I had the pleasure of interviewing Andy McLoughlin recently the co founder and EVP strategy at Huddle, a B2B online collaboration & content management company. Andy discusses how he started the company and grew it to a 70+ employee company that it is today and with an office in London and San Francisco explains the benefits and problems encountered when expanding to the US. Andy also gives valuable advice to aspiring entrepreneurs, it’s one not too be missed!

Interview with Andy McLoughlin, Co Founder of Huddle by RishiYHP

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Prime Minister David Cameron helped launch the ‘StartUp Britain’ initiative this morning. StartUp Britain is a ground-breaking response from the private sector to the Government’s call for an “enterprise-led” recovery. The campaign aims to deliver the support and advice for startups and is led by entrepreneurs and is not being backed by government money.

StartUp Britain is the UK’s response to surprise, surprise, Startup America. The American campaign however is funded by the government.

The initiative is essentially offering a package of discounts and free trial on business services like insurance, broadband, advertising, office space and more. The claim is that this amounts to over £1,500 in value for every startup company in Britain. The StartUp Britain site is a portal to all these offers and sources of advice.

David Cameron has always been pro-enterprise and earlier had this to say:

“We won’t build the future we want to see in this country if we go back to the bad old days of big government spending, big borrowing and big debt. The recovery we need is a private sector-led recovery, a recovery with ‘Made in Britain’ stamped all over it.

“We need to see a country where new businesses are starting up on every street, in every town; where entrepreneurs are everywhere.

In the UK we see 270,000 businesses startup every year and unfortunately a high number of these fail, many due to the lack of support. What I like about this campaign, is that although it is backed by the government (and has David Cameron’s face plastered all over it; sigh) it is actually an initiative run by entrepreneurs. The fact that already over 50 businesses have signed up to offer help is a good sign and can hopefully spur others into helping startups in the UK; although at the moment it needs to progress beyond what looks like a bit like a coupon site.

It remains to be seen how this campaign will progress but it looks promising. Here is a list of the entrepreneurs that are backing this project:

- Jamie Murray Wells, Glasses Direct
- Rajeeb Dey, Enternships
- Duncan Cheatle, The Supper Club
- Oli Barrett, Co-Sponsorship Agency
- Emma Jones, Enterprise Nation
- Michael Hayman, Seven Hills
- Richard O’Connor, Chocolate & Love
- Lara Morgan, Pacific Direct

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I and a friend were having a chat on how we wished we started something together in our first year at university, I mean we were all creative, ambitious and had a lot of time on our hands.

We realised how much our business would have grown by now, the traction, the support it would have gotten, instead we spent our time partying away although i admit it was fun, going to bed at 7am and getting up at 5pm were the best days/highlights of my 1st year in the university.

Only if we knew how to balance our time things might have been different, we had enough people in my halls to start at least 10 good businesses, everyone had ideas, everyone wanted to be successful, but we lacked focus and drive and i guess we dint really have anyone who gave us that exposure into the world of entrepreneurship, perhaps we didn’t have the right attitude.

Experience and failure (Start Small)

As someone that started a company in the university, i believe it is always better to start small because it gives you the time to worry less about money but more about the products and services you’re offering, ways to improve and make sure it is going in the right direction.

I started my first company and spent a lot of money constructing the website, not that the website was not worth the money, but with what i know now, i am sure i could have invested that money into something else, probably would have built up the website with cash left to invest in other parts of the business instead of focusing on how fancy i wanted the site to look.

Time

You have 3-5 years to spend in the university, that’s enough time to build your start-up into something credible, by the time you’re ready to graduate, and you will only be worrying on how to grow the business, that’s if you worry at all.

You probably spend most of your time getting drunk, facebook, twitter, YouTube, clubbing, so taking some time to build your business is not that bad.

Your Network is your net worth

I met my co-founder at university and was able to do less, which was more productive and gave me time to focus on other things in the business.

You might end up meeting an investor or a co-founder, or someone that might have the right connection that will take your business to the next level.

If you decide not to continue with your business. You will already have a bunch of contacts that either helps you in a new start-up or perhaps you’re looking for a secured job, you just never know.

Don’t forget that any business you’re going into you’ll be going there with some practical experiences of running and managing a company.

Competition/Awards/support

You can get so much support from your university , if you’re business is cool, I’m sure your university will want to brag about your success, you also have the entrepreneurial society, NACUE, FlyingStartonline, Shell livewire, Enterprise UK, Which will give you some exposures to your company, assistances, workshops and training to sharpen your skills as an entrepreneur, they also give you the opportunity to network with other entrepreneur, you never know what investor might be reading your story.

Student Loans

In total, you probably get £4,950 (Maintenance loan) + £2,906 (Maintenance grant) + Bursary (900)

1st Year – £8756
2nd year – £17512
3rd year – £26268

That is enough money to start up a business or finish up a prototype.

I would encourage you to maybe get a part-time job, and if you have a co-founder or even two co-founders, that is a lot of money and enough money to get something off the ground.

Responsibility

You have fewer responsibilities, less concerns to worry about, which gives you time to build your business.
You have nothing to lose.

Experience

Owning and running your own business is an incredible way to gain experience, it will definitely help you mature, especially as you begin to read business books and self development books to help in growing as a person and an entrepreneur.

You get to learn more about yourself, especially life and business lessons that are not taught in the classroom, you might even get more clarity on modules to choose in the next year or in your final year.
You learn how to speak, dress and act in a professional way.

The University Platform

This is your first initial market where you can experiment, get feedback, get some user experience for your products/services; it gives you such a large network to people to showcase your business to, which is invaluable. You might be able to define your target market through this experiment.

You get free advices from your university professors and tips.

You will have access to different types of people with different skills, you want your logo design- go to the design department, you want a website development – go to the computing department, thinking of getting someone that can help with admin stuff – go to the business department, you get what I’m getting at, loads of resources at your finger tips.

Tip: Everyone loves the story of a kid that started a business in the university.