Rich Martell founded Floxx.com, previously known as FitFinder, a location based anonymous micro blogging social network, in April 2010. The site is based on the concept of anonymously posting both a location and description of an attractive person whom one has spotted; this post is then immediately placed on the FitFeed, where it can be viewed by anyone.

The idea came about after Martell and his rugby friends would text each other when they spotted an attractive girl in the library. They took this idea and expended on it so the whole world could see.

Rich has been compared to Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook who created Facemash (rated students hotness against each other) one drunken night gaining huge traction overnight, tons of views, which then put him in hot water with his uni after crashing the servers. Rich created the FitFinder site overnight and by 9am the next morning the library at UCL (University College London) was full of students using the site. That day saw over 2,000 hits which overwhelmed the uni servers.

As word spread, Rich had requests from other universities around the UK to be added to the site, so their students could use FitFinder. One month later and the site had 50 million hits and was in 50 universities!

This caused the university to harshly fine Rich £300 for “bringing the college into disrepute.” They also demanded that the site be taken down or they would withhold his degree. After spending 3 years working towards the degree he decided to take it down and get his degree, with plans to re-launch the site after he graduated in the summer.

The young entrepreneur felt that he had just scratched the surface with FitFinder. He is entrepreneurial by nature as he comes from a family of entrepreneurs in both his parents. The story of FitFinder made a lot of noise and gained a fair amount of press. One article was read by Doug Richard, a former Dragons’ Den panelist. He was impressed by the demand that the product had shown in it’s short life time. This is when things got serious.

Doug introduced Rich to big time, US investor, Kevin Hall. Together Doug and Kevin became founding angels for Floxx.com which was launched in January 2011. The site was renamed to appeal to a more global audience as the word ‘fit’ is mainly a British term and has different connotations in the US for example.

It has been often compared to Facebook because of the way it was conceived, but it seems more of a Twitter mixed with Match.com.

Rich gives 3 tips to other aspiring entrepreneurs:

1.) Get smart advisors on board early
2.) Be passionate about your business idea and make it happen
3.) Don’t take no for an answer. Never give up!

–
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Young entrepreneur, Catherine Cook has often been described as the female Mark Zuckerberg after setting up social networking site myYearbook.com. The site she started from her bedroom 6 years ago now has a user base of 25 million and growing.

Catherine’s social network site is one of the top 25 most visited sites in the US. She came up with the idea when she and her brother David were complaining about the photo used in their yearbook. myYearbook is a site where members can make new friends by creating profiles, interacting through Chatter, a real-time stream, sending virtual gifts, and playing games.

Catherine founded the site at the age of 16 while still in high school. Burning the midnight oil she worked all through the night after school to get the site up and running. Working with developers in India she would be on the phone all night.

‘Looking back I was only getting two hours sleep a night. It was hard to manage school and work, but soon afterwards I graduated from high school, and just as the business was taking off I realised my personal life was suffering too,’ she said.

Within a year of launch Catherine moved out of the bedroom and into a state of the art office in Pennsylvania with 12 employees.

The site passed breakeven in 2010 and has recently been valued at $20 million. myYearbook has received $16.9 million in funding to date. And although not a serious rival to Facebook just yet the site created by the now 21 year old Catherine Cook is a great achievement.

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Every startup or new businesses are always looking for the best way to be cost-effective or not spend at all, luckily for us, we’re in the age where technology has made it so much easier for startups/small businesses to launch with little or no money and still survive, better yet, grow into big companies.

I have decided to write a list of tools which i believe can help any startup, or give it some kind of backbone till the money starts coming in for more advanced tools or softwares.

Hope this helps you in some way.

Skype -Conferencing / Networking / Customer Support

For a while now, using skype for me has been like using my mobile phone, been very instrumental for speaking to entrepreneurs or having video chats, great for mini-conferences or speaking to workers and clients.
you can set up local phone numbers in multiple countries that all ring through to one account, answer your calls from anywhere in the world that you have a Web connection, hold conference calls, route calls through to certain cell phones and so on.

Linkedin

Great for scouting employees, tracking down potential clients and investors. A great way to build and expand the business network of the company/getting the word out what about the company does.

Facebook

Creating a facebok page/fan page can be an effective way of quickly driving traffic or gaining exposure for your business, a lot of people may argue about the return of having a lot of people on your fanpage with no significant jump in profits or sales, i say it is a free tool that doesnt cost anything, why not right?

Twitter

Twitter has proven to be a major tool for companies to sell products, direct traffic to their websites, blogs, you name. Also a great way to connect with clients, investors, employees, you name it, just tweet it!

Mailchimp

To send e-mails to customers, if you want to use more than your typical e-mail application, mailchimp is the hottest email-marketing provider so far.

MailChimp gives you a web-based tool for managing e-mail lists and designing e-mail newsletters and fliers. The web-based mailing list manager MailChimp offers list management, tracking and analysis, and custom HTML templates for up to 1,000 subscribers and 6000 emails a month for free, after that payments kick in

Meetup

For new startups looking to meet other entrepreneurs, investors or just to get involved in the startup/small businesscommunity, there’s no better place for you to start than meetup.com, select events according to your preference, location, great opportunity putting your name or company’s name out there, opportunity to meet journalists and bloggers.

WordPress

Not having a blog or a website as a business right now is like not-existing, yes it’s that serious!
Blogs are great ways for companies to keep in touch and communicate with customers/users. i have also seen blogs being used as a medium to attract investors, a few startups will tell you a story of them getting investors or connections with an investors with a blog post they posted on their blog.

For me, WordPress solves that problem with ease, it has a large user base (great for community support and custom development), loads of plugins, and a huge range of themes, a very easy platform to use.

Scribd

Scribd is a document- sharing website that allows users to post documents of various format and embed into a web page using its ipaper format (almost like the pdf)

This can certainly allow you to share documents with your employees or co-workers.

Gmail

Even though you might argue that there’s a lot of email options out there, but one thing is for sure, gmail offers the best email option option out there with realibility, amazing features and name cache. you also have the option to have VoIP and video chat capabilities via the in built chat systems. This will also give you access to google docs.

Enternships

Enternships offers you the opportunity to attract top students and graduate to your company interning at your company. great way to save some money on costs paying employees, also a great way of building a team, having someone who believes in the company from the start.

Enternships is a great way for employers to connect to enterns.

Do you need a degree to be an entrepreneur or is it something your born with? Or is it a bit of both? Some of the most famous entrepreneurs to date started their companies while at university. It’s not essential you wait till you get your degree and you will probably learn more by doing.

So who has built a successful company from their dorm room? Well I’m sure Mark Zuckerberg will be first to  spring to most people’s minds these days. But there have been many, so read on to see 10 great dorm room success stories.

1.) Mark Zuckerberg

Lets start with the obvious. In 2004 Zuckerberg created Facebook from his dorm room in Harvard. Facebook started of as just a Harvard ‘thing’ but as it rapidly grew Mark decided to drop out of Harvard and move to Palo Alto, home of silicon valley.

Facebook has gone on to become a regular part of our daily lives. Currently the site has over 600million users and is valued at around $50billion.

2010 even saw the release of the film ‘The Social Network’ based on Mark Zuckerberg and the creation of Facebook.

2.) Bill Gates

Bill Gates the founder of the most well known computer software company Microsoft. Gates, synonymous with the tag of richest man in the world, created Microsoft in 1975 at the age of 20. Earlier that year gates and school friend Paul Allen saw the release of the MITS Altair 8800 based on the Intel 8080 CPU and were inspired to start their own software company.

At the end of 1975 Gates took a leave of absence from Harvard, to work on Microsoft full time, never returning as a student.

At the close of 2010 fiscal year, Microsoft had $62.48 billion in net revenues and $18.76 billion in net income for the 12-month period

3.) Michael Dell

Michael Dell was a pre-med student at the University of Texas when he started Dell. In 1984 with $1000 and an idea he founded Dell. Starting at the university he attended he worked upgrading computers in the labs before applying for a vendor license so he could win bids on contracts for the State of Texas. He would go on to win these bids by not having the overheads of a store.

By the age of 27, Dell was the youngest CEO to have his company listed in the Fortune 500 corporations. Soon after in 1996 Dell started selling over the internet and not long after that were raking in over $1million in sales every day. In 2010 Michael Dell’s net worth was an estimated $14billion.

4.) Jerry Yang and David Filo – Yahoo!

Yahoo founded by Jerry Yang and David Filo in 1994 was the worlds biggest web directory/search engine before Google came along. The site, started by two electrical engineering graduate students at Stanford University grew rapidly during the Dot Com bubble, but struggled after the bubble burst.

Yahoo diversified it’s offering becoming a web portal and and his recognised as a leading online brand.

5.) Larry Page and Sergey Brin – Google

Sergey Brin graduated with an undergraduate degree in computer science from University of Maryland. After graduation, he moved to Stanford to acquire a Ph.D in computer science. There he eventually became friends with Larry Page, initially they didn’t particularly like each other.

They crammed their dormitory room with inexpensive computers and applied Brin’s data mining system to build a superior search engine. The program became so popular at Stanford that they decided to suspend their Ph.D studies to start up Google in a rented garage. In fact Sergey is still officially on leave!

6.) Shawn Fanning – Napster

Shawn Fanning founded Napster with his business partner Sean Parker in May 1999. Prior to it’s launch Shawn spent 4 months coding Napster, an online programme that made it easy to share and download music. Before it was shut down in 2001, it gained huge notoriety after becoming the target of many music industry backed lawsuits due to the P2P (peer-to-peer) nature of. Napster was the first massively popular free file sharing programme and has returned today as a legal paid service.

Shawn was studying at Boston’s Northeastern University at the time and was just getting into programming in his spare time. Within two years Napster had 80 million registered users.

7.) Matt Mullenweg – WordPress

Mullenweg was a 19 year old freshman at the University of Houston when he developed WordPress, back in 2002.

WordPress, has become the blogging service that most serious bloggers turn to. In fact this site has alot to thank Matt for as well. WordPress is currently used by 13% of the 1,000,000 biggest websites and has been downloaded almost 13 million times.

WordPress is continuously growing at a fast pace with Open source software being a large part of WordPress’ success.

8.) Paul Orfalea – Kinko’s

Paul started Kinko’s in 1970 while studying at the University of Southern California where he graduated from a year later. He started up his company from a 100 square foot space, on the University campus. His idea for Kinko’s, a photocopy chain, came after encountering a copy machine in the university library.

The company name came from a nickname he got while he was younger. He was called Kinko due to his curly red hair.

In 2000 the company was bought by FedEx for $2.4billion and it’s name became FedEx Office.

9.) Fred Smith – Fedex

FedEx it self, although not created while Fred Smith was a student, came from an idea he had while at Yale. In fact while an undergrad at Yale Fred wrote the FedEx concept in a term paper. The concept became reality in 1971 making a profit 4 years later and expected to see profits of $1.6billion in 2011.

Fred joked that this all came from what was probably a ‘C grade’ paper.

10.) Todd Krizelman and Stephan Paternot – TheGlobe.com

What was one of the fist social networks well before Myspace and Facebook, Todd Krizelman and Stephan Paternot founded the internet startup in 1994. Although it has since ceased operations as of 2008, TheGlobe posted the largest first day gain of any IPO when it went public on November 13, 1998.

The founders were undegrads at Cornell when they came across a primitive chatroom on the uversity networks. After TheGlobe.com issued its IPO the founders, 24 at the time, were thought to be worth about $100million each. This was the peak for the pair and after that it was all down hill.

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Google!

Yes you guessed it (Although the picture did give it away), Google topped the chart with 10 venture backed acquisitions. Twice as many as runner up Facebook. They may not have got Groupon, the one that got away, despite a $6billion bid, but they did manage to acquire AdMob Inc the mobile ad network for $750 million.

Google move up to top top spot after finishing in 3rd in 2009 with three deals. Facebook will look to catch up with Google in 2011 after raised hundreds of millions of dollars from Goldman Sachs. I can see them overhauling Google very soon.

Google is also the 4th most-active acquirer between 200 and 2009 with 25 deals. Cisco Systems Inc still lead the way there despite only making three acquisitions in 2010.

Zynga Game Network made it into 4th on the list with four acquisitions. Oh and they are only four years old as well.

To see the full list and find out more about Google’s acquisitions take a look a look at the Wall Street Journal Article.

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Facebook has raised $500m of an expected $2bn in new funding in a deal valuing the social networking site at about $50bn or £32bn. The social networking site has reportedly landed a cash injection from the investment bank Goldman Sachs and a Russian investor.

According to the FT, this means that Facebook is now worth more than either Time Warner or Yahoo.

Facebook which has 500 million active users is expected to use the investment to fund development of new products and possibly make acquisitions, the New York Times said.

Does this now mean that each of the 500million users on Facebook are worth $100?

Facebook has grown rapidly and overtook Google as the most visited website in 2010, according to Experian Hitwise.

Read more about what this means at the full New York Times story.

Named one of top 30 under 30 entrepreneurs by Inc.com, 20 year old Ashleigh Hansberger creator of Motto Agency is an inspiration to other female entrepreneurs.

Ashleigh got together with her partner Sunny Bonnell to launch an agency that would help companies which were failing to identify what was wrong with their business strategy and set up a new one while changing their logos and create new ones, more attractive ones.

“We don’t want to be the creative shop that gives you a new logo,” says Ashleigh, “That’s all well and good, but we’re useful to companies that have lost their way and need to figure it out again. There’s something special about helping someone build a brand.”

Ashleigh wanted to create an agency that would seek to help other companies grow and re-invent their brands through good old fashioned storytelling and innovative use of social media.

The company based in South Carolina, Myrtle Beach grew beyond everyone’s expectations up to date. Ashleigh and Bonnell faced a lot of resistance and discouragement from people because they were female entrepreneurs but in 2007 they were chosen among 8 winners of contest run by the count me in, a female entrepreneur organisation. This gave them publicity in publications like Readers Digest and Business Week.

Ashleigh and Bonnell have also developed a strong Facebook presence, generating over 1,200 lively, talkative fans for Motto. Recently, Motto started “Behind the Brand,” a Facebook initiative that features a different socially conscious company each month. “Behind the Brand” describes the inner workings of companies like the Khaya Cookie Company, Kopali Organics, and Sweetriot, to explore the systems and faces behind the products consumers buy.

“We’ve been able to develop some solid relationships from Facebook,” Ashleigh said. “It strengthens the bond between us and our clients.”

Article written by Christine Maema

When people think about entrepreneurship, it often the possible lifestyles that people think about. The freedom of working your own hours, control of your business, the money being able to retire at 30 etc… Often the other parts of a career as an entrepreneur can be forgotten. So here is a brief breakdown of the good, bad and ugly sides of entrepreneurship.

The Good

The best part about being an entrepreneur for many people is the lifestyle it brings. The chance to be your own boss, making the decisions and seeing something that you built grow, is highly attractive.

Another great benefit is you can impact on the world, a lot of entrepreneurs find that the most motivating factor rather than money. Just look how Mark Zuckerberg has changed the world with Facebook. What about Google’s founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin?

Obviously with success comes money, a lot of money. Most of the richest people in the world started their own companies. Even if your company isn’t as big as those you still have a good chance of making more money than if you work for someone else.

Another reason why people choose to be an entrepreneur is the excitement it brings. The varying daily challenges that keep you on your toes. You will probably feel more fulfilled than the usual 9-5 job, since your responsibilities are down to you. You will be constantly learning every day which is what we are all about, learning and moving forward.

Also we excel when we are passionate about something and when you have your own business it will feel like your little baby which you can nurture and grow.

The Bad

So sometimes starting your own business works and you become successful and rich, but more often than not this isn’t the case. With about 80% of new businesses failing within the first year there is quite a high failure rate. This is normally due to lack of capital and/or bad management.

The lack of capital is the bad part to entrepreneurship. Not having the security that comes with a regular income is often what puts many people off. At the early stages of starting a business the lack of revenue coming in can represent a problem if you have many bills to pay or family to support. It is easier when you are younger and have fewer commitments but you might have to rough it for a while.

If you’re not careful you can also find yourself in a lot of debt and if your venture then goes belly up, you can find yourself in serious financial troubles. It is paramount to stay within your means and look at the long term future of the business rather than the short.

Watch out for those just looking for a piece of the pie. If your company does start to gain momentum you may start getting people looking to join purely in the hope of a pay off. These are not always the most helpful of people. When looking to hire people it can be difficult to spot these types.

Sometimes working as an entrepreneur you can get carried away only thinking about the potential future success which can sometimes be detrimental. If you enjoy the journey of building a successful start up rather than just the outcome you will be a better leader.

The Ugly

So the ugly side of entrepreneurship. Money can be the factor that leads to the ugly side. Every venture needs capital to be raised, whether it comes from savings, support from family and friends, bank loans or investors.

If you do borrow money from family and friends, it can cause problems when it comes to paying them back. If your start up becomes very successful then those who lent you money may try to claim more than you expect. Dealing with that situation, should you come across it, can be difficult and can ruin relationships.

Looking for investment from investors is a very desperate situation a lot of the time, since there is a lot of competition and this can lead to young entrepreneurs falling into traps. There are many bad investors out there looking to take advantage of inexperienced start up founders, by conning them out of equity with false promises.

Sometimes the lust for control can also become overpowering, leading to distrust and paranoia. Not trusting employees as you feel they may be taking advantage of you is harmful to the business and is something you need to watch out for. Make sure you get the right employees in the first place; it’s worth the extra effort.

Small businesses tend to be a high risk of being victimised by fraudulent activities. This is why entrepreneurs need to have a high regard for the protection of their data. If not, all the hard work you’ve put in could be wasted if you go out of business because of fraud.

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David Cameron today announced his vision for a ‘Silicon Valley’ in the East End of London. The high-tech hub to be based at the site of the Olympic village after 2012 has already attracted investment opportunities from top firms including ‘Facebook’, ‘Google’ and ‘Intel’.

Mr Cameron announced the news to entrepreneurs and investors, stating how he wanted London’s East End to rival Silicon Valley in California and evolve into the “world’s greatest technology centres”.

“We’re not just going to back the big businesses of today, we’re going to back the big businesses of tomorrow,” he goes onto say.

“We are firmly on the side of the high-growth, highly innovative companies of the future. Don’t doubt our ambition.”

“Right now, Silicon Valley is the leading place in the world for hi-tech growth and innovation. But there’s no reason why it has to be so predominant. Our ambition is to bring together the creativity and energy of Shoreditch and the incredible possibilities of the Olympic Park to help make East London one of the world’s great technology centres.”

David Cameron is planning to publish a blueprint for technology designed to make Britain “the most attractive place in the world to start and invest in innovative technology companies”.

This comes on the back of Google stating that it could never have set up in Britain due to strict regulations.

Mr Cameron has also announced a US style visa for foreign entrepreneurs looking to start up in the UK. Applicants would be required to have received investment toward their idea from investors, prior to getting it.

This is not the first time that the UK has reportedly found an alternative to the Valley, in the 80’s it was Bristol, Cambridge and the M4 corridor have been touted as possible venues but the latest ‘Silicon Valley’ seems to be naturally being built around Old Street roundabout.

With over a 100 young start ups and technology firms looking to take advantage of lower rent prices, this area has become the closest the UK has got to the valley and on its own right.

As much as I think this is a good idea, it is just theory and whether or not it will develop into something of the level of what they have in America, I am doubtful. At least though entrepreneurs are certainly being thought about and that can only be a good thing.

As well as investing in the area, there is a certainly culture which they have on the west side of America which will be hard to replicate. It is an interesting project and it will be interesting to see how it develops, but whatever happens it will take a quite a few years to establish itself to the level of the ‘Valley’.

So what are your thoughts? Good Idea?

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You might have realised that today’s date is 10.10.10 and so in honour here is 10 reasons why many start-ups fail:

1.) Dreaming:
The first reason why start-ups fail is because they never get started in the first place. Many people talk and talk about an idea, dream of how they will achieve it but never make the leap. This is an extremely common occurrence and sometimes there is good reason, but sometimes this empty talk can be a waste of time to entrepreneurs looking to work on a project.

2.) Too General:
Having an idea that has been done by everyone under the sun is not the best way to go about starting a business unless you have a differentiator or niche to your product/service. Trying to break into a market is very difficult unless you have something that sets you apart. You don’t need to invent the next Google or Facebook but make sure you concentrate on one thing and make sure you do it well. It’s simple but something that many people forget.

3.) No Plan:
Always, always set out a plan. Make sure you have an idea of what it is you are trying to do and write it down. Always refer back to it to make sure you aren’t wondering off track. You will encounter problems and things will never go exactly to plan, but make sure you have an idea of where you want to go and establish how you wish to go about it. Your Business Plan will continuously change but use it as a guide. It can also be very useful when it comes to looking for funding.

4.) Funding Illusion:
Don’t fall in too the trap of assuming that funding will be a given. Make sure you have a plan beyond receiving funding. If you don’t get it ensure your business still has a future. Sometimes you can end up getting carried away with trying to get investment that you waste time as it is a long process. It may be better to spend that time building the business.

5.) Ineffective Print Media:
Spending money on business cards and flyers is often a waste of time and money. In the early stages you will probably have little capital and so spend it wisely on areas which will be profitable. Also with your business changing rapidly these can be outdated fairly quickly. This form of media tends to be very ineffective, so don’t waste your time.

6.) The Website:
The design of a website can provide an instant image of your company to potential customers, don’t overload it with useless content and make sure it is kept simple an informative. Also at this early stage there is no point in spending hundreds or thousands on a fancy website, there are plenty of sites where you can easily design a free site. If you do feel you need a designer, limit the cost at this stage, keep it simple and clean. Try to negotiate to pay in instalments or get terms that allow you to get changes made for free, testing is an important part of any website. At least this way you can be making money to pay for the website design.

7.) Self Promotion:
Remember your customer doesn’t really care about you, they are there to solve a problem, so ensure your site is showing off what your business does not what you do.

8.) Untargeted Advertising:
Depending on your product/service you will need to target your advertising accordingly. If you are using offline media make sure you aren’t wasting money advertising to the wrong people. Always make sure that you know who your customers are. Then when deciding on advertising think for a moment will your target market see your advert. Also makes sure you have a call to action, tell them what to do. This leads me onto online marketing; there are many free ways to do this by using social media and blogging techniques. You can also use tools such as Google Adwords to gain customers through Pay-Per-Click (PPC) marketing, but again don’t get carried away trying to get as many people clicking your website as possible, make sure they are targeted and therefore more likely to lead to a conversion. Wasting money is the last thing you want to do at this stage.

9.) You Quit:
When things aren’t going well you quit. Well that isn’t going to get you anywhere. Make goals and motivate yourself to reach them. You will make mistakes and there will be challenges that is a given, its how you get through these that shows what your made off.

10.) Finding Your Market:
A big reason why many start-ups fail is because a company just cannot find enough customers. Either the product/service is too niche or the product/service may not be in demand. Ensure that you are not pricing customers out and make sure your product/service is of good quality. Make sure that you have enough potential customers to stay profitable beyond the early adopters.

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