Recently I’ve been running a small side project selling posters. The idea came from the University of Warwick Memes Facebook Group where me and a chap named Leigh Dawson both made images inspired by the popular “Keep Calm and Carry On” posters. A few people commented, saying they’d like the designs as a poster. Seeing an opportunity, I got in touch with Leigh and James Thake (a Warwick graduate who polished the designs), suggesting we work together to get the posters made and sold and split the proceeds.

They were favourable to the idea, and we got our first batch of posters sold earlier this week. So far we’ve made a (small) profit. Along the way, I learned a lot about the ground-level, tactical details of running a business that weren’t apparent before. I’ve spent a lot of time reading about business, both in books and online, but you know what? You can get a basic grasp of the high-level strategy that way, but you really have no idea until you actually go out and do it.

 

I sold this. (Not a Warwick student? See this. Not British? See this.)

It’s like the sports fans that know exactly how the team’s manager should be doing their job. From an outsider’s perspective it all seems so easy. Why doesn’t Costa copy Starbucks and have staff write down customer’s orders? Why doesn’t Transport for London copy Hong Kong’s MTR and clean their tube stations? (And maybe make their service actually affordable and reliable while they’re at it)? But viewed from the inside, there’s a million more pressing details, any one of which could kill the whole enterprise if it went wrong.

Selling posters was a tiny venture, but it brought up a whole bunch of business issues. And this was for a project that involved a handful of people, about two weeks time and a few hundred pounds in revenue; I can’t imagine the pressures of running a billion-dollar corporation with tens of thousands of employees. Here’s a summary of what I learned.

Lesson 1: The Lean Startup Approach

I wasn’t sure where to begin at first. Was it worth paying to get posters printed without knowing if people would pay for them when they arrived? And how much could I charge? I needed to ascertain if there really was a demand.

Then I remembered the “Lean Startup” approach, which suggests making a minimum viable product to gauge demand. The MVP might be a working demo or prototype, but it can be more minimal then that. I decided to make a pre-order form for the posters, with a range of prices on offer. Although the form wouldn’t take payments, it would be a pretty strong signal of intent to purchase (or lack of it). It would also gauge how much people would be willing to pay.

It worked. I got my first pre-order about 5 minutes after setting up the form. The orders came so rapidly after that, watching them come in was addictive. The idea was validated.

Lesson 2: Manufacturing

The next step was getting the posters printed. There were lots of little issues here — tweaking the designs, getting the files in the right format — but they were mostly straightforward.

The hard problems were deciding which posters to print, how many, and from whom. The printing industry has massive economies of scale, and it works out a lot cheaper per item if you get a larger print run. That is, I would be better off getting many copies of one or two designs. On the other hand, we had five designs offered on the pre-order form, in four different sizes (big mistake there, eh?), and people had ordered a whole range of them. If I didn’t satisfy these people, would I be leaving money on the table? And some people had said they’d pay extra to get their posters early. Would it be worth using two printers, one fast and expensive, one slow and cheap?

These problems seem a lot simpler when it’s not your money at stake. In the end, we decided to order two designs in two different sizes, and use a slow-and-cheap printer. Right choice? No idea.

Lesson 3: Pricing

Students are pretty cheap, and keeping the price low would increase demand. But some pre-orders had been willing to pay £18 for their posters, and if you undercharge people who would willingly pay more, you’re leaving money on the table. It’s the classic price-demand curve. Again, it’s a much harder problem when you’re faced with the prospect of people calling YOU a rip-off and a terrible person if your prices are too high (which happened), and losing money if your prices are too low (which also happened).

What you really want is for everyone to pay what they’re willing to pay. Except that’s not feasible. Another way is to have a tiered pricing structure, like Starbucks has with their coffee. Small black coffee? £2. Want more coffee, fancier coffee, flavoured shots? Price goes up. Remember how I made the big mistake of offering too many options? It’s not a mistake from this perspective. People could order an A3 poster for £5, or an A1 poster with fast delivery for £18 (people did, too), or somewhere in the middle. In the end we ended up one print run of A3 and A2 posters, so people who might have paid £18 ended up paying a maximum of £10. Mistake? Hard to say.

Another issue was whether to lower the prices from the pre-order form. After printing in bulk, the price per item turned out to be quite low, and it would have been possible to lower the prices a fair bit and still make a per-item profit. But people had been willing to pay the existing prices. It seemed people who wanted the posters felt the prices were fine, and so lowering the prices wouldn’t have attracted more customers, only left money on the table. And like most retail businesses, despite a high per-item profit margin, our overall margins were low, mostly due to unsold stock. In the end, we kept the prices the same.

(Why did I order so much stock? Because of the economies of scale, it worked out a lot better to order too many than too few posters. Again, one of those things that’s easier to appreciate when it’s you running the numbers and your money at stake.)

Lesson 4: Marketing

Marketing, I think, was the biggest weak point of the venture. Most of our traffic came from the Facebook group, but people were posting constantly to the group, meaning our advert would disappear quickly. We posted a few times but didn’t want to spam people.

We also did some offline marketing, by sticking flyers up around campus. Considering the business, getting hold of flyers wasn’t hard (we just used some of our excess posters), but sticking them up took a long time. Flyering is an effective way to get the attention of university students, but you have to be ubiquitous (we weren’t). We flyered some of the “designated flyering points” on campus, but not everyone walks past those. If you flyer other places, they might get taken down quickly, wasting your time.

There’s a few guys who occasionally hold a proper poster stall at Warwick, and they stick up proper signs all around campus, along with a notice saying the signs will be removed at the end of the day (so campus security doesn’t remove them first). Both more effective and efficient than our approach. I’m definitely going to try and market our next stall more seriously.

Lesson 5: Sales

Actually selling the posters was the biggest “grind”, though also the most rewarding part. The few hours I spent at the stall by myself, not making sales, were really tough. I just felt incredibly stupid accosting people and trying to get them buy silly posters. And the buzz when people actually turned up and began forking over their hard-earned was amazing. I also realised the benefit of having good salespeople — it’s not something that comes naturally to me, but I was doing an OK job. Then my friend Teenie showed up (she owed me a favour for helping her set up her blog) and immediately began hustling to get people to come over and buy. Impressive to watch.

I can also see why business programmes like The Apprentice make such a big deal out of selling. As well as being the business function that directly brings in cash, it’s also the best way to get a ground-level, detailed view of your market. You’re on the frontline, seeing directly who is buying, who isn’t, and what it takes to get them to open their wallets.

Lesson 6: Legal

We didn’t break any laws selling the posters, but we did, er, stretch a few campus regulations. Warwick in general does not look too kindly on students selling things on campus, especially if it takes away profits from Warwick Retail or the Student’s Union (“UK’s most entrepreneurial university”, yeah right). Aside from that, we also needed a space to set up the stall. It’s fairly cheap to rent space inside the SU, but foot traffic there is not that high. We had a hard time getting hold of clear information about where else we could sell on campus.

In the end, we took an “easier to ask forgiveness than permission” approach and used the library. I didn’t know if this was permitted or not — I found out after setting up the stall that it wasn’t — but no-one from the library said anything during the 8 hours we were there.

Lesson 7: Public Relations

People in general have funny opinions about making money. I know I used to. So I was pretty apprehensive that I’d get shit from people once I actually started making sales.

In the end, most people were supportive and approving of what we were doing. Some people said they thought it was really cool (what can I say, some Warwick students are really fond of the Koan). There were a few people who declined to purchase once they found out it wasn’t for charity — fair enough, their money. There was only one guy who gave me serious shit about it, and posted on the Facebook group that we were fraudsters, mercenaries, etc.

It was pretty hard to not react emotionally to that, though I managed not to (imo). Most people were on our side so not much damage control was required. Still, the whole thing occupied my mind for way too long.

(I calmed down when I figured out what the guy was actually complaining about. It wasn’t that we’d stolen the designs (we hadn’t), it was the fact that the original “koan” meme wasn’t our idea. Which is a pretty flimsy criticism, and I realised the guy was mostly just trolling for the hell of it.)

Lesson 8. Making money is easy

Wealth isn’t money. Wealth is matter that’s in a form favourable to humans. So if you rearrange matter into such a form, you create wealth. Sounds easy? It is, really. There’s so many opportunities to make the world slightly better or more convenient for people, and you just need to find and exploit one.

Despite the complexity detailed above, all we really had to do was make some designs, get posters printed, and sell them to people.

Lesson 9. Making money is hard

We made a few hundred pounds selling posters. It also cost a few hundred pounds to get them printed, so we were only just breaking even. That’s not factoring in our time. We have a lot of stock left over and I think we can hold another stall and get more sales, but still, we’re unlikely to make a fortune. I’d be happy if we ended up making minimum wage for the time we put in. There’s almost no chance of making what I’d earn as a professional web developer.

So although there’s a lot of opportunities out there, big opportunities, and especially big, scalable, opportunities, are scarce. That’s one reason why a lot of these same university businesses crop up year after year. Every year, students begin reselling textbooks, running events, or printing t-shirts. If they’re lucky, they make a few hundred or even a few thousand pounds, but then find out they can get way more in a graduate job. So they quit, until someone else comes along and spots the same opportunity, and the cycle repeats.

The upside of this is that there’s always small opportunities out there. You could probably quantify the expected value of unexploited opportunities with a variation of the efficient market hypothesis. Obvious opportunities over a certain size will already have been gobbled up, but the small ones might still be worthwhile (And of course, there are plenty of big, but non-obvious opportunities).

Was it worth it? Yes. Although the financial rewards were miniscule, actually getting out there and hustling has taught me an incredible amount.

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This guest post was courtesy of Isaac Lewis and was originally post on his personal blog here. Do check it out it is a great blog & it is a pleasure to have Isaac contributing to YHP. Read more of his posts here.

What Is It?

Intuit 100Up is a co-ventured campaign between Intuit and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), supported by the National Association of College and University Entrepreneurs (NACUE), to create a new and unique enterprise community of 100, high-potential start-ups and aspirant entrepreneurs.

100Up will create a unique community of entrepreneurs at the beginning of their careers. It is an initiative that will seek to celebrate, inspire and accelerate their full potential. It will build on BIS’s ‘Business in You’ campaign, a partnership between private enterprise and Government to highlight support for start-ups and growing businesses and encourage entrepreneurial spirit in 2012.

The community will come to life at the Global Entrepreneurship Congress and will continue to exist as an inspirational group that will learn, share and champion the ideals of enterprise:

What Will The 100 Receive?

If your business idea is chosen as being one of the best 100 then you will be invited to join the Intuit100Up as a founder member and you will receive:

A one day ticket to the Global Entrepreneurship Congress (GEC) in Liverpool on 13th March 2012, the largest gathering of start-up champions from around the world.

Travel by train up to a value of £100. Must be booked via designated travel service.

Free entry to and participation in an Intuit Financial Fitness Workshop on 12th March and an exclusive 100Up drinks reception with the Minister for Business Mark Prisk MP.

Overnight accommodation on 12th March at the Jury’s Inn Liverpool.

Plus ongoing access to and participation in the 100Up Community.

How Do I Get Involved?

We are looking for 100 entrepreneurs from a wide range of backgrounds, with real, inspiring stories of how they aim to turn their passion into action. If you would like to be considered for the competition to win one of the 100 prize places:

• Create an ‘elevator pitch’, telling us about your business idea in no more than 150 words.
• Send it with your name, business name, address, email and mobile number to intuit100Up@promoentries.com
• Applicants are also encouraged to submit a link to a one minute YouTube video telling us about your business, however this will not form part of the judging criteria.

All entries must be received by 11.59pm on 26th February so you had better move fast!
For full entry conditions and details please see www.promoterms.com/intuit100up

Jason Stockwood is the CEO of Simply Business the UK’s largest business insurance provider which was launched in 2005. When Jason joined the company he wanted to create an innovative, agile entrepreneurial culture, helping create an atmosphere that employees would want to work in and one that can help serve their customers better.

Having previously worked with Lastminute.com and Match.com, he has experience of being at the forefront of the internet boom and at two of the biggest players in respective industries.

I recently had the pleasure of interviewing him, see what Jason had to say below:

- Can you give us a bit of background to yourself?

I spent most of my life until I was 30 following my instincts and just doing things that I found interesting or personally fulfilling. I went to school on a scholarship in America, worked at Disney World in Florida, went on a Kibbutz in Israel, worked as a holiday rep in Greece and studied Philosophy at Bolton University. The travel was educational and the education was fun; both set me up with the intellectual curiosity, tools and the drive to make the most out of every day.

- Why did the move into the insurance industry interest you? Do you see a market you can disrupt here much like the travel and dating industries you previously worked in?

It was based on two insights. Firstly I wanted to work in another industry that I knew nothing about so I could feed my own curiosity and personal development and secondly I saw the opportunity to disrupt a £6bn market where technology has up until now had little to no impact.

- How do you keep your company staying flexible & adaptable enough to keep ahead of the game, as you grow?

It’s a cliché because it’s true but it’s all about hiring great people and then getting out of their way. We’ve got an entrepreneurial management team who are all functional experts who believe in Agile/Lean methodologies as the most productive and fun ways to work. If you have those things you will create value for everyone.

-  I know that you promote the entrepreneurial spirit in the company; why is this and how do you think it helps the business?

For a few reasons but mainly that in growth businesses, you need to have an agility to react and respond to the journey you are on. It’s not simply moving things from A to B like in large corporates. If there’s no one going before you there’s no one to follow, so you need the right entrepreneurial spirit in the business to find the way and define how to get there.

Entirely selfishly, I find it a more interesting way of working as well. It allows for creativity and inspiration from everyone on the team. I enjoy the spaces between certainty and knowledge that sparks creative thinking.

- How important do you feel it is for the company to keep the feel of a startup rather than corporate feel, as it grows?  

It’s less about the growth stage and more about the overall culture, you can be big and be entrepreneurial or small and corporate. It’s more about wanting to do things differently for everyone’s benefit – the customer, the team and your shareholders

- What is your biggest motivation in business?

Curiosity and the need to keep learning.

- What advice would you give to an aspiring entrepreneur?

Listen to all the advice you can and then make your own mind up about everything.

–

Follow @rishi_chowdhury

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

I caught up with Ole Fjelberg, founder of OnePiece UK – OnePiece is the ultimate comfort, leisure and lifestyle wear.

In the full interview below, Ole talks me through his journey so far running the company, studying at Queens Mary University and how he has managed to get the UK excited about OnePiece and some of the difficulties he faced starting the business.

Hi Ole, how are you doing?

I’m going great

Can you give us some background information about yourself?

I was born and raised in my fathers delicatessen shop in Oslo, Norway. Moved to UK to study at Queen Mary in 2008 and started OnePiece in the UK in my second year, which I still run. I love to ski, tennis, see the growth at my own company and help friends with their ideas.

So Ole, how did you get into entrepreneurship, what was your first business?

As the son of a great shop-keeper I always wanted to do something for myself. First business was KleinService, an innovative cleaning service, cleaning up after pre-parties in Oslo. Due to the innovative concept we got amazing press in the largest newspapers-, TV- and radio stations.

After that, what else did you get involved in after that?

Did some military service in the Norwegian Royal Navy and went studying. In uni I founded the Queen Mary Trading & Investment Society, and then the OnePiece came up and took all my time.

Tell me about your experience studying at Queens Mary University?

Queen Mary was great, but I was more hooked up in things around uni than the actual course. I played on the tennis team and met a lot of great people. At the end of the first year I founded the Queen Mary Trading & Investment Society, which was a great experience. We got great backing from the department and great feedback from speakers, students and sponsors. At the end of second year I had to give up my position as President for the OnePiece venture, which was a good decision. The society still lives and grows.

I guess with the whole issue about the value of going to university being questioned, what’s your thoughts on the whole issue?

After three years in uni I did wonder: ‘what did I actually learn?’. As I did a major in economics I didn’t really learn any specific job, however knowing how the world works around you is very valuable, and I definitely knew that better after three years in Queen Mary. However the most valuable thing I believe you get out of university is the people you meet. You get to meet like-minded people from all over the world, and make friendships lasting a lifetime you would never have made otherwise.

Tell us about One Piece? How the idea come about?

In 2007, three friends of mine lying hung-over on a Sunday afternoon, discussing how they could make themselves more comfortable than they were there and then. The waistband on their sweatpants really bothered them, so they decided to try sewing together a hooded sweatshirt and a pair of sweatpants, connecting the two with a giant zipper to create the first OnePiece.

What is One Piece?

OnePiece is the ultimate comfort, leisure and lifestyle wear. Made by the highest quality cotton with a brushed inside it’s developed to be ridiculously comfortable at the same time as we offer colours and designs to suit every taste. So you can stay comfortable and look great;)

Tell me about how you got involved in the company?

The OnePiece literally exploded in Scandinavia, fuelled my social media, PR and blogs and became massively popular. I was watching this from my student flat in the UK and thought we needed to show this to the brits, and we certainly did.

So does that mean you have shares in the business?

Yes, I own a share of the UK company OnePiece Jump in Ltd, where the Norwegian mother company is also shareholder.

How difficult has it been introducing the brand in the UK? What would you say was the hardest part?

It was certainly a totally different market than Norway. As the Scandinavian countries has a very unison market, the UK is very fractioned and it’s like you need to take one part at the time. There’s also so many things happening in a city like London that you have to scream very loud in order for anyone to hear you. We got a lot of very good press and celebrity endorsements which have helped us a lot on the way. The hardest part was when our previous shipping supplier UKMail totally failed on us previous to Christmas sales 2010, and we needed to stay up around the clock to solve all the mess they’ve made. We quickly got DHL on the team, and that helped us a lot.

What would you say has been some of the most valuable things you’ve learnt so far as an entrepreneur?

Everything that can go wrong will go wrong and a little bit more, but even though something goes wrong – take it by the horns and solve it as fast as possible and get on with the good parts.

What would you say has been some of the toughest part of running a startup?

Learning and doing everything is very stimulating but can also be very frustrating. Maybe the toughest part is getting into the whole HMRC tax system. It’s the thing you have to do, but since it’s not affecting your sales it’s easy to wait too long with.

What has been your most memorable moment so far?

When the Daily Mail article ‘OnePiece – The new fashion wave’ became the most commented article on the Daily Mail Online – more than the US governor elections and the war in Iraq.

What advices would you give to any aspiring entrepreneur out there looking to enter the fashion industry?

- Find the right suppliers and make sure the sample is 100% right before ordering.
– Don’t compromise quality for quantity
– Make sure you’re 100% square with HMRC, if you can’t take it get an accountant.
– Don’t be afraid of changes as you go
– Listen well to tips from people from the industry, although it doesn’t mean you have to follow them all.

What can we be expecting from you guys in 2012?

Lot’s of exciting stuff! We’ll introduce a whole new clothing line with anything comfortable like sweatpants, hoodies, t-shirts and so on. We’ll also come with loads of new designs, washed colours, maybe even different fabrics…

I caught up with Dan Barker, founder of Yearbook Machine – Yearbook Machine is a London-based startup that creates beautifully designed yearbooks, using a social network.

In the full interview below, Dan talks me through his journey so far running the company and how the idea for Yearbook Machine came about.

Hi Dan, Thanks for doing this interview with me.

No problem Joseph, any time.

Can you give you some background information about yourself, were you the entrepreneurial type growing up?

It depends what you mean by ‘entrepreneurial’. I’ve always liked tinkering with computers, designing and building things and thinking about how things can be done better. I’d say it’s the desire to make cool products and have the resources to do interesting stuff that led me into starting a company, rather than just the desire for money. Money is important though of course

You left the University of Cambridge to concentrate on running your business full-time. Was that an easy decision?

I felt that I could either stay at uni and do both my degree and my business reasonably well, but not excellently, or pick one to do very well. I felt that I would learn more about more things that interested me by doing the business. So when it came down to it, the decision was quite easy.

Is there anything you miss about being at university?

It’s nice being carefree and being surrounded by great friends who also have nothing to do!

Tell me how the idea for Yearbook Machine came about?

When I left high school, we wanted a yearbook. None of the companies around seemed to offer very good products – they all looked pretty amateurish and could get really expensive. I made a very simple program to make a yearbook automatically and everyone loved it. The school asked me to do it again the next year and I made a bit of cash from it. All the people from other schools I spoke to said that their school yearbooks were a bit rubbish and expensive, so I got to work designing the system that would make yearbooks like we had for more schools.

What is Yearbook Machine? Tell me how it works?

Yearbook Machine is your own private online social network, where the content you write about yourself and your friends is turned into beautiful printed books. We provide a smooth interface to collect memories and photos online, then allow you to fit them to professional designs which are turned into real books.

What would you say was the hardest part of starting/running the business?

The hardest part is keeping focus on what really matters, and having to accept ‘good enough’. We’re selling a premium product and the whole point is that what we offer is ‘better’, so I have real difficulty trying to not be such a perfectionist about things! It’s pretty upsetting sometimes when you realise that a lot of people just don’t care about quality…

Are you profitable?

We’re breaking even as we re-invest everything we make back into the business.

How many users do you have? Paying customers?

We’ll be serving our 10,000th paying customer in the next month or two.

What makes your business different from other companies/competitors out there?

We really care about making great-quality products that people will want to keep forever. We’ve grown our business relatively slowly compared to some competitors, because we want to make sure that we can always keep our quality high and keep all of our customers happy.

What could you say has been some of the key things you’ve learnt so far as an entrepreneur?

I’ve learned not to waste time doing stuff that ‘might’ lead to some possible situation, or to go chasing after people who are going to magically make stuff happen for me. If you want something done the most reliable way is to do it yourself.

What pieces of advices could you give to aspiring entrepreneurs out there looking to start their business?

If it’s anything at all to do with the internet, then learn how to program and/or design. We outsourced the programming abroad for ages and it almost ruined our business as everything would just break all the time. Then I learned how to program (and hired Jazeps, our CTO) and things started going well. Learn how to program.

What can we be expecting from you and Yearbook Machine in 2012?

More, better yearbooks, and other exciting stuff!

Where do you want the company to be in five years?

We need to have a fountain in our reception, made of granite or maybe marble.

I caught up with Jon Penn, one of the co-founders of the newly launched startup – Goodfibres which launched last year August. Goodfibres is an ethical fashion brand that provides a platform for artists and up and coming artists to upload and submit graphic designs.

In the full interview below, Jon talks me through his journey so far running the company, how the idea for Goodfibres came about and what Goodfibres is all about.

Who are you?

Goodfibres is an ethical fashion brand that provides a platform for artists and up and coming artists to upload and submit graphic designs. Once the designs have been uploaded other artists within the Goodfibres community will rate the designs and will give feedback as to how the design could be improved if at all. Every week we look at the most popular designs and then turn them into funky t-shirts paying the artist a 10% royalty on every sale.

How did you start?

I have always had an entrepreneurial spirit and find myself consistently evaluating companies that I admire and wondering how they can be done differently and better. I find that I have to reign myself in at times as I continuously come up with new business ideas that I want to pursue. Due to the routine constraints of life, I try to put the blinders on and think about the big picture; you need to focus on one big goal at a time. I originally started out in the tech sector working for the big banks and realised very quickly that it just wasn’t for me. My business partner Damon Bonser has a similar mindset- he has a creative spirit and likes to do things in a manner that blazes new trails rather than following existing ones.

It was about a year ago that we were looking online for a site that offered a good selection of t-shirts that had great designs and something a little different from the high street. During our research we came across a few sites in the US but found that although they had some good designs the quality was quite poor and you had to pay a lot to get them shipped over.

It was at this point we thought there might be an opportunity but rather than build the traditional model of employing in-house designers we thought it would be a great idea to build an online community of artists. One thing we noticed whilst building Spinning Hat, our product design company, was we were finding that there are so many talented artists out there but many of them were never really taught on how to promote themselves in a big way so we thought by building a platform we could do this for them.

Before setting up Goodfibres Damon and I were already successfully selling products to the same demographic through Spinning Hat. Fashion apparel and Funky T-Shirts are always popular items for this target audience and are often sold into existing retailers that Spinning Hat supplies. The plan was to create a complimentary brand able to draft on Spinning Hat’s success whilst also helping us to enter new markets and leverage additional retail accounts. The plan was to create a sexy retail product that had a bigger purpose and story beyond the actual tangible item.

What do you offer?

Goodfibres designs are curated and created by artists, so by wearing a Goodfibres t-shirt you’re actually wearing a piece of original artwork. Goodfibres works hard to champion the contributing artists, so in addition to placing their names on every creation, the designer keeps the rights to their artwork, and receives 10% of the proceeds on every sale.

Breaking Through

When we saw the competition begin to adopt attributes that we were using to differentiate ourselves I knew they were keeping their eyes on us and that we were on the right track. We will continue to be agile and to focus on serving our customer base. If we do this we will just go from strength to strength.

Setbacks

The two biggest challenges with Goodfibres from day one was going to be how do you grow an online community from scratch and the second challenge was how are we going to find artists to submit artwork for the initial collection when we didn’t have a brand/site just an idea. We also needed to make sure as part of the launch we had a great collection of cool t-shirts to sell so we could drive sales from day one.

I think a lot of the success of this was probably due to the fact that we have already built a successful business so when we started to actively contact the artists they could see that we had potential to take the idea forward and implement it.

After a few months of contacting various artists we soon found ourselves getting inundated with artists contacting us and expressing their interest and wanting to be involved. After a few months we had close to 300 submissions of artwork for t-shirts which was really amazing. We then spent the next few weeks going through all the artwork to filter it down to a collection of 45 T-Shirts that were designed by a mixture of artists from all over the world and had different artistic styles as we didn’t want to create a genre that stopped certain artists from submitting their artwork.

Once we had built this collection of artists we then started to actively contact other artists offline and online and were introduced to friends of friends and it kind of snow balled from there. Within a few weeks of launching we had over 1,500+ artists sign up which was really amazing.

Pointers for others?

• -Check what is already in the market place?
• -Identify who is going to buy your product?
• -Is the product design realistic?
• -Can you achieve the right price point with the chosen design?
• -Is the volume you are expecting to achieve worth the effort of even designing the product?
• -Surround yourself with talented people as you cant do it all on your own.

Future

I would like to think that in 5 years from now Spinning Hat is a well established, recognised high street brand with its products being sold all over the world. Within that time we should have built an experienced, talented design team that could allow us to move into other industries or areas within design. As long as I am surrounded by talented and creative individuals who continue to challenge me, I will be happy. Goodfibres will continue to grow and will service more and more people but at the end of the day the game will still be the same. If it continues to be fun I won’t need an exit plan.

Today I interview Louise Barker, CEO of Bamzonia – a platform that focuses on educating people about independent and effective financial awareness in their daily life. An idea which Louise came up with during a conversation with her business partner, Bruce Scott in Sainsbury’s car park.

In our interview, she also talks about walking away from her well paid and secure job into starting a business just before a recession.

The full interview is below.

Hi Louise, Thanks for doing this interview with me.

It’s a pleasure, thanks very much for asking me.

Can you give us some background information about yourself, were you the entrepreneurial type growing up?

I’m not sure I was necessarily entrepreneurial growing up but I was definitely head strong and didn’t really like being told what to do. My mum tells me that as a toddler the only way she could get me to do something was if I believed it was my idea, so I guess I have always been comfortable making my own decisions and as I’ve got older – taking responsibility for those decisions – whether they were my idea or not!

Tell me how the idea for Bamzonia came about?

The idea was conceived in Sainsbury’s car park during a conversation with my business partner. It was a few years ago now and the country was on the brink of a recession. We knew it was going to be tough times ahead as the level of consumer debt was sky high – we all had the latest gadgets, flat screen TV’s and credit card balances to match. We wondered how, in the space of a couple of generations things had changed so much. My grandparents wouldn’t have dreamed of spending on credit, my parents used credit but settled the balance every month and then my generation seemed comfortable to max a credit card and make minimum payments every month. We couldn’t begin to think what would happen in one generations time and felt independent and effective financial education had to be included in daily life – and then we came up with Bamzonia.

What is Bamzonia? Tell me how it works?

Bamzonia is an online platform for children, parents, schools and communities that teaches personal financial education in bite size, fun and engaging chunks. We have taken all the things you need to know about money and broken them down into 47 lessons. These lessons are interactive and are linked to a 3D city regeneration game. Basically, the better you do in the education, the faster and more successful you are in the game. You can start learning from 8 years old (before bad financial habits have set in) and by the time you have worked through all the lessons you should have a foundation of knowledge that allows you to make more informed financial decisions later in life. We are independent and don’t advertise or sell financial products so you can be sure we just want to deliver a level of confidence to our users to stop this negative spiral of debt that so many people find themselves in.

Tell us about the first few months of running the business? What would you say was the hardest part of starting the business?

The first step for me was the hardest. I so desperately wanted to set up my business but in order to give it everything I needed to walk away from my well paid and secure job just before a recession. That was a scary step and I made sure I had the full support of my family before doing anything but once I’d made that first step, the rest was just a case of working hard and never losing sight of the end goal. The first few months was spent carrying out market research, creating business plans and naively going for funding that we weren’t ready for!

How have you been able to fund the business?

We have raised a mixture of debt and equity funding. We have business angels as early stage investors and we have also been successful applying for an EFG loan.

How has the business evolved comparing to the your first year of running it, the business model? Strategy?

If I were to look at one of our early business plans I probably wouldn’t recognise the business, we really have evolved an awful lot. For a start, we were not going to tie the education into a game initially; it was going to be a prepaid card. When we looked at the reasons why financial education was not being taught in the schools or at home though, the prepaid card was not going to make the difference, it was the online, simple, accessible, complete and competitive experience that was going to work. As for our strategy, we had a focus on B2C originally which soon changed to the education sector. As a new business we needed to prove we could deliver financial education effectively and in a fun way. We have done that now so we are ready to look at our B2C strategy. Basically, the more people using Bamzonia, the brighter our financial futures will be.

What is your business model?

We are an independent provider of financial education so there is no advertising, or product placement, we sell subscriptions to our website for a year’s access for individuals, families, schools and communities. For that you can access all of the personal financial education and game. We have a price point that is affordable and recognised as excellent value, particularly in the education sector where we should always be mindful of stretched budgets.

Are you profitable?

We are at the beginning of our second year of trading so we are not profitable yet. We forecast a profit next financial year and are currently on target to achieve this which will be a fantastic milestone and a very proud moment.

What could you say has been some of the key things you’ve learnt so far as an entrepreneur?

I think key learnings are that no matter what your experience and background, unless you have been through the start up process yourself – you have no idea what to expect. I can see now why investors want someone who has done it all before to be a part of the executive team because you need someone looking out for the obvious pitfalls and start up mistakes that you are bound to make, no matter how experienced you are. On a more positive note however, there is no better feeling than your business making a difference, being acknowledged or achieving milestones. When you get to that point it all seems worth it.

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

The most memorable moment was receiving feedback from a primary school in Scotland who had been using Bamzonia for a matter of weeks. The bit that stood out for me was this comment “Some students apparently saw a news story talking about inflation, knew what it meant and told their parents” These students were 11 years old and due to Bamzonia were familiar with the term “inflation”. When we were standing in Sainsbury’s car park over 3 years ago this is what we were aiming for – building a familiarity and confidence with money that gives the next generation a chance to control their money, rather than a lifetime of money controlling them.

What can be expecting from you and Bamzonia in 2012?

We have done all of our testing, made sure the product works and does what it says on the tin. We are now rolling Bamzonia out to schools and individuals and are busy telling anyone who will listen who we are and what we do. We have plans to develop our platform further and add depth to our game as well as appeal to a more adult audience. The future looks very exciting for us.

What pieces of advices could you give to aspiring entrepreneurs out there looking to start their business?

I would say that no matter what, you should trust your gut feeling. Sometimes the facts in front of you are saying one thing but your gut is telling you something else. Be brave and go with your gut if it feels right. Bring in a mentor or business advisor who has been on the start up journey with a successful exit behind them, you will benefit a great deal from an outside opinion from an experienced head. Be positive, positive, positive and don’t lose sight of the excitement and enthusiasm, even when those around you do. Lastly, be capable of working hard and continuously even when there is no certain future in sight – know as best you can that you (and those close to you) are ready for this journey – it really could be the best journey of your life.

Rob Symington left his comfy job at Ernst & Young to escape the normal corporate structure and out of that frustration came – Escape the City.

Today I speak to Rob to learn more about his background, leaving his job at Ernst & Young, starting Escape the city, what Escape the City does and other valuable insights into his journey as an entrepreneur so far.

Below is the full interview.

Can you give you some background information about yourself, were you the entrepreneurial type growing up?

I did always have lots of plans and projects on the go when I was growing up but they weren’t necessarily business-related. They were normally adventures actually. I grew up in northern Portugal, went to boarding school in England, university in Scotland and France. Aged 21 I drove an old Land Rover through Africa from Cape Town to Cairo.

You studied History at Edinburgh University, tell me about your experience there and some of the key things you took from that experience?

Studying History was a massive indulgence. There’s less of an emphasis on vocational degrees in the UK as there is in other countries but it does mean you can feel slightly lost when you graduate! When I got my first job in consulting I had to make up all sorts of creative reasons why studying History meant that I would be the ideal management consultant! In retrospect however the analytical skills and sense of perspective that I got from that degree have really helped me with building Escape the City.

Tell me how the idea for Escape the City came about?

The idea was born out of our frustration with the corporate world. Dom Jackman (my co-founder) and I realised that we didn’t want to spend our careers as management consultants. We were attracted by the prospect of ‘doing our own thing’ but didn’t know what business to start. Ironically the feeling of ‘why is it so hard to find viable alternatives to working in the corporate world?’ then translated into our very own start-up plan. We realised that it was a problem that many people shared and that there would be lots of interest if we built something genuinely useful.

So you left your job at Ernst & Young, Did you get chicken out of it a few times before leaving, how scared were you?

I’m pretty impulsive so I just went for it. For a conscientious person I had become dangerously demotivated and I knew it was time to leave. I actually resigned because Dom bet me I wouldn’t. He went to Canada for the Yukon canoe race and as he was leaving he leant over my cubicle wall and said ‘I bet you won’t have resigned by the time I get back.’ I did.

Working at Ernst & Young must have helped you in some way to run your business, what were some of the key things that you learnt from that experience?

It was a valuable experience from lots of perspectives. It taught me what I’m good and what I’m bad at. It showed me ways of working to avoid (and some to adopt!). The base skills that I got from that environment – project management, communications, structuring problems, PowerPoint(!), Excel, etc – have been great building blocks for starting a business. Ultimately I already had the main characteristic that starting something from nothing requires: stubborn determination!

What is Escape the City?

Escape the City is a community for corporate professionals who want to do something different with their careers. We help ambitious people find exciting career alternatives outside of the corporate mainstream. We connect our members with hard-to-find opportunities, likeminded people and useful information to help them make the leap.

Talk me through the first few months of running the business? What would you say was the hardest part of starting the business?

The first months were like walking on air. We were blogging about our idea, sending out newsletters, getting engaged on social media. Every positive email served to reinforce the feeling that we were being rewarded for being brave (and foolish). It felt like this: http://blog.escapethecity.org/categories/startup/committed/

The hardest? It gets harder by the day! It’s counter-intuitive but in the early days every bit of progress is a massive victory. You’re starting from nothing so everything you do is forward momentum. The trouble comes when survival is no longer the priority – today growth and really delivering on our brand’s promise is the main challenge… and a hard one at that!

How were you able to fund the business?

We each loaned a few thousand pounds off our respective families and we had saved as much of our salaries as we could from that final year in full-time employment. Post-resignation we both did some part-time work to pay the bills until we made our first revenue.

What’s your business model?

In its current incarnation our business model is a jobs board. Exciting organisations that want to attract smart professionals pay to list their positions. We also make money from event tickets and escape (career) coaching. We are working on new revenue streams but we’ve been fortunate to have such a ready stream of income to survive on in the early days.

Would you say the initial idea for the company, or that your business model has changed since 2010?

The problem we are trying to solve hasn’t changed: “Why is it so hard to find viable career alternatives outside of the corporate mainstream?” Nor has the philosophy: “Life is too short to do work that doesn’t matter to you.” The business model is unchanged from launch but going forwards things will change on this front as we now have a much clearer idea of the potential behind our idea.

How big is your team now?

Eight people in total (four freelancers).

How many users do you now have up to date?

54,116

What would you say has been some of the most crucial that you’ve done to build the company to this level now?

Crucial what? Crucial actions?

Yes

The best thing we have done is our Monday newsletter. That has been our single most powerful marketing tool and the reason why we have the users that we have. Reading Tribes by Seth Godin was a massive eureka moment in terms of the community model.

Is the business profitable?

It is breaking even. We reinvest everything we make in building.

What’s been your most memorable moment so far on your entrepreneurial journey?

We were interviewed live on Bloomberg TV on our last day of a 3 month stint launching Escape the City in New York. That was pretty exciting.

What pieces of advices could you give to aspiring entrepreneurs out there?

Just Start. You don’t have to quit your job to see if your idea has legs. Manage your risk but get something out in public. Even if it’s just a blog, a survey, a facebook page, a prototype product. No idea survives first contact with the people you are building it for. So get it out there!

On that note, here is our manifesto: http://escapethecity.org/pages/manifesto

What can we be expecting from you and Escape the City in 2012?

An evolution of our brand to reflect the people who are using us (global, not just UK and all professionals, not just ‘city’ ones). Our website will become a lot more personalized – you’ll be able to tell us what you’re looking for and then receive information tailored to your aspirations. At the end of the year we’ll be publishing our manifesto in book format. Watch this space.

Where do you want the company to be in five years?

The default global destination for any smart and ambitious professional in the world to find genuinely exciting and meaningful things to do with their lives.

I briefly caught up with Tim Morgan, founder of Picklive – Picklive has the fastest sports data in the world and uses it to create games that people play while they are watching football on TV. In our conversation, I ask Tim a few questions on his journey so far as an entrepreneur and running Picklive.

This is the full interview below

Hi Tim, How are you doing, great to have you on YHP?

I’m doing great thanks Joseph– very happy to be here.

Could you quickly give us some background information about yourself?

I’m from Wales. After I graduated I qualified as an accountant and then advised on mergers and acquisitions for about 5 years.

How did you get involved in entrepreneurship? Were you exposed to entrepreneurship as a child?

I met a friend for lunch in 2004. He said he was going to leave his job and start a business. He asked if I’d be interested in helping him. I agreed. That business was Mint Digital http://mintdigital.com/ – a fine web technology company.

I was not exposed to entrepreneurship at all as a child. Growing up in the South Wales valleys during the 80s and 90s, most people were lucky if they had a job and didn’t have the luxury of sitting around contemplating industry disruption.

So tell me about Picklive and how the idea came about?

I was having breakfast one Saturday with some friends. We had developed some real-time technology at Mint that allowed us to build ‘playalong’ games to TV shows. We thought, “wouldn’t it be good if instead of having to wait 9 months for a result you could play fantasy football in short 5 minute games” – BOOM Picklive was born.

What is Picklive and how does it work?

Picklive has the fastest sports data in the world and uses it to create games that people play while they are watching football on TV. These games feel like something between sports betting and social gaming. Picklive is a ’2 screen’ experience designed to make even the dullest football match worth watching.

What is your business model?

Gambling. Each players pays a small amount (£1 currently) to enter a game. The winner takes the pot and we take a cut.

How did you initially attract users to Picklive, and how do you do it now?

Initially word of mouth. Now we have media partners, a referral system and make use of social media.

What makes Picklive different from any service out there? What problem does it solve?

It’s the world only ‘in-play’ fantasy football site. It makes the dullest football match on TV feel like El Clasico.

What are the most crucial things you have done to grow your business?

Hired great people, listened to our customers.

What was the most challenging part of starting the business?

Obtaining the gambling license.

Would you say the business has changed from the first initial idea?

Yes it was originally just about live fantasy football. Now its about a range of games that people play to pep up their football viewing experience.

Who are your competitors?

There are no direct competitors. Similar products include any fantasy football site, any sports betting site and any social football game.

What were you doing before you founded Picklive?

I founded and was CEO at Mint Digital.

How have you been able to fund the business?

We have both self-funded and raised VC money.

What can we be expecting from your company in 2012?

Lots of new games.

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

1. Test the market. Make sure there is demand for your product before you spend too much time on it;
2. Know why you’re doing it. Are you trying to change the world or are you trying to make money? Those are often not the same thing;
3. Hiring is the riskiest most time consuming activity, be certain you need headcount before you attempt it.

I caught up with Sam Collins, co-founder of Eventasaurus – A dashboard for event managers which connects all of your social networks and events platforms.

Hi Sam, How are you doing, great to have you on YHP?

Thanks for having me!

Could you quickly give us some background information about yourself?

I’m co-founder and ‘Chief Product Nerd’ (read: CEO) at this awesome new startup called Eventasaurus (http://eventasaur.us).

My background is pretty varied: I’m Irish but I moved to the UK to study Civil Engineering at University of Edinburgh. I specialised in Fire Science Engineering and my masters thesis involved flying to Machu Picchu, Peru to burn down full-scale hotel bedrooms. No joke. During my degree I worked full-time at a couple of startups and ended up starting TechMeetup.co.uk. By the time I graduated I knew I was more interested in making products than designing skyscrapers so I never took a graduate job and instead started my own company. That’s where I’m at now.

How did you get involved in entrepreneurship? Were you exposed to entrepreneurship as a child?

Yeah I guess, though I don’t think I ever heard the word until a few years ago. My father set up his own accountancy firm and my eldest brother has built and sold a couple of games startups. I was probably exposed to the idea that there are more paths than just the normal idea of a professional career. I remember some guys in my year at university thinking I was crazy for not even applying for graduate positions – there is a notion that ‘this is the done thing’ and it’s about how well you can score on that one route. I don’t really buy that. I’d rather see what I can do myself.

So tell me about Eventasaurus and how the idea came about?

Well I woke up in the night and I had this idea right… No not really, we basically failed for almost a year to solve this problem and built and tested about five different products. We did a bunch of stupid things but also learned quite fast from our failures. In the end, we had learned so much about the space and the industry that we started to see the problem more realistically and then Eventasaurus just made a lot of sense.

What is Eventasaurus and how does it work?

Eventasaurus allows event organisers to manage their events across multiple social networks all from one dashboard – offering features like automatic event creation across social networks, real-time commenting across event pages and gathering your attendees from multiple event websites. Both founders are event organisers and we know how much manual work still goes into running an event so we really think Eventasaurus can reduce a lot of it.

What is your business model?

We acknowledge that there are great services and tools available for event organisers (e.g. Eventbrite is an incredible ticketing platform) but in the process of running an event, you need several of these different tools and services. Our business model is a claim that event organisers will pay for a dashboard that combines all of these tools together in one place, saving time and increasing efficiency while also creating new value for the event organisers by extracting meaningful business intelligence from the combined data (from all of these tools).

Note that we aren’t building each one of these tools – we know there are companies out there dedicated to each of part of the event organisers journey – and they do a much better job of those products than if we tried to build every one of them together. So instead, we pick the best tools and do deep API integrations into our dashboard. Customers use their own Facebook, Eventbrite accounts (etc) but they’re connected through Eventasaurus.

We don’t do anything clever with revenue models – we simply charge for the service. We provide a zero-cost free plan for not-for-profits and event organisers with small (or no) budgets and who need help managing social network distrubution. Otherwise it’s a monthly subscription for using the more powerful features and getting insights into your events.

How did you initially attract users to Eventasaurus, and how do you do it now?

We know a lot of event organisers, since we organise events ourselves, and that got us started in the early feedback stages. When we were done prototyping, we spoke with some journalists in the space, they liked what we were doing and wrote about us. That got the ball rolling.

What makes Eventasaurus different from any service out there? What problem does it solve?

Well, nothing else really does this right now. There’s a lot of social-media dashboards out there (e.g. WildFire, BuddyMedia) but none of these are aimed at event organisers or provide event functionality so we do that.

If you speak with anyone who organises events – they’ll tell you what a nightmare it is trying to do all of this work manually.

You can do some incredibly useful things with Eventasaurus like: create events across social networks automatically, sync and download your attendees (rsvps) and engage in real time across your event pages. Without Eventasaurus, if you needed to update your event – you’d be logging into all of the different websites and updating each one manually. When you’re running an event, time is always short – so having a cute dinosaur do this for you is a big relief. It’s pretty smart, saves a ton of time, and nothing else so far is doing this.

What are the most crucial things you have done to grow your business?

Focus on creating value for our customers and ignoring everything else.

What was the most challenging part of starting the business?

Probably finding the right person to start it with. That took a while.

Would you say the business has changed from the first initial idea?

Ha – yes. It changes pretty much every month.

Who are your competitors?

Humans.

What were you doing before you founded Eventasaurus?

Writing my thesis on burning down hotels in Peru, running TechMeetup in three cities, and designing interfaces and marketing strategies at Loc8 Solutions.

How have you been able to fund the business?

I took a loan in the first place. I invested it all in the business. Then I got some angel investors. Then I got some more. Now we make money.

What can we be expecting from your company in 2012?

Big exciting stuff. Can’t talk about it yet, sorry! But expect us to focus relentlessly on creating new value for event organisers.

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

1. Focus on creating new value for people, if you’re not creating new value – stop and change because it won’t last. Read ‘The New Capitalist Manifesto’ for more understanding about what I mean by ‘value’.
2. Make up your own idea about the world – don’t try and learn it from reading TechCrunch.
3. Drink less alcohol and more coffee.