Student Entrepreneur

Starting up a business whilst studying can be so much fun and hardwork. The university environment gives you the perfect platform to discover and experiment ideas, but as you know sometimes having a part-time job or putting your student loan money into the business just might not be enough especially when you‘re running a business that needs a lot of cash to keep it running or it might just be that you just need a bit of money to help grow/scale the business.

Graduate Entrepreneur

Being a graduate and running a business can be very tough, especially if you’re focusing on running the business full-time without a job and probably just crashing on a friends couch bootstrapping and hoping to start making revenue soon or working part-time/full-time and spending most of the weekends and evenings focusing on your business.

The opportunity to get some finance can enable you to focus fully on the business especially during the startup phase where you are mostly experimenting.

The Competition

NACUE and Lloyds TSB have joined forces to give students and graduates the opportunity to win £50,000 in investment through the Lloyds TSB Enterprise Awards and all entries closes in just 10 days, 30 Jan 2012. Apply here

All entrants will be considered for two titles – Best Start Up, which will be awarded to a business in its early stages; and Best Enterprise which will be awarded to the business judged to show real potential to grow over the next five years to become a recognised SME within its respective sector.

The overall winner of the Awards will receive £50,000 to invest in their business, together with a comprehensive two-year mentoring programme, involving senior executives from Lloyds Banking Group, designed to provide coaching and support on critical business issues such as planning, finance, recruitment and marketing. Each of the winners will also receive free legal advice with an independent specialist law firm

The Awards are open to entrepreneurs currently studying at universities across England, Scotland or Wales – or who graduated within the past five years and have been trading for more than one year.

The prizes

Heats

Best Start-Up – £1k plus two years mentoring from senior Lloyds Banking Group representatives
Best Enterprise – £5k plus two years  mentoring from senior Lloyds Banking Group representatives

Grand Final

Best Start-Up – £10k plus two years mentoring from senior Lloyds Banking Group representatives and a business session with a Lloyds Banking Group executive
Best Enterprise – £50k plus two years mentoring from senior Lloyds Banking Group representatives and a business session with a Lloyds Banking Group executive

The heats

Wales – Cardiff 15 February
London & South East – Reading, 16 February
South West – Bristol 21 February
East of England – Essex, 22 February
Midlands – Nottingham 23 February
North West – Manchester 28 February
Yorkshire & North East – Leeds 29 February
Scotland – Edinburgh 1 March

Grand Final

Liverpool 13 March 2012

Isabel Mattos is a serial entrepreneur, she has what you call the entrepreneurial spirit, running through her veins.

As an 18 year old she managed to get into the prestigious MIT university, even though she only applied 2 weeks before the application deadline. It helped that she received a scholarship or their was no way she would of been able to afford the fees. But she made it & if that wasn’t enough she also managed to get a job at the world’s most sought after company to work for, Google.

Although not from a family of entrepreneurs and no real entrepreneurial connection, she always knew that she would be an entrepreneur. After a short stint at MIT she started WaterAfrica, which developed a solar-powered piping system that enables better water distribution in Africa. After a couple more projects she founded ‘What If?‘ a social site where people can share their what if? questions which people can comment on and share with a gamification side to it as the more comments and likes, the more badges you earn.

She also founded Tisk-Task a a task management tool specially tailored at communities and on top of this she started yet another company. This one is called Talenj, which is a Google labs type of idea. It is made up of fun little websites that are useful and fun. In an experiments type format Talenj is there to try out a number of ideas and see what sticks!

She has a very creative tech focused mind and is always coming up with new ideas as you can tell. But rather than just come up with ideas she goes and makes them happen. Some may fail and some may work but you never know unless you try it.

She gave up the opportunity to have a comfortable job in Google and go it alone. She did plan to go back to Brazil and work on her own startup but after meeting Meyer Malka and Wenceslao Casares, two latin-american entrepreneurs responsible for one of the biggest Latin American startup exits, she was excited by thier idea which led to her latest venture which she joined from the beggining as he head of business development.

The startup is called Lemon and it seems she has made a good move as the online receipt tracking service has just raised $10 million in funding. It helps when raising funding that the founders have a track record of a successful exit.

According to the young 23 year old, Lemon has given her the opportunity to combine the two things she wanted the most: creating a startup, and working with people she admires.

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Wahanda, a health, beauty and wellness community & marketplace that connects consumers, wellness businesses and professionals through content, community ratings & reviews and commerce.

Basically Wahanda partners with spas, salons and health centres across the world to offer the best deals around and they also have mob deals which follows the Groupon model, where the large number of buyers brings the price right down.

Founded in 2008 by Lopo Champalimaud and Salim Mitha, on Valentines day no less, Wahanda has grown to a point where the site receives over 10 million hits a year and lists 250,000 businesses offering over 5,000 exclusive deals.

“Our vision is to do for health, beauty and wellness what Amazon did for books,”

……………………………………………………………… Lopo Champalimaud

The two young entrepreneurs set up Wahanda because they were frustrated with the lack of online resources to help consumers make informed buying decisions.

Wahanda allows consumer the ability to learn about treatments, read and contribute ratings & reviews, and ultimately transact by booking online with businesses and independent therapists.

Lopo and Salim started Wahanda just before the economic downturn hit, but saw that many people affected didn’t want to give up on luxuries, such as spa days, but couldn’t afford to go anymore as the recession hit. They took advantage of this, and not in a bad way, they are offering great value and service to customers while helping businesses attract more customers, but they were able to make the most of an opportunity during the economic crisis.

In 2008 they secured £1.5 million in seed funding which helped the duo rapidly grow business and just last week they announced that they had secured another round of funding of £3.5million, which will help fuel growth further and also help in expanding overseas as Lopo and Salim look to take their UK startup global.

The two young entrepreneurs sum up the name of the company, Wahanda, which is native American for ‘great spirit and creator.’

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New business ventures, social enterprises and creative projects can now get investment at Civilisedmoney, the next generation investment platform which launches this month. Whether its £500 for a local community scheme or £1m+ to launch the next big business venture, Civilisedmoney can help you secure investment.

What is Crowdfunding?

Crowdfunding is the next generation of business investment, giving entrepreneurs the platform and opportunity to raise smaller amounts of funding from their own network of friends, family, colleagues, customers, suppliers and ordinary people, rather than from one or two wealthy investors.

By attracting lots of investors who invest smaller amounts of money into a person, company, product or idea, in return for equity or other rewards, entrepreneurs can bypass the traditional choices of business angels or venture capital and get on with the business, whether commercial, social or just personal.

With banks repeatedly failing to pump the much needed investment into business and enterprise, entrepreneurs need more effective, innovative ways to fund their ideas. Crowdfunding has the benefits of building a network of supporters and advocates, pre-selling your product and testing the market, and you begin your business without debts and loans.

About civilisedmoney

Civilisedmoney, online people-to-people financial services, owned by you, makes it easy for people to invest, donate, lend, borrow and transact money with each other directly at fair and transparent rates, cutting out need for the middlemen, the banks.

Civilisedmoney launches with two crowdfunding products for entrepreneurs, businesses, organisations and individuals. civilisedmoney is also developing a full range of people-to-people financial services products that offer a genuine alternative to those currently provided by banks.

Civilisedmoney and people-to-people internet services give people the opportunity to come together to create a fresh financial future. One that is fair, transparent and without the expense of branches and big bonuses or the dangers of banks gambling with your money. It is banking with people, not banks, simply people connecting directly, fairly and transparently.

Crowdfunding with Civilisedmoney

Civilisedmoney currently offers two crowdfunding products for entrepreneurs, businesses, organisations and individuals:

Invest & Get Investment is equity based crowdfunding to fund start-ups and business expansion. It connects entrepreneurs with like-minded people in order to raise capital.

Crowdfund & Get Funded is reward based crowdfunding. Likeminded people can pool their money to back an idea, a person, or a business, in exchange for goods, services or something else of value.

Contact Civilisedmoney

If you have a venture or project you would like to crowdfund, please contact Rudi Schogger at rschogger@civilisedgroup.com or for more information, please visit www.civilisedmoney.co.uk

Glenn Shoosmith is the founder and CEO of BookingBug, an online booking and reservation system for small businesses.

Companies can use the system to share availability of services with it’s customers and take bookings online. Options can be customised for the type of serviced offered, availability can be shown by the day, week, hour, class, event or course. The system updates in real-time and has the options of a widget that can be shared and published via blogs, social media and affiliates.

Glenn founded BookingBug back in 2008 with the goal to revolutionise the booking and reservation process for SMB in the services sector. Glenn wanted to make it easier for a small business to fill it’s available slots, thus be more cost effective and efficient, but also help the customers by allowing them to easily see availability and book services there and then.

BookingBug used the embeddable booking widget to partner with affiliates who help open up the reach for businesses. This adds value for the customer who gets the bonus of added convenience for customers, while providing more traffic and therefore more conversions for the business.

Glenn is a software developer and has worked at many large companies before including Bank of America, CNBC, Reuters and most recently RBS who he left to start BookingBug.  It can often be hard to leave a good job and risk it all to start your own business, but the rewards can be far greater. As well as the opportunity to make more money, the fact that you can work on something you are passionate about and make your own decisions, work your own hours, that’s the main attraction.

Earlier this year BookingBug secured investment of $350,000 from a group of angels. Glenn notes that it’s “only a small round but it’s designed to pursue more aggressive growth.” Glenn hopes this round can take the company to the next level and prepare for a larger round of funding in the future.

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The amount of startups founded by young entrepreneurs under the age of 20 is rapidly on the rise. The latest teenage generation are the first too have grown up with the internet, and with the ease of access when it comes to starting a business online many bright entrepreneurs have emerged whilst still in their teens.

It is also more common place to see teens who have taught themselves code and are able to create innovative web apps due to the freedom they possess. As this generation have grown up along with social networks they know how to leverage these. What may start out as hobby/after school project can turn into a real business.

But how do you survive as a real business when you are just seen as a kid?

As a teenager you are left with less responsibility. No kids, mortgage etc… (Well most of the time)  to look after. The risks to consider for a teenpreneur are much less in this sense.

Often a lot of the larger organizations that are more established,  are seeing real competition from startups with young founders who are have grown up with a different way of thinking. As the world continues to change and the face of business changes as well, the mindset of the older organizations are different too those of the younger entrepreneurs and that is where the next generation of young entrepreneurs can gain a competitive advantage over larger corporations in older industries.

We as a younger generation take for granted much of what we see as being the norm, but in reality it is still very new. This is a new way of doing business, older generations grew up and learned a different way of business. As a younger generation comes through and spend ever increasing amounts of time online, businesses no matter what background are having to have an online presence, which may be more than just a website and actually have to offer their products & services online.

A big consideration whens starting your company whilst still very young, is how are you supposed to be taken seriously as a young entrepreneur? It can be harder when getting loans or trying to work with suppliers and partners. How about when trying to get funding? It’s obviously a lot easier when you can show that your business is making money and your model is working, but it can often take a lot of attempts to get there (also having a co founder helps). This is where the power of networking and building strong relationships can help, especially within your own industry.

Entrepreneurs these days have a greater network to learn from than before. It is so easy for anyone to get online and find networking events they can attend or just interact with others who have been through it already. Social networks are the main facilitators of this. Places like Twitter & LinkedIn have allowed young entrepreneurs to compete with the corporate world as they have been able to build strong networks with other young entrepreneurs and also gain knowledge from many others young and old.

I think that young entrepreneurs are not seen to be as much of a pushover as maybe they were previously. Many young entrepreneurs have made it in the past, just look at Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. But I think it’s only now that with the internet, that entrepreneurship has opened up for a lot of under 30′s to be able to take their ideas and go through with it. The barriers to entry are so much lower and the nature of many businesses have changed giving young entrepreneurs the advantage in many industries, except maybe manufacturing.

I think one aspect that is slowly changing is the acceptance of entrepreneurship as a viable career choice, especially when you are young and have no experience, but you have passion and an idea. Much of what we get taught in school is still a very old way of thinking. The education system can’t keep up with the way world and business is progressing and innovating.

Only now are universities offering entrepreneurship courses, but to be honest it’s not just offering a course at university. The entrepreneurial spirit is something you have inside you, it’s a way of thinking and it’s something you grow up with. What about before university, can we see that entrepreneurial spirit and let it flourish?

Starting your own business whilst still being young can be daunting, but surely it’s more daunting when you are older and potentially have more to lose. Big steps have definitely been made and with more media attention being put on the likes of Mark Zuckerberg, hopefully young entrepreneurs can make a bigger impact across many industries and not just in tech (online).

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Here at YHP we are big fans of Airbnb and what they do. If you don’t know what it is they do, take a look at our previous articles on them  – The Guys @ AirBnB & What Every Startup Can Learn From AirBnB.

Well yesterday it was announced that they were in the process of securing a massive round of funding of $100 million putting them at a valuation of over $1 Billion, yes $1 Billion!

Here is the story from TechCrunch:

According to several sources Airbnb is in the process of closing a whopper of a funding round: $100 million or more at a $1 billion-plus valuation. The round is being lead by Andreessen Horowitz, and includes participation from DST, say our sources.

That’s a big increase from the company’s last funding round of $7.2 million, which included Sequoia Capital, Greylock, SV Angel, Ashton Kutcher and Youniversity Ventures (Kutcher broke the news that he’s an investor in AirBnB at TechCrunch Disrupt last week). The company, which launched via Y Combinator, has raised just $7.8 million to date.

No surprise, it was a hotly contested deal. The service has exploded, growing more than 800% last year and booking 1.6 million night stays in other people’s homes to date. On any given night in New York there are more people staying in homes via Airbnb than there are rooms in the biggest hotel in Manhattan.

Airbnb has become the sleeper hit of the startup world. It’s one of those companies plenty of well-heeled investors passed on in the early days, because they thought no one would want to open his or her home to strangers. Out of twenty angels he pitched in 2008, founder Brian Chesky said half didn’t return his emails and most of the others told him it was an awful idea. Even Paul Graham hated it, but he liked Chesky and backed him hoping he’d change the company. TechCrunch’s own hotel expert Paul Carr was a cynic too.

Now, the fear of missing another Airbnb is palpable in the Valley, and one of the reasons GetAround became the darling, audience choice and winner of our Disrupt conference this week.

Earlier in the week, I sat down with Airbnb founder Brian Chesky to talk about this reversal in fortune and how the business is going, although at the time we hadn’t heard the details of the deal he was busy negotiating.

Lot18 is a flash sale site for wine. The site helps match up discerning buyers with reputable producers who are looking to market small batches of product at uniquely low prices.

Lot18 co founders Philip James and Kevin Fortuna have a lot of reason to celebrate at the moment after recently closing $10million in Series B funding. Lot18 raised $3million in Series A funding back in November.

The New York based startup only launched on November 10th, 2010, but March saw the company hit their first million-dollar month with month on month revenue set to continue rapidly growing.

“The revenue numbers blew past expectations from the day we launched. November was a half month and we did $80,000 in sales. Based on the February numbers we saw, we knew March would be a million-dollar month, and April was way bigger than that.”

Lot18 started with 6 employees including Philip and Kevin. Now the company has 44 employees and is looking to hire around 30 more in the coming months. They are also looking at moving into a new bigger office to accommodate this large growth.

With this large growth Kevin expects Lot18 to be profitable by this time next year. With the company adding over 50,000 new users every month and exceeding forecasted growth, profitability could come even quicker.

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Angel Investor Ron Conway caused some controversy on  Monday after stating that all young entrepreneurs are male. I think if you spent five minutes browsing through the YHP site you can see that simply isn’t true and there are plenty of young female entrepreneurs.

Anyway he also went on to address the idea that co-founders are more likely to succeed than single founders. To back up his claims Conway showed this graph while on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt in NYC:

Interesting numbers there and I feel that most of us will have a better chance of success with a co founder rather than go it alone, but there are plenty of exceptions. (probably in the ratio shown in the graphs actually!) It is well known that getting funding is easier with a co-founder, maybe that has an impact. Having a co-founder means you can split the amount of work and responsibility when starting up and it’s not as lonely!

While he was on stage he also took the time to explain that he likes investing in entrepreneurs when they’re 17 or 18 because he gets to watch their entire progression from start to finish.

TNW had more on this:

“Ron Conway made his fortunes in the computing industry, and he has been an active angel investor for over 15 years. He was the Founder and Managing Partner of the Angel Investors LP funds (1998-2005) whose investments included: Google, Ask Jeeves, Paypal, Good Technology, Opsware, and Brightmail. Conway was recently named #6 in Forbes Magazine Midas list of top ‘deal-makers’ in 2008.

Although he noted that entrepreneurs at 17 or 18 often need their parents with them because they’re not legally allowed to sign a deal on their own, he noted that he derived most satisfaction from seeing youngsters go from young upstarts to mature business people.

Without meaning to be cynical, another benefit of getting entrepreneurs in their teens is that they are less driven by money and hence he can get a better deal.”

A friend of mine phoned me last week, asking me if i knew the different funding and investment options in the UK, i quickly wrote the ones i remembered quickly from the top of my head and decided to do a bit of research to see if i was missing any other investment firm or funds.

Now you have no excuse -This is the list, Hope you find it useful.

Funding

UNLTD – (http://www.unltd.org.uk/)
BIG CHALLENGE -(http://www.bigchallenge.org.uk/)
MEDIA BOX- (http://www.media-box.co.uk/)
IDEAS TAP (http://www.ideastap.com)
BIG LOTTERY FUND (http://www.biglotteryfund.org.uk/funding-uk)
PRINCES TRUST – (http://www.princes-trust.org.uk/)
SHELL LIVEWIRE – (http://www.shell-livewire.org)
BREAK THROUGH FUND (http://www.breakthroughfund.org.uk/)
THE SOCIAL INVESTMENT BUSINESS – (http://www.thesocialinvestmentbusiness.org/)
FIT 4 FUNDING – (http://www.fit4funding.org.uk/)
SCHOOL FOR SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURS – (http://www.sse.org.uk/)
SOCIAL ENTERPRISE AMBASSADORS – (http://www.socialenterpriseambassadors.org.uk/)
KICKSTARTER (http://www.Kickstarter.com)
The Carbon Trust (http://www.carbontrust.co.uk)
NESTA (http://www.nesta.org.uk)

Seed Investments

SEEDCAMP – (http://www.Seedcamp.com)
SPRINGBOARD – (http://www.Springboard.com)
The Difference engine- (http://www.thedifferenceengine.eu/)
Astia – (http://www.astia.org)

VC

MMC Ventures (http://www.mmcventures.com)
Dawn Capital (http://dawncapital.co.uk/Home.aspx)
Eden Ventures (www.edenventures.co.uk)
Spark Ventures (www.sparkventures.com)
YFM Group (www.yfmgroup.co.uk)
London Technology Fund (www.londontechnologyfund.com)
Solon Ventures (http://www.solonventures.com/)
Pro-Founder Capital (http://www.profounderscapital.com/)
Bridge Ventures (http://www.bridgesventures.com/)
Albion Ventures (http://www.albion-ventures.co.uk/)
Ariadne Capital (http://www.ariadnecapital.com/)
Index ventures (http://www.indexventures.com/)
Besport ventures (http://www.bestport.co.uk/index.htm)

Angel Networks

British Business Angels Association – (http://www.bbaa.org.uk)
OION – (http://www.oion.co.uk/)
Cambridge Angels (http://cambridgeangels.angelgroups.net/)
Envestors (http://www.envestors.co.uk)
London Business Angels (http://www.lbangels.co.uk/)
Angels Den – (http://www.angelsden.co.uk/)
Advantage Business Angels – (http://www.advantagebusinessangels.com/)

Let me know if i have missed any of the list on the comment section so i can add them to the list.