Features

At GNR Solicitors we are eagerly anticipating the UK Government’s announcements in Spring 2022 in relation to the introduction and reform of visas targeting high-skilled migration.

Lots of startups face something of a culture crisis in their early years. The problem with this is that you probably won’t find out that something is wrong until much later, by which point your imperfect culture will be endemic and difficult to change.

At the start of the month, HMRC revealed that around half of the 12.2 million UK taxpayers who need to submit a tax return by the 31st January have yet to do so. With the deadline looming, over five million business owners are wondering how to make the process of filing their tax return as easy and efficient as possible. But, with recent research showing that one in ten entrepreneurs stores their essential financial documents in a drawer or shoebox, chances are the process of filling out your tax return is causing some stress.

For any modern, forward-thinking business having an effective strategy in place to store, manage and process data is vital. And the more an organisation can harness its power to then use this data strategy to its advantage, the more successful that business is likely to be.

Until a few years ago, it was quite common for us to treat ourselves to brand-new equipment and tick it off our wish list without thinking twice. However, times have changed, and we’ve all had to deal with some hardships along the way. Whether it is job instability or other personal difficulties, we’ve truly started to keep an eye on how purchases affect our finances.

Zorka.Agency marketing team together with SOLYANKA conducted “Startup Marketing Research: challenges and opportunities in digital promotion”.

As Benjamin Franklin famously said, only two things are certain in life: death and taxes. And, as we approach the end of January, all attention turns to the latter. That’s right – it’s time for self-assessment tax returns to be compiled, reviewed and submitted. 

2022 is set to be a bit of a rollercoaster as we galvanise the promises made at COP26, navigate long term hybrid working and continue to deal with COVID-19.

“Losers quit when they fail”, as they say, “and winners fail until they succeed.” But why risk success? You know the story. Founders brag about their failures but often aren’t even legally allowed to talk about their successes.

The influencer entrepreneur culture is all around us, and it’s exhausting. It expects us to build our businesses and leave a running commentary as we go, creating on-brand content to match each stage in our ‘glamourous’ entrepreneurial journeys. Once we start, it is easy to get into a cycle of chasing likes and prioritising our feed before our wellbeing, and even our businesses.

Scaling is everything. The majority of businesses have to try and do this without incurring extra costs, and it is how good they are at this process that can define the trajectory of most small to medium sized businesses.

The world is going digital and NFTs are a technology which can provide unique, infallible data for this digital world in industries beyond art. You might be wondering how, as a startup founder, you could take advantage of non-fungible tokens (NFTs)?

I have been founding businesses for over 35 years and over that time I have managed to make almost all the mistakes possible when launching a startup. In the last 10 years I’ve also been involved in mentoring startups in various universities, business schools and incubators. It is clear that founders are still making many obvious mistakes: they continue to do the things they enjoy about a starting a business, rather than the things they need to do to make it successful.

It’s reasonable to say that many of us anticipated 2021 to be a year of recovery. If 2020 was the year that forced us to reset, 2021 has been the year to start again, re-strategise and grow.

In this age of globalisation and e-commerce, expanding your business internationally can be an exciting idea. With just a few clicks, small businesses now have access to a vast global market that can be brimming with new opportunities waiting to be discovered. 

When the opportunity for distraction is rife, startups must empower employees to focus deeply within their home environment.