The topic of returning to the office has been a contentious one for staff across the world as they have been forced to adapt to new ways of working. The digitisation of the office has become a warmly welcomed addition for some, but not everyone works the same.

You’ve set your business up, you’re doing something really quite different and exciting, and the website looks great. What’s more, you’ve even acquired some customers quite early on thanks to your solid network. But, in an attempt to reach wider audiences, you attempted a PR push and it got you… nothing. Zilch. No coverage whatsoever. (Unless of course you were willing to pay £250 for a publication to print it but then who wants to do that?!)

You want your startup business to be an instant success. But challenges can crop up quickly and hamper your startup long into the future. However, if you understand these challenges, you can keep an eye out for them. From here, you can address these issues before they cause long-lasting damage. You may even identify opportunities to prevent such problems from damaging your business in the first place.

As the year draws to a close, with the Christmas rush nearly over, retailers are starting to look back at how the past year has played out and consider what it can teach us about the year ahead.

As the world of fashion is growing at a rapid rate, but so is the footprint the industry is leaving on the planet, we spoke to Stefan Hauswiesner, CEO and co-founder of Reactive Reality, the augmented reality leader enhancing e-commerce for retailers, who explained more about the vital role that AR will play in reducing the carbon footprint of the fashion industry and some of the key consumer fashion trends of that we will see in 2022.

As a business owner, your wellbeing and ability to deal with the demands of your company is inextricably linked to the wellbeing and longevity of your business.

Before entering into a potential brand licensing agreement as either a licensor or licensee, it is crucial to have a clear idea of your positioning and future aims for any licensing negotiations. This will help you to achieve a successful licence agreement for you and your business.

It is true that many people do not like change and shy away from it. But it is equally true that periods of change bring much more opportunity for innovation and for businesses to adapt and pivot and supply products and services to fulfil needs that have opened up or changed in some way. In times of rapid change as we have seen over the last few years then the opportunities are both bigger and more abundant.

As any startup founder knows, there’s an ongoing battle that you wage with yourself to do with staffing. More specifically, whether and when to staff up – or to keep trying to spin all the plates yourself. When you’ve grown a business from the ground up, it’s hard to pass responsibility to other people. In fact, I’d liken it to a kind of bittersweet grief; I’m happy things are going so well but it is hard to take a step back and hand the reins over to someone else.

Startups and corporates are often depicted as advisories. The challenger and the incumbent; the plucky upstart and the behemoth. But, in truth, there are an increasing number of partnerships forming between these two groups, particularly when it comes to the development of new technologies.

Ask any established business leader for the secrets of their company’s success, and it is almost certain that having inspirational role models – be they other entrepreneurs or businesses - would have played a key role in their growth.

Do you ever find yourself alarmed by the stark contrast in ecological attitudes between friends, family and colleagues? For many, net zero targets are a top priority. Others’ mindsets vary, with some making small adjustments to their way of life, and some refusing any personal responsibility.

Deadlock (a lack of unanimity between co-directors/co-shareholders) is a situation to be avoided by all SMEs. Unfortunately, it is all too common, particularly in private, owner-controlled businesses and during times of economic crisis such as has been precipitated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

We all have a personal favourite when it comes to a pet, some are dog people while others love cats.

Startups Magazine caught up with Tarryn Gorre, Co-Founder and CEO of Kafoodle. 

As a digital layer continues to be applied across everything we do, the world we are living in will seem to get smaller. Boundaries and borders and even language hurdles will be broken down via this new digital world and time zones and currencies will become less important.

Customer data decays at an alarming rate (approximately 37.5% every year), with thousands of people moving home or passing away daily.

Starting a business is not always easy. But scaling a business, any business, often brings many more challenges than actually starting one. A typical small business is quite simple, bat as that business grows it becomes more complex and has more moving parts which become ever more complicated to coordinate.

Technology never stands still. Anyone running a company has to accept this fundamental truth if they want to stay on top of cyber threats and run their business as securely as possible. New products emerge, workflows develop, and habits evolve along with them.

Over the last 10 years we've gone from being a £500 startup with myself and my wife trading from our spare bedroom at home, to a business worth hundreds of millions, employing nearly a hundred people globally and having one of the best selling chocolate bars in the UK.