of staying in an luxurious hotel. If you’re someone that prefers that homey feeling whilst travelling then this will certainly appeal to you. Onefinestay allows you to stay in a beautiful home while the owner is out of town, while enjoying all the convenience and comfort of a hotel.

Earlier this month, the company added seven new Central London homes to their growing list of properties.

Onefinestay was founded by Greg Marsh, Demetrios Zoppos and Tim Davey in 2009.

Mixcloud

Themed after their launch as the “YouTube of radio” – Mixcloud allows its users to connect to great radio content and helps content creators promote their radio shows and podcasts.

If you are a DJ, broadcaster or run a podcast show, Mixcloud gives you the platform to reach hungry music and audio content consumers.

The startup was founded by Nikhil Shah and Nico Perez in september 2008.

Shutl

Why would you ever wait around for a courier if you could get your shopping delivered to you in a matter of minutes… or at a time chosen by you? Seriously, why would you?

This London-based internet start-up aggregates a platform of thousands of small courier companies to collect online orders directly from high street stores, instead of a distribution hub, allowing it to deliver quickly to customers’ homes or workplaces.

In August, Shutl expanded to Glasgow, Edinburgh, Leeds and Manchester

The company was founded by Tom Allason the founder & former CEO of eCourier.co.uk in 2008.

Struq

Struq is the leading specialist in Personalized Retargeting; a powerful new alternative to standard/static display advertising. Their technology A.R.T. technology (Advanced Retargeting Technology) enables brands to identify and retarget only the most profitable in-market users with completely personalized ads optimized in real-time using scientific principles.

On average, for every £1 a retailer spends, they get £19 in revenues in post-click sales.

Struq was founded in 2008 by Sam Barnett

Songkick

If you’re a music fanatic, especially when it comes to watching your favourite artists perform live then you will understand why over 1 million people are addicted to using Songkick.

Songkick offers music enthusiasts a place where they track their favorite bands and receive email alerts when a tracked band plays a gig nearby and also providing personalized news about live music events.

Singkick was co-founded by Ian Hogarth, Michelle You and Pete Smith in October 2007.

BraveNewTalent

BraveNewTalent are a social recruiting platform where employers can form and manage an engaging relationship with candidates in advance of the job application. We build targeted talent communities based on the employers needs. Users are given a simple management tool to see and engage with people within their community. Candidates get a way to keep up to date, educate themselves and be better matched to companies and roles.

BraveNewTalent was founded by Lucian Tarnowsk in 2008

GroupSpaces

Thinking about starting up a society or currently looking for ways to manage your existing one online with tools to maintain your mailing list, update members, and receive payments – Group spaces makes administration of groups more effective.

GroupSpaces is an online platform that provides technology to help real-world clubs, societies, associations and other groups manage their membership and activities, and promote themselves online which help improve members communications and saves organizers time.

GroupSpaces recently hit two million memberships on the website. GroupSpaces was co-founded by David Langer and Andy Young in October 2007.

Huddle

Huddle being in the list has nothing to do with the fact that Rishi works there, but everything to do with the fact that they kicked serious ass this year, you will need to have serious balls to be going head-to-head with microsoft (sharepoint). Lets not forget the controversy surrounding them telling Google to remove Google+ feature called Huddle from their platform.

Huddle is a cloud collaboration and content management platform for enterprise, it allows companies to share files, organize meetings, and collaborate even when they are not operating within the same firewall.

The company was founded by Alastair Mitchell and Andy McLoughlin in 2006.

ParkatmyHouse

Getting a parking space can sometimes be such a headache, especially when you’re looking for a parking space in London during peak times or sometimes you find out that the parking prices are just too expensive. And then on the other hand, you have property owners that have free parking spaces either because they have no cars or use their cars during the day for work etc.

ParkatmyHouse allows property owners to rent out their parking space either long term or just for a few hours. For those people who are looking for a parking space all you do is enter the postcode or address in the search engine and the website will give you a list of potential parking spaces which you can use in negotiating with the owner.

The company has 125,000 drivers registered with its service. The site has helped property owners make more than £1m from renting out their driveways, spare land and parking spaces.

The company was founded by Anthony Eskinazi in September 2006.

Skimlinks

If you run a blog, forum and any other sites that deal with content distribution and you are looking to make some revenue through it – this is where Skimlinks comes in handy.

Skimlinks turns links on content sites into their affiliate marketing link equivalents on-the-fly, so publishers can focus on creating quality content rather than creating and maintaining affiliate links with no technical or admin effort.

The website was co-founded by Joe Stepniewski and Alicia Navarro in 2006.

Moonfruit

I can still remember the first time I used moonfruit, one of my friends in school had just started his music career and was really excited to share his new music with all of his friends on msn, me included, this was way before myspace and other music sharing platforms started to spring up. I ended up creating a page using a tool called SiteMaker for the sake of it under 20 mins.

I am pretty sure almost everyone had a go making their mini-websies on moonfruit when it first launched. A lot has happened since then, the dotcom bubble etc.

The company is still growing and for those newbies still wondering what moonfruit does, it allows less tech savy individuals to create website with ease using their website construction tool called SiteMaker.

The website was founded by Wendy Tan White in 1999

Bookingbug

If your business is offering a service and looking for a system where you can manage all your booking, enquiries and reservations – Say hello to BookingBug.

BookingBug enables businesses to share their availability – by hour, day, week or as classes, courses or events – and take bookings and enquiries online. The system is both realtime and distributed in that it’s booking and enquiry widgets can be embedded onto other sites, or affiliate partners and through social media.

The site was co-founded by Greg Bock and Glenn Shoosmith in November 2009

Brightpearl

Brightpearl is an integrated end-to-end web based solution that helps companies streamline the management of core business processes: accounting, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), stock control and order management, customer support and e-commerce.

Brightpearl offers its customers exceptional functionality around ERP for SMEs, particularly for businesses who are e-tailers/retailers, distributors, wholesalers, as well as businesses who are billing time.

Customers are able to pick and choose any of the available modules to address individual business needs and challenges.

Bristol-based Brightpearl was founded by Chris Tanner and Andrew Mulvenna in 2007

Basekit

Especially with the demand of website services, it is unimaginable that any business does not have a website nowadays, It’s very much like your company identity. Not every business owner out there know how to build a website, most of them more concerned about the business side of things than the technicality of getting a website up and running, certainly dont know how to get their hand dirty with some html and css.

Basekit allow people with little or no web expertise to build their own website, without the need to hire expensive developers. A business which would generate attractive, captivating websites using templates and drag-and-drop.

BaseKit is based on a flexible layout structure and allows users to create a site directly from a Photoshop design, or customise a pre-made site themes to get online faster.

The company was co-founded in 2008 by Simon Best, Richard Best and Richard Healy

Smarkets

Smarkets is changing the traditional way of betting, so instead of betting against a bookie, you are now able to bet against other members with smarkets. Smarkets allows traders to agree odds amongst themselves. Smarkets also offers betting on sports, current affairs and popular culture.

Smarkets is a web-based, person-to-person betting exchange platform built on the fusion of social networking and trading technology. Unlike traditional methods of betting, online betting exchanges remove the bookmaker by allowing users to bet directly with other users.

Smarkets was founded in 2008 by Jason Trost and Hunter Morris.

Peerindex

Imagine every decision, interaction that you make online being tracked? PeerIndex measures your online influence by gathering data on your activity, audience and authority to either maximise your online relevance and insight or just tell you how bad you’re doing. Authority measures how relevant your activity is to the community. The Authority measure is boosted whenever others like, comment and/or engage with your activity.

The london based company provide these analytics based on users activities on social media services such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and Quora.

PeerIndex was founded in 2009 by Azeem Azhar, Bill Emmott and Ditlev Schwanenflugel.

Mendeley

I’m unsure if the discovery of mendeley would have done my researching and courseworks any favours during my time at university, maybe it might have helped, who knows? I guess if you’re doing any academic research and finding it hard of where to get quality research done with the ability to network with academics, then i guess mendeley wouldnt be a bad place to start.

The website allows users to manage and research papers – discovering data and collaborating online.

The website was co-founded by Paul Foeckler and Victor Henning.

People per hour

With the high increase in unemployment constantly rising in the UK, no wonder job seekers are switching attention to online job listing sites for a way out and thats what exactly People per hour offers: The websites connects people looking for work with jobs, that simple.

In more details, Clients are able to post ads on the website looking for part-time, a bit like what gumtree does, but i guess in a more professional and structure online environment, I guess they are currently doing what you would have expected gumtree to do, most clients post jobs for freelancers, mostly part0time, sometimes full-time but to get those jobs, you had to bid and whoever bids came successfully got the job/contract.

The company was founded by Xenios Thrasyvoulou and Simos Kitiris in September 2007.

Sports New Media

Think about the countless number of athletes around the world, the number of tournaments being watched by sports lover across the globe, crazy right? Now think about those individuals and associations and their need for social presence, with the growing presence of facebook, It’s not hard to understand why big corporates would be paying big bucks in order to be connected directly with their brands through facebook.

The start-up manages Facebook pages and campaigns for athletes, sports agents, sporting governing bodies and associations.

Their in-house technology allows them to automate much of the process of providing relevant and timely content to fans across social networks, and to monitor a brand’s activity within those networks.

The company was founded by Jae Chalfin and Nick Thain in April 2008

Brainient

If you’re looking to make some money from your video online. Brainient makes it easier for advertisers to get the most out of their video campaigns through interactive video advertising and personalized video retargeting.

Brainient was founded by Emi Gal in 2009

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

2011 has seen some fantastic startups really making a name for themselves in the UK, but also in the rest of Europe.

I have made a list of whom I believe to be the top 10 European startups of 2011.

Now I know there are loads missing I could of made this list the top 100, but it’s not. So let me know in the comments of those that I’ve missed.

And FYI I have included Israel as a European country since it is recognised as part of Europe by FIFA & Eurovision; that’s good enough for me!

Plus they have some great startups, would be a shame to leave them out.

So here they are, in no particular order:

Fon - Madrid, Spain

Fon has a goal to provide free wifi to the whole world.

How?

By signing upto Fon you agree to securely share a little bit of your wifi bandwidth with Fon. Think of it as crowd sourcing wifi, if you will.

This year Fon has seen its users hit 4 million, doubling their userbase in 12 months. They also raised €10million in funding and secured a number of large partnerships with the likes of Belgacom, Belgiums largest telecommunications company, Skype & Nintendo so 3DS owners can make use of free wifi across Portugal.

Soundcloud - Berlin, Germany

Soundcloud Is probably one of the more better known startups on the list.

Having been founded in 2007 by Alex Ljung and Eric Wahlforss to ‘unmute’ the web. It is a sound platform that allows anyone to capture, create & share sounds across the web. Almost like the YouTube of sound.

2011 has seen Soundcloud raise $10 million Series B funding round from Union Square Ventures and Index Ventures.

They also past the 8 million user mark about a year on from their announcement that they had past the 1 million user mark.

They also announced partnerships with both Songkick & Foursquare and they won the audio and media category of the Telegraph Start-Up 100 awards.

The startup is growing rapidly in the past 12 months & shows no sign of slowing down in 2012.

Waze - Tel Aviv, Israel

The Israeli startup provides GPS maps of countries which are entirely crowdsourced. Users create and edit roads to ensure a continually updated map which has integrated real time traffic alerts from users which is actually a really cool feature.

The product has a gamification aspect to it to further entice users to update maps in real time.

In 2011, the company, which plans to monetize through location based advertising and to expand into Asia, hit 10 million users, up from 2 million in 2010. In fact December alone has seen them gain 1.5 million users.

This year the company also announced it had raised an additional $30 million in funding. This is on top of the $25 million in 2010.

6wunderkinder - Berlin, Germany

Another from the German capital, 6wunderkinder, a multi-platform productivity solutions for individuals, groups and businesses.

The company’s flagship product Wunderlist, task management software, hit the million user mark earlier this year and are releasing their latest tool which looks to offer a more comprehensive productivity tool.

They also raised $4.2 million in funding from Atomico, the investment firm started by the founders of Skype.

Of the 1.5million registered users around 40% are based in the US showing, double that of 2010, showing it’s fast growing popularity & international appeal.

Tradeshift - Copenhagen, Denmark

Tradeshift was founded in 2009 & launched in 2010. It has been a rapid rise for the company that offers an online invoicing tool for businesses to build a network of partners online for easy sharing of invoices.

2011 saw the company raise $7million in May and announce deals with both the French & Italien governments, which is a massive win for the company and has helped it grow further.

Further to this in October, Tradeshift announced it had raised a further $17million in funding bringing the startups valuation to $137million.

It has used this fresh round of funding to expand into new territories and now boasts 5 offices including its Copenhagen HQ.

iZettle - Stockholm, Sweden

iZettle let’s anyone make card payments anywhere, anytime via an iPhone app and mini chip card reader that can be attached to the phone. It is basically Europes answer to Square

iZettle takes a cut of each transaction which can be consumer to business or consumer to consumer.

The company was founded in April 2010 & came out of beta this year. It has gone on to raise €11.2million in Series A funding.

They already claim that they had grown the Swedish POS market 5% in 90 days before November and signed up over 10,000 users during their beta phase.

It’s an area which is taking off quickly & they are looking to change a massive industry in payments & having only one real big competitor at the moment (Square), they are getting in early.

House Trip – Lisbon, Portugal

House Trip launched in 2010 and is an apartment booking website where anyone can book an apartment or villa and property owners can put their places on the site. It’s similar to the AirBnB concept.

This year has seen House Trip raise two rounds of funding. $2.7 million from Index ventures back in April and more recently in November they raised $17 million Series B funding led by Balderton Capital.

This year they also expanded beyond Paris, London & Berlin into the whole of Europe and have also made inroads into the rest of the world with close to 60,000 properties on the site, which has increased from 8,000 in march. They have also seen over 500,000 nights booked so far and have grown from 20 staff to 70 full time employees.

Radionomy - Brussels, Belgium

Radionomy enables people to create and listen to radio stations online free of charge and share a personalized radio show complete with music programming, jingles, commercials along with custom reports and podcasts, with friends and the rest of the world.

The Belgian based company has grown rapidly in 2011 announcing that they are now streaming 30 million hours of online radio a month. That’s around 1 million hours every day, quite incredible. They are also currently finalising a funding round of $15 million with the help of French investment bank Bryan Garnier.

Radionomy have also been working on a massive new product in 2011 Streamonomy which will essentially open up its platform to external radio stations and help boost its growth further. This is expected to be released in early January.

The company already has 30% of its users in the US, a tough place to crack, but they seem to be doing well over there and with a fresh round of funding they aim to truly establish themselves in America and the rest of the world.

Wooga - Berlin, Germany

Another startup from the heart of Germany, wooga is an online social game developer & yes it’s wooga all in lower case, because they’re cool like that! They have so far released 6 games that attract over 32 million active players each month.

It has been a whirlwind year for the startup founded in 2009. January began with a bang as they officially became the leading European social games developer and they sat in 7th place in the world with 15 million a month playing a wooga game at the time.

By the end of this year they have moved into third spot in the world, with popular releases this year, Diamond Dash & Magic Land pushing them up the charts and doubling the number of monthly players.

During the year they also won two awards at the European Games Awards for Best Publisher and Best Game (Diamond Dash).

Wooga (short for ‘world of gaming’) also raised $24 million, in what was its second round of funding, in May. This was used to further grow the team and build more games and will help them to further move up the ranks and challenge the juggernaut that is Zynga for that number 1 spot. Not quite at that level yet but who’s to say they can’t emulate their US competitors, after all Zynga is 2 years older than wooga, maybe in a couple years wooga will be where Zynga is now!

Wix - Tel Aviv, Israel

The Israeli startup Wix allows users to build flash websites. It is easy and simple for anyone to use (seriously even my dad made a Wix site) and even though the sites are flash based they are SEO friendly.

The company addressed an important issue in 2011 which was mobile access, releasing a free mobile site builder early in the year.

They also created a Facebook application called WixYourPage which allows users to create customised Facebook fan pages.

The startup has grown to over 13 million users and raised a massive $40 million in March to help grow the company further and improve the Wix mobile and WixYourPage features.

——

Follow @rishi_chowdhury

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

‘They say anything’s possible, you gotta dream like you never seen obstacles’ – J Cole

What are the qualities that make people successful? Hardwork? Perseverance? Passion? No doubt these are traits which are rightly attributed to successful people, like the young entrepreneurs featured on this site. However there is one quality which is often undervalued and that is one of vision. They have all pictured how either they will look or the business will look when it becomes successful. That is not to say that what they have seen in their heads has come to fruition in the same form, however they have aimed in that direction and kept going until some form of the vision is realised.

‘Everything around us was once a thought in someone’s head’

This quote is so significant not just to entrepreneurs but to the world in general. Take a few seconds and observe the things in your room. Laptop, speakers, cosmetic products, books etc. Each product or part of the products originally came from one person. Of course it took many more to amend the product and bring it to fruition; though the fact still remains that it originated from one person. Why can’t that be you?

“When Paul Allen and I started Microsoft over 30 years ago, we had big dreams about software,” recalls Bill Gates. “We had dreams about the impact it could have. We talked about a computer on every desk and in every home. It’s been amazing to see so much of that dream become a reality and touch so many lives. I never imagined what an incredible and important company would spring from those original ideas.”

‘Seeing is believing’

You know the stories. ‘You’re crazy!’ It’s impossible!’ ‘That’ll never happen!’ ‘Why don’t you try something else.’ Entrepreneurs who have to plough through doubt about their vision, sometimes even from those closest to them! It’s not just relevant to entrepreneurs, it happens to most people who want to do something different that those around them haven’t seen before; from losing some weight to becoming a world class athlete. Now in some circles these people would be known as ‘haters’. However I have come to realise that it’s not hate, it’s just that they can’t see your vision. And how could they? They don’t have the same images in their heads as you do, feel the same attachment to the vision as you and so on. It’s only natural. You can’t let this get you down. In fact some entrepreneurs view these opinions as positives! Also, you have to be clear as possible with your vision not just so those around it can understand it better, but also so you can!

‘Be like water’ – Bruce Lee

The point Bruce Lee was trying to make with this quote is that water adapts to its conditions without carrying any preconceived conceptions or barriers from the past. This is how you have to be with your vision. Life is a bumpy road (cliché time!) so things may not turn out how you planned. However if you adapt to your conditions both personally and with your vision you can be a success anywhere. There are many young entrepreneurs that started out doing one thing and ended up being a successful at something completely different such as Tom Ellis who went from selling tennis balls to champagne! Your vision is also like water because it changes and can become bigger as you and your business grow. For example, Jamal Edwards of SBTV originally started a youtube channel featuring local MCs and now that vision has grown to become one of the biggest entertainment platforms in the world.

Though this article is written with a focus on young entrepreneurs, you don’t have to be starting a business to have vision. You can apply it to life in general. I like to say the question we should ask ourselves and future generations is not ‘what do you want to do?’, but ‘what type of person do you want to be?’ and work towards that.

Dubem Menakaya is the President of Southend Enterprise Society
Twitter: @dmenax
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/dubem.menakaya

Photo via [Flickr]

A while ago, a friend of mine sent me the link below asking for my perceptive on the whole issue. We ended up discussing it through emails and since then I’ve had more people ask me my opinions regarding the whole issue and I just wanted to share a bit of what we talked about in the emails.

10/12/11 10:40 AM

Interesting – @youngenterprise poll find schools give young people wrong skills for work. Do you agree? http://www.virgin.com/richard-branson/blog/can-entrepreneurship-be-taught

This is my 2 pence.

First of all – I think students are being taught throughout their time in education how to be excellent workers or employees. Students come out of education without no clue on how to link academia to real life work.

I know there’s been a lot of talk about introducing some courses about entrepreneurship to schools, I guess it makes sense with the low availability of jobs.

You could say companies understand that it’s either they get top employees, those that are creative, innovative and passionate about the company(You see Start-ups do this a lot when hiring – Looking for start-up enthusiasts) or they end up losing sight of their industry, their competitors which can only result to one thing, going out of business.

I guess going back to if entrepreneurship can be taught – I don’t think so, I think an entrepreneur thrives on uncertainty (the thrill), freedom of thought, the ability of make gut-feeling decision, their ability to ignore the structured way of doing things.

The structured and business way of doing things will be what these courses will give, nothing special from what they could have gotten from studying business studies or go one level up – Isn’t this what MBA holders are for – Great managers, Great CEOS which I have no problem with.

Maybe through introducing entrepreneurship in schools, we can have more equipped and capable workers – I don’t think they can build entrepreneurs, I think that through this; they will build excellent, smarter, efficient and capable workers who will become great CEOs and managers.

Also, the only way I can see any form of entrepreneurship been awakened through education is by starting the process at the grassroot, rather than waiting for when students are in secondary schools/university to begin the process.

Instead of a degree being the only solution and option, entrepreneurship should be considered as another option just as valuable and prestigious as getting a degree from a respected university.

What are your thoughts?