Guest Blog; ‘Bill Earner, Managing Partner of Connect Ventures, provides his top tips for an effective pitch!’

21 November 2012
by Silicon Roundabout
Categories: Interviews, News, Startups

Connect VenturesAs part of my job I get to see a lot of startups pitch their businesses. So what makes the best ones truly stand out? In my experience the most effective pitches share a few traits in common. I’m going to share eleven of them with you here (ten is no fun, eleven is one louder anyway). Crafting a pitch with these ideas in mind will hopefully give you a leg up when you are trying to get potential investors’ attention.

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If you could launch a campaign tomorrow to help fast growing Tech companies in the UK, what would be top of the list? We asked a few of Silicon Roundabout’s entrepreneurs.

16 October 2012
by Silicon Roundabout
Categories: Angel Investors, Government and Tech City, Startups

Last week the Financial Times ran a piece ‘Tech groups campaign for San Francisco tax reform’.

‘If passed in November the measure would relieve companies from paying corporate taxes based on the number of employees they have and instead levy taxes on gross sales’.

We caught up with several leading Silicon Roundabout entrepreneurs and asked them, ‘If you could launch a campaign tomorrow to help fast growing Tech companies in the UK, what would be top of the list?’

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Ten Smart CEOs: (No 3) Chris Morton, Lyst

25 September 2012
by Silicon Roundabout
Categories: Interviews, News, Press coverage

Lyst

Chris Morton’s decision to colonise the fashion world as an innovator, whilst timely, represented a shift in career path for the former VC of Balderton Capital.

Launched in 2010 this success, having secured funding from DFJ Esprit and Accel, is growing rapidly with a confidence based upon the premise that fashion should be approached from a consumers perpective. It has to be relevant and engaging.

A social curation platform at heart, Lyst allows users to discover designers and fashion products in ‘real time’ and through a personalised experience, whilst focussed on generating sales.

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‘Reports of the death of Magazines are exaggerated’ by Rupert Turnbull,Publisher of Wired Magazine.

10 September 2012
by Silicon Roundabout
Categories: Events, Interviews, News

Wired magazine coversAs Silicon Roundabout plays host to an increasing number of business models that aim to change our future behaviour including the consumption of news, Rupert Turnbull explains why the ‘Reports of the death of Magazines are exaggerated’.

I often find myself sympathising with Mark Twain because just like his own demise, the reports of the death of magazines are greatly exaggerated. It is of course true that just like all media industries the perfect storm of mobile internet and recession have turned the magazine business on its head or -  to use the vernacular – it has been thoroughly disrupted. Although I’m not sure I like the word disruption because that sounds negative and implies something unwelcome when in fact we at Conde Nast are

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Guest Blog: ‘How to retain talent at your Silicon Roundabout startup!’ by Jon Sutcliffe

28 August 2012
by Silicon Roundabout
Categories: Interviews, News, Startups

Kingston Smith
Jon Sutcliffe, Partner at Kingston Smith, believes that keeping and incentivising key staff may not be as difficult as you think!

Good staff, like good clients, usually have their pick of employers, so thinking of ways to recruit, retain and incentivise them is vital.  In a people business particularly, the quality of employees can have more of an impact on the bottom line than anything else. For start-ups though, encouraging high calibre employees to join an up-and-coming business can be just as hard as it is to retain them.

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Guest Blog; ‘The Beauty of hiring interns’ by Ben Rosen

8 August 2012
by Silicon Roundabout
Categories: Ask the Expert, Interviews, Startups

inspiring interns

Growing Silicon Roundabout startups short on cash but in need of support need not panic, writes Ben Rosen, founder of Inspiring Interns;

For fresh-faced SMEs, the prospect of making a new hire can be daunting. You may not have a huge amount of in-house recruitment experience and any new addition can have a big impact on the dynamic of a small team. Perhaps even more challenging is the idea of hiring an inexperienced graduate whose credentials and potential are much harder to spot. Yet finding the right new young employee could bring you enthusiasm, dynamism and swiftly boost your growth. How does one chart a safe course between minimising the risk of hiring a graduate and the potential it offers? The answer is an internship.

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Ten Smart CEOs: (No. 2) Felix Leuschner, Stylistpick

20 July 2012
by Silicon Roundabout
Categories: Interviews, Press coverage, Startups, Venture Capital

Felix Leuschner founded Stylistpick in November 2010, initially as a subscription only accessories retailer. Over less than 24 months he has cultivated a careful formula to navigate a well populated fashion market to bring the concept of curation to ecommerce in an ‘entertainment led’ way.

A philosophy that places celebrity ambassadors and stylists at its heart, such as Cheryl Cole, Felix has found support and funding ($20m to date) from a discerning group of individuals and VC’s including Accel Partners, Index Ventures and Fidelity Growth Partners. Having launched a French version of the site in May 2012 and looking to do the same in Spain this month, we caught up with Felix for our ‘Ten Smart CEOs’ series.

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Ten Smart CEOs: (No. 1) Tom Leathes, Top10.com

19 July 2012
by Silicon Roundabout
Categories: News, Press coverage, Startups

Tom Leathes is part of a new generation of entrepreneur, having built and sold three web businesses in the last six years with colleagues Harry Jones and Alex Buttle. The most recent was sold to uSwitch.com last year.

As CEO of Top10.com, launched in September 2011, Tom has already overcome the well documented problem of securing European funding by raising a $3.5m Series A round from amongst others Idealab (Pasadena) and Founder Collective (New York) in addition to Accel Partners and Forward Venture Partners.

Top10.com is more than simply a social recommendation platform and Tom leads the battle in his aim to become a game changer in the consumer’s ability to search for and discover products.

With a Spotify App that has generated over 3m users and a new version of Top10 to be launched shortly on the web, we caught up with Tom and got straight to the point!

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As Silicon Roundabout startup Flubit prepare to relaunch, we catch up with CEO Bertie Stephens!

2 July 2012
by Silicon Roundabout
Categories: Interviews, News, Offers, Startups

FlubitSilicon Roundabout-based Flubit originally launched as a demand-driven group buying site in August 2011.

From £50,000 in funding 14 months ago, the Flubit business plan has evolved quickly, and having recently secured $1.75m is set to relaunch this summer with a new model still focussed on user demand, but without the group-buying element.

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Our focus on Silicon Roundabout’s ‘hottest startups’ continues; today it’s Teamly!

29 June 2012
by Silicon Roundabout
Categories: Interviews, News, Press coverage, Startups

TeamlyAmongst some of the gloomiest reports of European contagion the jubilee celebrations have not been the only ray of sunshine to offer balance and encouragement to us all!

Last month Teamly and their founder Scott Allison announced that 500 Startups, the VC Fund headed by Dave McClure had included them in their summer accelerator programme.

We could devote this piece to gaining an understanding as to the self confident and compelling sales pitch Scott gave to Dave McClure at their initial meeting that influenced McClure’s decision to stay in touch. A piece for the future perhaps!

Of more interest today is understanding exactly what Teamly is all about?

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