Alistair Crane and Jamie True graciously turned down $10 million of seed funding in the early stages of building their startup. Alistair explains “We framed the offer letter from the bidder and it sits in one of our toilets in our U.K. headquarters”. The pair wanted to remain in complete control of their business, whilst simultaneously forcing themselves to create a profitable business, “When you’ve got $20 million in the bank, you lose some of that drive to make ends meet.” And their risk paid off.

In January 2010 the pair launched Grapple, which is quite simply a platform which develops apps for Blackberry, Android, iPad, iPhone, Windows phone and Nokia – from one source code. The company has grown from strength to strength, with the number of employees growing from three to 85 across London, Toronto and New York. Not only this but Grapple has also been able to invest $9 million back into itself in order to promote growth within the business.

The idea behind the business sprouted in 2006 when a group of mobile phone lovers queried how apps could be made for everyone regardless of their smartphone. After over four years developing the product, Grapple has now made apps for some of the biggest most dominant brands in various markets, including McDonalds, IBM, Xbox and Adidas. Their website boasts that ‘Everyday Grapple works with 1 in 5 of the UK’s top 40 brands’, and in 2011 there were more downloads of their clients’ apps than the entire population of London.
It seems despite the initial self-sufficient nature of the company, Grapple has grown along with its impressive client base.

It’s no surprise that Grapple has been awarded ‘Innovative Agency of the Year 2012’. Not only do they create, design and distribute apps at 75% cost to the clients of a typical iPhone app, but they also offer advice along the way and promote a close working relationship between themselves and the client. Not only that but even after the app has been finalised and distributed, Grapple provide their client with detailed analytics that show how many times the app has been downloaded and how it is being used, thus creating opportunities in the future.

Grapple has effectively utilised their strengths and even their weaknesses. Although on the surface it seems as though the business could be facing competition from others such as McCann Erickson and Ogilvy, they often end up collaborating! It will be fascinating to see Grapple continue to grow and expand internationally.

[Editor's Note] Milos Bezanov is a second year student currently studying International Politics at King’s College London.

On the face of it, there’s nothing spectacular about Shoreditch Grind. They’re a coffee shop, located next to Starbucks on the Old Street roundabout. That said, although there are hundreds of coffee shops all around London, there’s something about this one that makes it that little bit different. Founded by Kaz James and David Abrahamovitch, the former a successful musician, DJ and producer, the latter a UCL Economics graduate and would be investment banker.

With this combination of perspectives, it’s easy to see why Shoreditch Grind is so different from all those other countless coffee chains’, indistinguishable in name or the quality of the service they provide. However, how it set itself apart and achieved success is not so easy to spot, and to do this we need to take a look in more detail at those who founded it.

Kaz and David have been best friends for 10 years and both love coffee. David finished Economics at UCL, and after doing internships at various investment banks and seemed destined to follow the path set out by friends and family. However, he quickly realised that it wasn’t for him; “It was the natural progression, but I never liked being a small cog in a big wheel”. By contrast, Kaz James’ life took a very different road. Raised in Melbourne, Christopher (yes, that’s his real name) studied at various private schools, and was always involved in music. Thus, having captured his imagination at an early age, he decided to skip university in favour of a music career. Whilst on the face of it, they appear very different yet they are similar in all the important aspects; they both excel at what they do, neither of them wanted to remain locked in, and neither are afraid to take risks.

However, anyone in the business world knows it takes more than passion and ability to make something a success. David Abrahamovitch recalls how they reached their idea; “ (Kaz) is Australian and Aussie’s are massively into their coffee, and they were all amazed how difficult it is to get a good cup of coffee over here- that told me there’s a gap in the market”. It was from here that they decided to set up a Coffee shop at the roundabout on Old Street, next to a Starbucks. Whilst it seems like a bad idea to set up next to an established coffee chain and your main competitors, David doesn’t consider these big players as their competition. In fact, he takes a different view on it; “If anything, our competition is other independent cafés, but really they’re more like friends to us – we’re a community.” With this in mind, it made sense to choose the place they did; “If Starbucks opened a site there, that means there’s demand”. Would you forego a career in Investment Banking to open coffee shop from scratch next to one of the most dominant forces in the market? It’s easy to look back at the success of these two and say yes, but looking forward, it doesn’t take a genius to realise which most people would choose. Then again, David and Kaz aren’t like most people.

Opening in June 2011, the first feature of the business that appeals is the thought and care that goes into the making of the coffee; “we add our own blend of beans roasted to our exact specifications, and even more importantly some of the best (mostly Aussie) baristas in London”. Sure enough, their reputation and popularity grew from there, having been interviewed for the gateway (which is handed out at my University, as well as 15 others) and various other magazines. However, this is not the only way in which Shoreditch Grind separates itself; Kaz James; “ We wanted to create something that could bring music and coffee together”, which explains the presence of a recording studio on the floor above; “We’ve had Ronnie Wood from the Rolling Stones and Coldplay”. Top quality Coffee, and top quality music to go with it. It’s no wonder this business has been making a name for itself.

However, it hasn’t all been fun and games. It took 18 months to get the business up and running due to the difficulty in finding decent builders and electricians (a problem we’re all too familiar with), on their budget. On overcoming this, the work doesn’t stop; (David) “A business like this will not work unless you are very hands on… However much work you think it’s going to be, triple it”. However, despite this continuous work, and the difficulties along the way, Shoreditch Grind have created something so unique that, after a while you forget it’s a coffee shop. So next time you’re in Shoreditch make sure you visit the Shoreditch Grind.

[Editor's Note] Milos Bezanov is a second year student currently studying International Politics at King’s College London.

Wearegoat is a collaboration between two Graphic design students who started the company during their time in the university.

I Invited the two co-founders on YHP to talk about how the inspiration for the business came about, how they met each other and why they decided to start a business together.

Below is the full interview.

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

Paul & Alexey: We are doing well thanks though very busy with work setting up the company and finishing off a few projects. The week we have been greeted with lovely weather, which we wish we could have enjoyed more as we have been stuck inside.

Could you quickly give us some background information about yourself?

Paul: Although I am Maltese, I decided to study Web Design in Brighton. After a few years working in web design I decided I needed a change. This led me to explore Graphic Design and further my work experience in the field. Wanting to further my knowledge in Graphic Design I moved to London to sit for my MA in Graphic Branding & Identity. This has proved to be of great value, if I have not taken this decision I would not have met Alexey and started goat together.

Alexey: I was born in Soviet Union, where I got my first degree in Information Technologies. As I have always been interested in Visual Communication I decided to get a second degree in Graphic Design, which meant me moving to London. I met Paul before our courses started and the rest is goat.

So tell me how you got into business? Were you exposed to entrepreneurship as a child?

Paul: I’ve always been interested in design; I guess I just gravitated towards it. I have always wanted to open up my own studio, because I felt that whilst working for other people restricted me and thought it best to venture out on my own to discover what I can do without these limitations. So far things seem to be going well, looking forward to what will come next.

Alexey: On the contrary to Paul, I never wanted to start my own business thinking that it was easier, more convenient and safer to work under someone else, but after a certain point I realized that the only thing I was gaining from working for someone was a wage. I was tired of people telling me that their failure will be my responsibility. I want only my own failures, but hopefully achievements, to be my own responsibility.

Who was your inspiration growing and why?

Paul: Watching my father and brother build their own business by working extremely long hours and being overly stressed with work didn’t seem to deter me from wanting to open up my own business. The satisfaction they received from achieving what they set out to do is something I hope to receive in the coming years.

Alexey: Everyday my father taught himself how to achieve something that he was unable to do the day before. He worked hard on each project, however boring it may have been. He turned them into opportunities to enrich himself with new skills.

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

Paul & Alexey: Whilst living and studying together at the same university, we helped each other with university work and soon started working on side projects together. We realised that every idea we came up with separately turned into something much more powerful as soon as we started working on them together. We decided to use this synergy to solve other people’s problems instead of just our own and so we decided to open wearegoat.

What were you doing before you founded Wearegoat?

Paul: Studying at London College of Communication and before that working for a publication company in Malta.

Alexey: Also studying at London College of Communication while continuing to work at an amazing design studio in Moscow called Vazari.

What is Wearegoat and how does it work?

Paul: I see wearegoat as more of a collaboration of two designers who enjoy the same things and want to create great pieces of work together. Whether for a client or for a personal project, we treat everything as the most important thing at the time.

Alexey: It’s like me working on steroids.

What is your business model?

Paul & Alexey: Let’s try to keep it simple; our service is visual communication. It doesn’t matter whether it is video, web, print or digital, it doesn’t matter if it is interactive or static, it doesn’t matter if it is for the Olympics or a goat farm, if a client will come to us with a problem that can be solved by means of visual communication then it is our job to do it and to do it in a way that the client will be glad to have chosen us. We are still waiting for a chance to do work for a goat farm

What makes Wearegoat different from any service out there?

Paul: We are trying to work as close to our clients as possible, no matter what the project is, we try to get involved as much as possible. For the entire duration of the project we feel that we become an extension of their company.

What we noticed from working in other studios is that when a great idea is created everyone is trying to claim ownership of this idea. With wearegoat this has become the opposite, after coming up with a great idea through brainstorming we can never recall whose idea it was. We seem to work off of what the previous person put forward until we have something that works best for us and more importantly works best for the client. It is this synergy that pushes us to create the best things possible for our clients.

Alexey: Perfection

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

Paul: With Alexey tackling the innovation of the company I feel that I am in charge of the networking and business side of it by constantly ensuring that everything is up to date and in order. We joke that I am the housekeeper of the company.

Alexey: I spend my free time researching and learning, to ensure that we are on top of the latest in the world of design, whether it be new technologies, workflow systems or simply new applications to ease the daily routine in the office.

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

Paul & Alexey: It’s too early for this question but I can say that the initial idea did not involve so many sleepless nights.

How have you been able to fund the business?

Paul & Alexey: Working and working hard. There is never a moment when you are off the job, especially with design you are constantly researching, thinking and coming up with ideas.

What has been the highlight of your entrepreneurial journey so far?

Paul & Alexey: Being able to work on side projects such as our goatcards (personalized birthday messages for friends that range between everything from static images with food to stop-motion with Play Doh or ice). They have become a great way of experimenting with different mediums and to just getting our hands dirty with non-computer based projects. They have become an outlet for our ideas that don’t seem to have any other place to go.

What can we be expecting from your company in 2012?

Paul & Alexey: We just released a personal project called Pass It On which is an extension of our goatcards, the idea behind these is to bring a smile to people’s faces and add a little something special to an ordinary day. We also enjoy the interactions they can create between strangers just by allowing them to hand over a nice message to someone else. We hope 2012 will see more of these projects. We will obviously continue with the usual goatcards so expect to see many more of those.

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

Paul & Alexey:

1) If you haven’t learnt anything today then it was a waste of a day.
2) If you do something, either do it perfectly or don’t do it at all.
3) Make sure to have an amazing music work playlist; it helps you get through those late nights that are bound to be plentiful.

Oliver Bridge explains the things entrepreneurs should watch out for when engaging with private equity investors.

I recently crossed over into the world of private equity, having come from a background in entrepreneurship. From a young age, I have run my own companies – starting with a mobile disco whilst I was at school, then an online footwear retailer (Biggerfeet.com) and finally an online gender search engine (Genderchecker.com). When I was at university I was involved with Oxford Entrepreneurs and for the last couple of years, helped run workshops at Silicon Valley comes to Oxford, an event which annually plays host to a wide range of high profile technology entrepreneurs from the likes of LinkedIn and Google.

In November, I joined Synova Capital, a private equity team based in Green Park, London. Synova looks to invest in businesses which are making between £1m and £5m a year in profit and where possible backs entrepreneurs and founders to help them grow their businesses further. Part of my role is helping identify which companies we should be talking to and meeting the management to determine whether we think the business would be a good investment for Synova. A lot of the companies I speak to are still run by the founding entrepreneurs, and it’s been an interesting couple of months: meeting different people and seeing how they approach the opportunity.

From what I saw in my time before private equity, entrepreneurs are an unusual group of people. They work slavishly on a single project – often in the face of great adversity, devoting all of their energies, resources and willing to something which might not make sense to others. Sometimes they can be blinded to the arguments against their idea, and seem to have a disregard for authority that can at times, border on unhealthy.

Investors are different. They, like entrepreneurs, also work hard, but they have a number of different opportunities which come across their desk and as a result, they have a lot of options about where they focus their attention. The initial challenge for anyone seeking investment is therefore to stand out and get noticed.

So what should entrepreneurs bear in mind when trying to engage with investors to enhance their chances of success?

· Make sure you pitch to the right type of investor. Angels and VCs typically are happier to invest in unproven ideas, whereas most PE investors will only consider established, profitable businesses that they can grow further – be that expanding internationally or growing the profile of the business. So, if you get a “no” – then don’t despair – it could be that you’re pitching to the wrong type of investor.

· If investors are going to enter into a deal without a controlling stake, then they need to be confident that they will be consulted with and listened to on any significant decisions which could have a material impact on the business. Not only is there a large amount of money at stake, but also an investor’s reputation, should anything go wrong. An entrepreneur that wants to hold onto their majority stake needs to convince investors that they will be a co-operative and understanding business partner.

· Investors speak with hundreds of different businesses every year and have lots of different options about where they direct their time and money. The best strategy for somebody trying to stand out from the crowd is to be pro-active – try to be quick to suggest dates for meetings, send information promptly and return phone calls as soon as you can.

· It’s crucial to be credible. A young, healthy and ambitious entrepreneur who claims their business is going to grow 50% next year but wants to sell all of the shares immediately is going to raise eyebrows – if there is so much money to be made why do they want out? Entrepreneurs should be prepared to commit financially to the future of the business when they sell – and may be required to ‘roll back in’ some of the proceeds from selling their shares, or commit to an earn-out. Entrepreneurs should expect this – investors want to protect themselves after all.

Most successful entrepreneurs are smart, empathetic and credible – that’s how they got to where they are. I also believe these are qualities which will stand an entrepreneur in good stead for dealing with an investor, so being true to your instincts should serve you well: put simply, it’s not a case of re-inventing the wheel.

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Each year we take a look at the young entrepreneurs, based in the UK, who we think are set to have a great year, you can see our 2011 list here, and this year is no different.

So here are 20 entrepreneurs, founders and co founders, who you may want to watch in 2012, there are some great companies here and I’m sure you will be hearing a lot more about them over the next 12 months.

Here they are:

Josh Buckley (MinoMonsters)

Josh Buckley is the CEO and founder of MinoMonsters, a Pokemon type game where you can battle and trade pet monsters. Josh is the youngest CEO to have raised funding from investment giant Andreessen Horowitz at 19 years of age.

The Kent born youngster sold his first company at the age of 15. He created ‘Menewsha’ a community where users create whimsical avatars and interact online for fun. He sold this for a six figures sum while still in school.

He then moved to Silicon Valley & participated in Y Combinator to help take his company to the next level and take on Pokemon brand. His USP is it is a game for iOS where Pokemon is not available.

Expect to be hearing more of this young CEO as he ventures into the mobile gaming space with no fear.

Nick D’Aloisio (Summly)

Nick D’Aloisio is only 16 years old but he has already managed to raise $250,00 in funding for his startup, Summly. He created an app that offers a simpler way to browse and search the web by automatically summarising search results, web pages and articles to make content easier to sift to and find what is most relevant to you.

In it’s first 4 days after it reached 17k downloads and is now well over 100,000. Still studying for his GCSE’s he had to get special dispensation to delay his mocks while he traveled to San Fransisco.

So to sum it up, he is one to watch in 2012!

James Gill (GoSquared)

James Gill is the CEO and co founder of GoSquared a real time web analytics service which he started during his gap year. rather than taking the year to travel, he decided to build a web app which people would pay for and by the end of the year him and his co founders realised they had done just that.

James now works on GoSquared at White Bear Yard from which GoSquared got their angel funding and they are surrounded by other great startups which will help them as they look to grow and take on their main rivals Chartbeat.

You can see our video interview with James here.

Lucian Tarnowski (Brave New Talent)

Lucian Tarnowski is the founder and CEO of Brave New Talent, a social recruitment network.  The passionate young entrepreneur loves social media and leverages the sharing and engagement inherent in social networks and applies it to job recruitment.

Lucian has also been honored as Europe’s youngest Young Global Leader (YGL) by the World Economic Forum. He is also the youngest  entrepreneur to join UKTI (United Kingdom Trade and Investment) so age isn’t a factor as he goes about his mission to change the face of job recruitment and skills building.

He is a confident leader and looks set to have a big year in 2012.

Maria Constantinescu (Slick Flick)

Maria Constantinescu is the founder of SlickFlick, which allows you to create storyboards on the iPhone using your photos. An ex lawyer Maria left law to start Curious Quests and the Slick Flick app.

Maria is trying to take creativity to the masses and has been get the app out into the film industry and creative industries to get support and name out amongst a sector which will find it used by most. Being based in the heart of Shoreditch she is surrounded by creatives in every direction which should serve her well.

Having secured an association with Apsmart, they have a great partner which can help them continue to improve the app and add weight to their proposal when they go for funding.

Ry Morgan (PleaseCycle)

Ry Morgan (right) is the founder and CEO of PleaseCycle, provides products and services for organisations to encourage cycling within the workplace.

Ry went from being an intern at CURB media (a really cool startup by the way!) to founding PleaseCycle with the founder & CEO of CURB media, Anthony Ganjou (left). A born entrepreneur Ry has gone from top student, to graduate to founder & CEO.

He has a great drive to grow PleaseCycle massively and his determination and vision has helped him build a great experienced team which will in no doubt help see them progress rapidly in 2012.

Find out more about Ry from his guest post on YHP.

Michael Korn (KwickScreen)

Michael Korn is the founder of KwickScreen, a portable, retractable, room divider which provides isolation or privacy solutions. Initially the design was meant to be used in hospitals to act as a privacy barrier between patients and it was perfect for this. It’s small size and easy and quick set up was perfect for the hospital environment.

Michael has now seen the product, which took 4 years of design iterations to get it ready for release, enter new markets and is being used in universities, exhibitions, offices etc…

It is a well thought out design and the ideas has already received recognition. Michael was named Shell LiveWIRE Young Entrepreneur of the Year 2011.

Look out for KwickScreens popping up near you in 2012.

Emi Gal (Brainient)

Emi a young Romanian entrepreneur started Brainient in 2009. Brainient is a a video advertising technology company, based in London’s silicon roundabout, and currently has two products. First an interactive video advertising product and second one is a personalised video retargeting platform.

Emi has a lot of experience with startups at his young age, having previously founded two and has also been an advisor or helped out on various other tech startups.

This experience will hold him in good stead and help as Brainient looks to grow further in 2012.

Check out our video interview with Emi here.

Damian Kimmelman (Duedil)

Damian founded Duedil in April 2011 with the aim to make business more transparent, helping executives and entrepreneurs make well-informed business decisions, by allowing users to easily find company information for free.

Damian has pivoted Duedil from a people recommendation system, like a ‘Yelp for people’, to it’s current state as a database of companies.

He has also overseen Duedil raise funding from some of the investors behind Skype, LastFM & Yahoo as well as being chosen as a Microsoft Bizspark company which should help his disruptive startup make big strides in 2012!

Kevin Flood and Mike Harty (Shopow)

Kevin & Mike started the company, a social shopping engine and community, straight out of university raising £830,000 in angel funding.

Founded in early 2010, it was launched in May 2011 and currently works directly with over 22,000 online retailers to help give them the most accurate price comparison.

Currently available in the US & UK they look to grow further in 2012 and with the social nature of the site and strong community it has the ingredients to  rapidly accelerate growth as members share recommendations across there networks.

The company is expecting to surpass £3million in revenue in it’s first year has already seen it’s popularity abroad with 50% of revenues coming from overseas.

It has been dubbed the ‘Facebook of shopping’ & the two founders have already been named in Growing Business Young Guns.

Chris Prescott and Daniel Noz (Fantasy Shopper)

Fantasy Shopper is a social shopping game, only launched in October 2011 and has already seen massive interest. Users spend fantasy currency to buy clothing & create a virtual wardrobe full of different outfits from over 300 real high street shops. It’s a bit like creating a wishlist but what’s great is you can then buy your virtual outfits from the real life stores.

It’s a fantastic idea that Chris dreamt up one night and has proved very popular to date. apparently it is very addictive and it shows. Within 2 weeks of launching, the platform was seeing a fantasy sale every 14 seconds.

One feature that brings users back for more is that every hour you gain more credits, so users login multiple times a day to collect their virtual paydays.

The fact that it is linked to your Facebook also helps increase awareness of it to your network and this social sharing will greatly help with it’s growth.

Chris has come up with a great idea and is described on the Fantasy Shopper site as “having all the traits of a mad inventor… i.e. he’s a little bit nuts!” Which is good right? Even better is he is backed up by Dan, the tech guy who ‘get’s stuff done’.

All this will help Chris & Daniel take Fantasy Shopper to the masses in the next year.

Fiona Wood (Naturally Cool Kids)

As a mum Fiona has had to deal with all sorts of skin allergies which led her to search for natural skincare products for her kids, but to her surprise found a lack of natural skincare products for kids.

She entered the ‘Barclays Take One Small Step’ competition, where she was one of the 10 regional winners, after mum’s across the country voted for her idea. She started the company in July 2010 and has not looked back since.

Fiona spotted a gap in the market and is taking full advantage of this. She has the passion and determination to see her products being sold across the world. After her initial plans to launch two skincare products, she actually launched with six products and has already seen them in over 20 retail stockists, including John Lewis & Tesco Nutri centre, as well as online.

She has big plans ahead and look out for her products across the UK this year as she looks to further expand the number of stockists.

Luke Hood (UKF)

Luke Hood is a 19 year old from Frome, Somerset who is taking Youtube by storm with his UKF channels. After starting putting up his favourite dubstep tunes up on youtube and showcasing fresh new music he found his subscribers rocketed and he was soon over 1 million!

What started as a hobby has become a business. He is super passionate and since this was what he was passionate about in the first place it will help in growing it as a business.

He has started expanding into events and live online events as well so youngsters into dubstep and drum n bass who can’t get into these events can view it from online.

There is lots of scope to grow and he already has the subscribers, maybe in 2012 he can do what Jamal Edwards has done in 2011.

Jack Smith (Vungle)

Jack Smith is the founder of Vungle, a mobile app user acquisition platform focused exclusively on video ads. The company helps those with apps to show the apps full potential through video advertising rather than just text descriptions and user reviews. Using video to help acquire quality users.

Although just 22, Jack has a fair bit of experience having started his first company at the age of 15 and then while at uni, set up ideabox an undergraduate business ideas competition and was MD at Mediaroots.

He has now seen Vungle expand to the US with an office in San Fransisco and I wouldn’t be surprised to see Jack get funding for Vungle this year.

Joshua March (Conversocial)

Joshua March is now onto his second business, Conversocial an integrated Social CRM and marketing software which helps companies with marketing and customer support via social media.

With social media becoming a mainstay in our day to day lives it is essential for all businesses to be active on social networks and be able to effectively monitor conversations around your business and industry.

Josh saw this and started Conversocial a couple years ago and has developed it too a position where they can expect to grow rapidly as more and more businesses start realising the potential of social media.

Josh previously founded the first preferred Facebook Development company in the UK with Dan Lester and has lots of experience in the social space from it’s early days.

Helen McAvoy and Naomi Kibble (Rocktails)

Helen & Naomi two Cardiff based young entrepreneurs tapped into the huge popularity of cocktails drunk by the population on nights out. Despite this there isn’t a competitive offering for easily making cocktails at home.

These two cocktail fans went about changing that spending over £20,000 developing frozen cocktails in a pouch. Great for consumption at home with friends, the two friends managed to secure a six months trial with Sainsburys which could lead to a wider deal.

Helen & Naomi have already secured a big deal early on in the companies life & are ahead of their forecasts, this should hold them in good stead as they look to expand in 2012.

Mansoor Hamayun, Christopher Baker-Brian & Laurent Van Houcke (BBOXX)

Christopher, Laurent & Mansoor started BBOXX a company which develops methods of distributing renewable energy to developing countries. The three young entrepreneurs have spun off the company from e.quinox, a charity at Imperial College London.

With power consumption growing in developing countries, solutions to cope with the increased demand for energy will be more in demand than ever and these two entrepreneurs are making sure they are in a position to supply a suitable solution in the way of portable solar products.

They will look to rapidly expand on their partnerships in developing countries over the next year.

Emma Sinclair (Target Parking)

Emma Sinclair is a passionate young entrepreneur. She had the high powered, high paid city job but she left it to start Target Parking. After investing in a small car parking firm she set up Target parking which offers services for car parks across Britain. Including cash handling, security & facilities management.

The 29 year old is the youngest person to float a company on the Alternative Investment Market and her business acumen has seen her tie up some big deals which helped the company see revenues of just over £1million and she fully expects that to grow further in 2012.

She is excited to see what the future holds and determined to make the company the best in it’s industry and her background suggests she has what it takes.

Russell Whitter (Rate Your Player)

Russell Whitter (right) is the founder of Rate Your Player (RYP) an online social football network. Having started it after seeing his favorite football forum close it’s doors he has developed the website into a fully fledged social network based around football.

Russell is the brother of footballer Wayne Routeledge (left) and has therefore been able to call on him and his footballer friends to help endorse the site and increase it’s popularity. He was able to call on his friends to help him build the site and keep costs down and hopes to see the site increase in popularity as social networks do. Since this is targeted specifically to football which has more fans than any other sport in the UK he has a large market to tap into.

Russell hopes to expand the network into other sports as well and looks to grow the number of users quickly in 2012 as the social aspect snowballs with more and more users helping it grow further.

Rashid Kasirye – (Link Up TV)

Rashid Kasirye started Link Up TV, an online music and talent platform, straight out of college and has seen it grow from humble beginnings to a strong online community, which sees their YouTube page hitting over a million monthly views and thousands of fans on Facebook and Twitter.

Rashid has already seen the company make music videos for artists on some of the top UK music channels and his popularity is sure to keep growing in the industry. As we journey through 2012 and Link Up TV step up their video production capacity I’m sure you will see even more music videos in the charts made by Rashid and his team.

–

Who have I missed? Who are your young entrepreneurs to watch in 2012?

Let us know in the comments we would love to hear from you!

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

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

Picture via Tech City

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Seeing is believing’

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

‘Be like water’ – Bruce Lee

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

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

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

Photo via [Flickr]

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

10/12/11 10:40 AM

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

This is my 2 pence.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What are your thoughts?

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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