Our latest issue, Women in Tech and Female Founders is just around around the corner, so for our next event, which is now going to be held digitally on Thursday 15th October, we will be donating all profits to the Young Women's Trust a feminist charity set out to help young women. We spoke to Laura Perkins, Director of Fundraising at Young Women's Trust to find out a little more about the organisation. 

How often do we consciously change our leadership styles at work? How would you describe your leadership style? Autocratic? Democratic? Collaborative?

Entrepreneurs: let’s be honest, all of us probably spend a little too much on social media. It’s easy to get lost on Twitter or on LinkedIn, scrolling through and seeing what everyone else is sharing, what is trending, and posting your updates.

People are now more eager to learn than ever. And what better place to find this knowledge than in the most convenient of places - the online platform. Businesses and individuals alike understand this demand and are coming out in great numbers in a bid to satisfy this growing need.

The clock is ticking to Brexit and there are now less than 100 days until we exit the European Union. For startups the potential changes this could bring, coming so soon after the disruption caused by COVID-19, will present another huge challenge.

When it comes to reimagining what the events industry will look like in the near future, these are the four things we should be thinking about according to Wolves Summit’s Vice-President, Mike Chaffe. Mike grew Wolves Summit to become one of the largest tech conferences in CEE. In March this year, when most tech events were put on hold, he made the decision to organise Wolves Summit 11th as a fully virtual event. Over 1,500 participants, 600 startups, and 300 investors tuned in online to be part of the former edition. Since then the Wolves Summit team has also organised other events on behalf of some of the largest organisations in Poland and worldwide. Wolves Summit now offers technical support to CEE & CIS based Hopin clients. Hopin is an event software that has recently secured $40M in funding. We spoke to Mike to find out more about the future of events.

Employees joining during lockdown don’t have the same chance to meet other members of their team or get acquainted more casually with the company, and it can be tough on both morale and productivity as a result.

Flexible office specialist, Workthere, has created a Spotify playlist for people to listen to whilst working from home to help boost their mood and increase their productivity levels.

According to research from outsourcing provider, Woven, more than three-quarters (78%) of consumers trust online reviews when it comes to making a purchase. As UK businesses continue to manage the fallout from lockdown, customer service experts from Woven have revealed the significant impact that positive reviews could have in helping small businesses recover.

In September 2020, Citigroup bank appointed a female CEO. Why is this big news? Because in doing so, the firm became the first big Wall Street bank to do so. Barriers are being broken down by female trailblazers in all walks of society and even traditionally masculine environments are being transformed into more balanced ones where everyone, regardless of their gender, has an equal chance at success.

Throughout the pandemic, SMEs have had to adapt to survive - which has been no mean feat. In many cases, technology has proved to be essential in keeping operations running during lockdown. Whether it be shifting entire workplaces to remote working, or using video conferencing tools and cloud accounting software, small businesses have been relying on tech more than ever before.

Boris Johnson addressed the nation at 8pm last night, and announced a myriad of new restrictions - including a new urge to work from home if possible.

It still makes me laugh even to this day, that during my first IT support role, there were numerous times when people would call up and think they had reached the wrong department because a woman answered the IT department phone!

It’s no secret that women are still widely underrepresented in the gaming industry, particularly when it comes to video and mobile game development. Whilst this has been historically accounted to the common misconception that gaming is a predominantly masculine hobby, women actually make up a significant amount of the industry, representing nearly half of hyper-casual gamers.

Bounce Back loans, the most popular HM Treasury support measure, used by SMEs are running low, finds the latest insights1 from fintech business lender, MarketFinance. These SMEs are aware they can get more HM Treasury support by applying for larger loans through the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS) but did not know the deadline was end of this month.

Just when the lockdown period seemed to be drawing to a close, cases of Coronavirus took a sharp upwards turn and local lockdowns were enforced. Already, almost ten million people in the UK have been confined to their homes once again. Nationally, too, restrictions have tightened and fears of a second lockdown period are circulating as Health Secretary Matt Hancock refuses to rule out the possibility of another strict set of restrictions being brought in.

With the travel industry under threat and the off-peak season looming, the travel platform behind the ‘daycation’ trend is pioneering an innovative way to breathe life into empty hotels: turning hotel rooms into flexible offices that people can work in for the day.

In a recent survey, over half of customers polled revealed that they tend to buy from a brand with a big personality. The study found that 57.5% of customers buy from brands with strong personalities, whilst 51.2% of people have purchased from a brand because of the way they spoke online.

Razor’s Head of Client Services, Ellie Mosley, recently shared her story with us on having a career in technology as a new mother. Now, Razor’s CEO, Jamie Hinton responds. In his mind, it was the natural thing to do.

The stats are not promising when looking at women in tech within the UK. Last year it was revealed that women only make for 16.8% of workers within the tech field. Shocking right?

The automatic saving app offering access to market-leading returns, Chip has raised a total of £10.7m from the crowd and the government-backed Future Fund, as part of the company’s series A round.

When you’re building something from the ground up, it’s essential to have a strong foundation for support right from the start. Your business needs to have one main idea you can use to create a brand identity, to generate strong branding and to produce an effective brand development strategy to reach your goals.

Xero is calling on the government to step in on tech adoption for small firms after its report reveals the impact on the post-pandemic recovery. The resilience and recovery of a small business is acutely impacted by how digitally enabled they are, according to Xero’s new report on the global impact of COVID-19.

London Tech Week has announced plans to definitively map the UK tech scene highlighting and promoting the best businesses, innovators and thinkers operating across the country.

A rise in startups born during the pandemic is hugely positive but also not surprising. We’ve had more time to think and do and explore new avenues, particularly where existing business models or employment have ceased to exist. Necessity truly is the mother of invention. But while the pandemic has created new opportunities, the lending environment for startups looks set to be challenging.

Hydration and fluids are argubaly not spoken about enough, and can be really serious issues relating to humans. Aquarate has been designed and founded by Rebecca Taylor, to redefine the way fluid balance is monitored within care to reduce hydration related illness and improve wellbeing.

As we carry on focusing on female founders and women in tech, we decided to catch up with Kristy Chong, CEO & Founder of Modibodi, a femtech startup that provides people of all ages and body types all around the world with access to reusable and sustainable underwear, swimwear, active wear and maternity wear.

Businesses, whether they’re established, starting up or looking to grow, all have one thing in common. The need to be agile and aware. And, if the pandemic has taught us anything it’s that businesses can adapt to a changing market and they can do it very quickly.

Boosting employee morale is one of the most crucial topics that every leader should consider when finding ways to steer their small businesses to grow exponentially.  Low morale can result in poor cooperation, low productivity, and augmented turnover. Several studies have demonstrated that focusing on enhancing morale in the workplace can have a tremendous impact on a company’s growth.

Back in 2015, representatives from nations all around the world met to sign an initiative that would help combat the damaging effects of climate change. This very first globally collective effort in terms of reducing greenhouse emissions, to which 179 countries have formally agreed their commitment, focusses on limiting the rise in global temperature increases by two degrees above its preindustrial measurement.

 One of the most regular questions many entrepreneurs ask themselves: 'Why do some companies succeed and stay longer on the market?' and 'Why do some of them not?' 

With lockdown forcing many people into furlough or redundancy, the thought of turning a personal passion into a startup has never been more tempting. But is this the right time or the right environment? And how do you turn a passion project into a viable business?

The return to the office has sparked some interesting debate. Our own research has found that individuals are more concerned about their work-life balance and having to commute than the impact of COVID-19 to their health. And similar themes have been explored around the attitudes of staff in different countries and why the UK is lagging with a proposed return compared to European counterparts.

Birmingham Tech Week is set to return digitally this year, from 12th-16th October, offering a series of inspirational and thought-provoking events championing new technologies and modern business strategies for a changing world.

Aberdeenshire startup company, Legasea, has now been nominated for three business awards in quick succession. 

Founders typically establish a business with one of two game plans in mind. They either want a lifestyle business and one that fits their work life balance, or they want to build a business and grow it with the ultimate goal of building something of value that they can exit when the time is right for them. For any founder seeking to raise finance for their company, or to sell it, whether a lifestyle one or one with more ambitious plans, there will always be the need for a valuation.

In this era where life is fast-paced, customers’ demand and needs keep changing at a rapid rate. If your company is to consistently meet these needs, then it must be equipped to keep changing as the market dictates. In addition, competition is tough, and others are waiting to take advantage of where you are slacking off. If you are to survive the competition, remaining innovative is the only survival tactic. In fact, you should always anticipate future demands and work towards meeting them. That way, you stay a step ahead of the competition.

Here, Startups Magazine’s Lanna Cooper speaks to former NHS surgeon, Dr Owain Rhys Hughes, who handed in his stethoscope after 18 years in medicine to tackle the UK’s broken referrals system, which he noticed was costing the NHS valuable time, money and resources and was contributing to long waiting times.

One hundred of the UK’s most inspiring small businesses have been chosen to mark the official countdown to Small Business Saturday, which takes place across the UK on 5 December 2020.

A campaign to identify Britain’s 100 most inspiring and multi-achieving female entrepreneurs has officially kicked off, with dynamic businesswomen across the country encouraged to apply to join the ranks of the f:Entrepreneur #ialso 100.

Marketing journey for startups isn’t an easy task, no matter how excellent your idea is or how hard you’ve worked to implement it. Until none knows about your project, you are not there in the game.

Seagate Technology, a world leader in data storage and management solutions has announced the results of a global survey of 3,000 small and medium sized business (SMB) decision-makers.

London’s entrepreneurs have been given a welcome boost thanks to funding from the Greater London Authority (GLA) and the Virgin Group. The funding will support the not-for-profit organisation - Virgin StartUp – to run its Ready Steady Grow programme which is aimed at supporting London based founders. The funding is valued at £1.7m over three years, half of this will be funded by the Virgin Group with the GLA funds matching the contribution. The extension is distributed by the GLA from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).   

ATI Boeing Accelerator has opened applications for its second cohort, to invest into sustainability-enabling startups that will benefit the UK aerospace industry across three key areas of focus: Industry 4.0, Lifecycle and Resilience, and Energy. Launched last year, the accelerator was created in partnership by the Aerospace Technology Institute and Boeing, and is delivered by European accelerator Ignite. GKN Aerospace is a corporate sponsor and more partners will be announced in the upcoming months. 

A German-Dutch startup is testing a unique business model in Mbita, a small fishing town in Kenya. Torqeedo electric motors are hired out to the local fishermen for a monthly fee that includes training, maintenance, and a solar powered battery charging service.

British startups Jiva Materials (featured recently on Startups Magazine) and SoluBlue have been awarded a place in the final for the 2020 Postcode Lotteries Green Challenge. The two startups, working to tackle some of the most challenging types of waste pollution, have won at least €100,000 each and are now in the running for the €500,000 grand prize.

It is often said that turnover is vanity and profit is sanity. But, even more importantly, do not forget that cash is king. Put simply, businesses fail because they do not have enough cash or other liquid assets to pay their bills or meet their immediate obligations. So, whilst increasing turnover and growing profitability are what every business owner is aiming to achieve, it is crucial to still have a very strong focus on cash flow and the levels of cash in the business.

With more and more employees working remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic, the role of employee benefits has arguably never been more important.

Around the world, fertility rates are falling dramatically. Researchers have described the decline as “jaw-dropping” and the impact that it is going to have on societies is difficult to fathom. According to their research, nearly every country is set to see a serious decline in the number of babies being born. To make the shift even more monumental, the worldwide population is also ageing dramatically, and many countries are likely to see as many people turning 80 as there are being born.

A lot of startups require funding to gain momentum and sustainable growth. For many entrepreneurs, they might start by investing out of their own pockets, or some prefer to use a business loan, bank loan or through a venture capital firm to raise several millions.

Your face can be developed in a natural way from the comfort of your couch. It is no longer determined only by genetics! 

Now more than ever, the power of design thinking is being recognised. From Airbnb and Netflix to Tesla and Samsung, companies are looking to this ideology to change the way they view business problems, using it as a catalyst to introduce customer-focused design that works.

Bridging volumes fell by more than half in the second quarter of 2020 and by 45% over the first half of 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 lockdown hit activity.

It’s received wisdom that successful startups solve real world problems. But there’s a commonly overlooked footnote to this mantra: you can’t try to solve a problem unless you’ve lived it first. Because without gaining the authentic understanding of lived experience, you’ll never find a solution that works in practice as well as in theory.

Before any business is established the founder will of course have spotted a gap in the market, thought of the original idea, conducted research, and come up with the MVP. Taking these basic thoughts and then forming a business around them, with all the necessary steps that regular readers will now be very familiar with, does of course take considerable time and effort. 

It has now been five months since the Government announced the development of a centralised NHSX contact tracing app that was set to monitor and contain the spread of COVID-19, safely releasing the UK from its strict national lockdown.

Superstrata’s 3D printed e-bike, and traditional bike has soared past the company's initial crowdfunding target, hitting £3.3M in pre-orders as more than 2,800 backers from 66 countries have supported the project so far, and due to demand has decided to extend the campaign until Saturday 12 September 2020.

As much as we hate this phrase, Babble was born in the cloud. We don’t have any fixed technology so naturally, when Boris gave the order to stay at home our business found it easy to adapt. Our employees work, collaborate and communicate around one central platform, available on any device, anywhere. Our contact centre isn’t fixed to an office with phones and headsets, and our cyber security isn’t something we ever need to worry about.

Knowing your enemy is more important than ever. Whether as an individual, a consumer or a brand, defining your enemy creates momentum and can be the catalyst for positive change.

As lockdown restrictions begin to ease, many employers are having to think about how they go about bringing back employees to the office, and what this might look like in the future. Anthony Rose, CEO and co-founder of SeedLegals here gives his take on what London's top startups are saying about the office.

aeris health, a Swiss startup that creates commercial and residential air purification systems that are improving health globally, is facing huge demands on its manufacturing, as sales have doubled month over month since January.

The words ‘martech’ and ‘Marketing Technology’ constantly get thrown around a lot. According to research conducted by the martech Alliance, they’re used some 678.7k times a year - but it begs the question… how often are they being used correctly? For anyone who is unfamiliar with the word ‘martech’, it is otherwise known as marketing technology, and it is the term for the software and tech tools that marketers leverage to plan, execute and measure marketing campaigns.

As society is beginning to adjust to a new ‘normal’, businesses across the country have been working hard to ensure they keep their services up and running and continue meeting their customers’ needs throughout this uncertain time.

Many businesses are looking at their current office space in the light of COVID-19 to accommodate staff rotation, flexible working hours, working from home and commuting restrictions.

It is that time again! Here is the next article in our series with Liverpool-based tech cofoundery Nova, and this week's startup in the spotlight is picturepath - a digital visual timeline developed to be used by children with Special Educational Needs in classrooms and at home. We spoke to Founder Richard Nurse.

According to a new report by global recruiter, Robert Walters and data provider, Vacancysoft - 'Cybersecurity: Building Business Resilience' - UK SME’s are at risk of 65,000 cyber security attacks daily - with around 4,500 of these being successful - and the figure could be much higher since the beginning of COVID-19.

When you consider just how much of our daily lives is now dominated by electronics, it shouldn’t really come as a surprise that globally, e-waste is now the fastest growing waste stream – a problem exacerbated by the fact that we are living in an increasingly ‘smarter’ world where electronics are now integral and essential to daily life, while at the same time, are infinitely more disposable.

I’m sad to say that I have reached a certain age where I’ve started to make noises when sitting down and standing up (the ravages of time catches up to us all I’m afraid to say). However, I can at least take solace from the fact that I’m most certainly not alone. 

Black Tech Fest (BTF) is a first-of-its-kind digital conference and movement aiming to help Black professionals expand their network and influence while celebrating the boldest innovations created by the Black community.

Over the past few months, most businesses have had to rethink how they operate and how they reach their customers. At the same time, there’s been drastic changes in customer behaviour, with huge increases in online purchases. For example, Shopify saw a 68% MoM growth of UK consumers estimated to make a purchase online from a UK Shopify merchant for the first time in April 2020.

Artificial Intelligence, VR, AR and machine learning are all some of the hot topics at the moment, especially as our latest issue has a strong focus on AI and emerging technologies, so we thought there isn't a better time to catch up with Andrson, a sound-driven A&R platform, which is a brand new AI and machine learning-powered tool using sound-based search to connect emerging artists to the right industry professionals.

Talking all things AI and new and emerging technologies at the moment, as we prepare for our next issue - out tomorrow! Startups Magazine spoke to Andy Baggott, Marketing Manager at Kafoodle - a fast-growing food tech company launched in 2016 with the goal to simplify food safety and kitchen compliance, helping the hospitality industry manage their ingredients, recipes and allergen information.

When iconic computer game, The Sims, was first published in 2000, few knew that one day entire industries would be conducting business within a virtual Sim-like environment. And yet, in the world of wholesale fashion that’s exactly what’s happening in the light of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

This smart mouth guard protects more than just your pearly whites, it unlocks real-time feedback to protect players on and off the rugby pitch.

In the second episode in our mini-series with Nova, a Liverpool-based tech cofoundery that partners with entrepreneurs to turn ideas into successful, scalable tech startups, in sectors including healthtech, fintech and edtech, Startups Magazine caught up with Bharat Vasandani, Founder of ParentCare.

The coronavirus pandemic has sent shockwaves through the business world and left many struggling to stay afloat and, with the future still uncertain, many business owners are turning their attention to how they can pivot their way through this difficult time.

Business leaders across the UK have experienced one of the most turbulent years on record, as the Coronavirus pandemic surged across the world, Brexit finally happened, and the possibility of an economic depression looms - the world ahead seems uncertain and daunting at best.

The debate around the future of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and what it means for humanity is very much alive. It probably has been since 1927, the year Metropolis was released. If you haven’t seen it, the film stars a humanoid robot intent on world domination and human slavery. As you can imagine the robot doesn’t go down too well, and so began our difficult and ever-evolving relationship with AI.

BusinessFibre has analysed the top 10 companies across 15 different industries in the Fortune 500 to find which are leading the way in gender equality. In addition, the data highlights what industries pay their CEOs the most and how salaries compare between men and women.

We all communicate every day in both our social and our business lives but, let’s be honest, some do it so much better and more effectively than others. The very word ‘communicate’ can be interpreted in so many different ways, and applied in even more ways.

As lockdown eases, both business and employees are changing their thoughts about the best place to work - for businesses to achieve a cut in costs and favourable flexible agreements. For employees, it gives a vital away from home space.

We’ve all seen it, that moment on a gameshow where the contestant is essentially asked ‘double or nothing’. They’re nervous or excited (although, this is often the same thing), and they’re wondering, 'I can either take the £3’500 I’ve earned or gamble and go home with the jackpot.'

In many ways, startup leaders are the envy of the business world. They are able to create an appealing workplace culture that works employees across different generations, and can attract the best talent. Problems are often solved through creative thinking while there’s typically a flat hierarchy and open communication channels.

Budding entrepreneurs looking to build something new for social good after COVID-19 could find the ideal partner and supporter via the Impact Central accelerator programme, mentor network and angel investor platform. The six-month programme is designed to help new businesses that will help rebuild society and the environment, as the UK tries to find a future beyond COVID-19.

Blenheim Chalcot, the UK-based digital venture builder, and Imperial College London welcomed its first business members to Scale Space on Imperial’s White City campus this week. This new 200,000ft2 facility, will be home to scale ups and innovative businesses across the technology, digital and life-sciences sectors.

The wireless headphone space is becoming increasingly competitive, but imagine having a pair that when not in use can transform into a portable speaker – so when you are not listening to music by yourself you can listen out loud with others.

As part of a new mini-series with Nova, a Liverpool-based tech cofoundery that partners with entrepreneurs to turn ideas into successful, scalable tech startups, in sectors including healthtech, fintech and edtech, Startups Magazine caught up with Gavin Delaney CEO, of Hy-genie.

I’m going to focus on digital products/services in this article, increasing the contribution of digital products/services only makes more sense for any business in a COVID-19 and post COVID-19 world. All things being equal to grow post COVID-19 we need to manage at least one aspect of the digital customer life cycle better than we were doing before COVID-19.

It seems like there’s now an app for everything - but which of the millions of smartphone apps are most useful if you’re trying to run a successful business? And how can you use your smartphone to improve productivity?

Lockdown rules in the UK are easing up and Brits are slowly starting to go back to work in their offices. So what can employers do to ensure their office space is a safe working environment and keep their employees comfortable and safe during this time?

At a time when the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdown has caused large-scale disruption to businesses worldwide, remote working has been a shining example of how to ensure ‘business as usual’, particularly in areas such as customer service. If Gartner predictions are correct that over 40% of all employees will continue remote working post-COVID, businesses must redefine remote working by ensuring customer service staff - contact centre agents and supervisors - are equipped with fit-for-purpose technology to ensure they deliver a truly first-class service to the customer. Anne-Meine Gramsma, Chief Commercial Officer at ContactCenter4ALL, explains.

New analysis from Xero, the global small business platform, and AlphaBeta (part of Accenture), have revealed trends relating to the recovery of the UK’s small business economy following the impact of COVID-19, showing tentative improvements in revenue and payment times.

New research from Professor Feng Li, Chair of Information Management at City’s Business School has outlined three new approaches that digital innovators can take to reduce the risk of failure and seize competitive advantage in the industry.

Forty nine percent of employers are planning to stagger return to work based on employees’ own health risks related to COVID-19, whilst 46% will be staggering employees return depending on how critical their role is to the business. The next most popular strategy is the creation of smaller work groups (40%), followed by changing work hours (34%), a voluntary return scheme (33%), and splitting shifts (28%).

Much like any relationship, co-founders start their journey together full of optimism and excitement for the future. Falling out is far from their minds. But, with research showing that as many as 65% of promising startups fail because of founder disputes, smart founders should put a plan in place to deal with disputes.

As the UK high street continues to battle for survival in the aftermath of lockdown, new data shows that online retail sales are up 72% year-on-year in the UK. It’s the latest evidence that our retail future is going to be online-first, and hence it’s no surprise that, across the country, many independent retailers are shifting their businesses into the digital domain to stay in touch with changing consumer preferences.

Commercial real estate, HR and technology professionals are focused on finding innovative ways to meet the challenges of a post-COVID workplace through safe and effective back to work strategies. John Williams, Head of Marketing at Instant Offices, considers what this means for businesses heading back into the office.

Growing fears of a no-deal Brexit will prompt an increasing number of British and international investors to move their financial assets overseas out of the UK, believes the CEO of a large independent financial advisory and fintech organisations.

Four in ten (39%) small business owners believe it will take at least five years for the UK economy to fully recover from the impact of lockdown and COVID-19, according to a new poll.

Aberdeenshire startup company, Legasea, has been nominated in the Great British Entrepreneur Awards, in the category of Disruptor of the Year.

The drive for businesses to make positive changes around inclusion and diversity in the workplace is now more important than it ever was before. To encourage businesses to take stand against discrimination and drive forward a progressive future, global workplace providers, Instant Offices have gathered and analysed data into what diversity and inclusion looks like around the world.

Following the impact of COVID-19 on the economy, we have seen widespread business closures, pay cuts, reduced hours, and redundancies, resulting in many workers looking for a new venture. Today, LinkedIn is one of the go-to platforms for budding job hunters searching for a new role, therefore the competition is high. To help those looking to enter a new career field, online educational platform, Preply has provided tips on the things to consider when messaging a recruiter on LinkedIn.

Action, Allies, Achievements, and Accountability are the cornerstones of a strategy for achieving diversity goals. As the CEO of Hyve Dynamics, Cecilia Harvey works with the leadership team to ensure that diversity and inclusion is reflected in our strategy and operations. She does this, not just because she is passionate about it, or because the tech industry is one of the least diverse, but because it makes both moral and commercial sense.

A new index by Business Fibre has analysed 34 of the world’s Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) capital cities to find 2020’s best cities to be a tech student. The index has analysed each city according to metrics such as the number of universities offering technology and engineering courses, total tech companies and employees in each city, the monthly living cost and the top cities investing in tech-related research. An infographic is available here.

Having set up a business there are some very logical next steps that have common features irrespective of what your business will do. Any business needs to sell its product or service and make a profit so that it can reinvest in its future and pay the shareholders. 

Online shopping is arguably one of the best inventions out there. Nothing beats that feeling of joy when your parcel arrives! But what about the times when your parcel isn’t successfully delivered and you arrive home to find a ‘sorry we missed you’ card through your letterbox? iParcelBox solves the problem of missed deliveries, providing a smart, secure and weatherproof parcel delivery solution that users can monitor and control from their smartphone.

Whilst social media and too much screen time can increase the risk of depression and anxiety, technology can also have positive outcomes on our mental wellbeing too - even in our busy digital world. Many us will be familiar and fond of clever apps like Headspace, Calm and Stop, Breathe & Think which can offer support with a number of mental health conditions such as anxiety and depression. Here Natasha Bougourd from TSG, chats to Startups Magazine about tech aiding stress in the workplace.

This crisis period has proven what so many of us in our industry already knew. The UK manufacturing industry is and always has been resilient and adaptable, and has continued to grow even in times of trouble. Overall, the UK’s industrial sector has increased by 1.4% a year since 1948, according to the ONS. Much of this has been down to the fact that we always adapted and moved forward fast; year on year we shifted production from low to high productivity goods, invested more in research and development and adopted automation and technology.

A crisis seems an unlikely time to use for improving growth, but for many startups there’s an unexpected opportunity to slow down and refocus their growth and marketing plans on their fundamental, long term growth opportunity. It’s crucial for startups to build resilience and a path towards sustainable growth by building the right growth marketing framework and strengthening customer relationships.

In the COVID-19 era many people are taking the opportunity to organise and simplify their home working spaces, making good use of the ample time at home. But de-cluttering your virtual space - including your computer/laptop, phone, cloud storage, etc - is just as important as de-cluttering your physical space.

The amount of information we are exposed to exceeds our ability to process it. Out of the about 70,000 thoughts we have per day, our short term memory can hold no more than seven for only about 20 to 30 seconds. How does this relate to branding? Our long-term memory stores our associations with specific brands which is also ultimately the desired effect of marketing campaigns or PR activities - for people to remember your company (or you as a person!) when in need of the products or services you provide.

In the wake of London being named one of the best technology ecosystems in the world, according to Startup Genome’s Global Startup Ecosystem Report 2020,  First Office Hub, the global workspace broker, has picked its top 10 iconic buildings for tech companies looking to make London their home.

The home kitchen and dining area have become the most lucrative money making locations in Britain, that combined are generating £37.4bn to the British economy during lockdown - that’s being coined as ‘Kitchen Table Talent’. The research commissioned by Attic Self Storage, revealed that although restrictions are being lifted, 41% of office workers are expected to continue their jobs from home, with 44% saying it’s the most productive place they have ever worked.

Are you working at home and struggling to maintain productivity? For the majority of Brits currently working from home due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and for those looking to do more home working in the future, flexible office specialist, Workthere, has shared 10 tips on how you can create an office space that leads to maximum productivity.

The current situation has taught us a lot of valuable lessons, particularly about the true power of digital. With brands like Primark reducing their revenue to zero as a result of having no e-commerce strategy and B2B businesses that previously relied on trade shows forced to transfer online, the value of having a strong digital brand presence is now more important than ever before.

Welcome to a new series of articles where I will provide practical top tips on a wide range of decisions and challenges that early stage businesses have to make every day. Here I will look at everything from start up to scale up and from the more simple to the more complicated.

Today, many businesses are executing large-scale digital transformation efforts to keep up with the changing market demands and fast-paced competitors. In fact, a global survey conducted by McKinsey discovered that more than 80% of respondents stated their organisations have undertaken such efforts in the past five years.

There is some light at the end of the tunnel for small businesses. As the lockdown continues to ease many retailers and hospitality businesses are now opening up again, or preparing to return soon.

Whilst the UK implements strategies to gradually return to life as normal, the question on everyone’s mind is how we plan to do this safely and effectively. With the process of working from home potentially coming to an end in the foreseeable future, regardless of what sector individuals work in, new safety precautions are essential to put in place to ensure the health and safety of employees and customers remain strong. 

What’s sexy about financial technology? When I joined a fintech startup called Littlepay, I could see some of my friends and peers struggle with why I had left an uber-cool venture role to do something they didn’t understand in the fintech space.

Lockdown is beginning to end, but changes in how we do business have only just begun. One country that might be able to shed some light on the upcoming unknown is  Germany - having had their ‘Super Saturday’ back in April. Germany has already tackled the next economic phase that small businesses (SMEs) in the UK will have to adapt to.

Even in the bleakest of times, entrepreneurs have found a way to innovate and create disruptive products that have enhanced our daily lives or solved a problem. Take the humble chocolate chip cookie, baked for the first time after the Great Depression. During a period of severe economic hardship, this new treat offered some richness and comfort and remains immensely popular to this day.

Over the past few months, the world of business has been turned upside down due to COVID-19. During such unprecedented times, maintaining customer confidence and loyalty is a key focus for companies. The way in which businesses manage its customers throughout uncertain times is often the difference between losing or retaining clients, and ultimately business survival.

Founded by Milo Hill and David Hampshire, DOOZY was built during lockdown and allows people to create free quizzes, share them with friends and play them instantly. And it really is as simple as that - no downloads, no sign-ups, just creating a quiz and sharing it with friends.

In the weeks following the brutal murder of George Floyd and the global protests it sparked, we saw hundreds of companies posting a black square on social media as part of #BlackOutTuesday - an outward display of support and solidarity to the Black Lives Matter movement and the black community.

Have you been toying with the idea of building up a tech company that could one day match the likes of Google, Apple, or Facebook? Well, this may seem a dream too far-fetched, but nothing is impossible with the right strategy, skill, and vision.

Many progressive startup founders choose to incentivise and reward their early hires with equity. The key benefits of a share scheme are that employees become more productive, more loyal, and more aligned with the company’s goals.

London-based startup, RacketPal is on a mission to help more than one billion racket sports players and enthusiasts meet their perfect playing partners. The team is excited to announce the successful closing of its first pre-seed funding round worth £150,000.

The COVID-19 pandemic has massively accelerated the pace of change in the business world. Leaders and employees have had to adapt to operate in a challenging environment, where the only certainty is change. Not only have organisations had to rapidly adjust to the changing needs of its people, customers and suppliers, but it has also navigated the financial and operational challenges. This has led to many businesses prioritising the now, focusing on reshaping its operations to stabilise revenue and align with short term demand.

No Isolation  was founded with the aim of reducing loneliness and social isolation through the creation and implementation of warm technology. Following the success of its first product, the AV1 telepresence avatar, designed to tackle loneliness amongst children and young adults affected by long-term illness, the company brought its second product, ​KOMP​, to the UK in 2019. KOMP - a one button communication device, designed to connect seniors with their wider family unit - has been bought by 3,300 families across Europe.  
 

The current financial climate is disturbing for technology founders. At the European level, we have over 300 VC funds continuing to actively invest and grant-making programmes in every country, yet founders face many hurdles accessing capital. 

With all the doom and gloom currently out there, especially for a lot of startups and small businesses, Blackstone LaunchPad powered by Techstars created the Summer Startup Fellowship this year in response to obstacles created, and elevated, by the coronavirus pandemic for current college students and recent graduates. The Fellowship program was developed in March of this year in response to the impacts of coronavirus on student job, internship, and entrepreneurship opportunities (50% - 60% of which were dropped or rescinded).

One of the biggest trends in software development has been the rise of Software as a Service (SaaS). With SaaS, vendors and customers follow a pay-as-you-go subscription model, which eliminates the large upfront payment and aligns their incentives more easily: vendors get more recurring revenue while customers are freed from having to host and maintain their own applications.

A call has been launched for applications to the Startup Leadership Program London 2021. The Startup Leadership Program (SLP) is a not-for-profit organisation which exists to support entrepreneurs on their path to success and make our world a better place. It is also part of the world's largest network of entreprenuers!

Just as monetising mobile was the biggest opportunity of the previous decade, monetising the 3D worlds is the biggest opportunity of the next decade. It’s time to get onboard. From radio to telephone, TV to desktop computer and now mobile, the last 150 years have been filled with technological progress that has transformed our private and professional lives. Today, we are approaching another media transition: spatial computing - commonly known as immersive technology, XR or VR/AR.

While more established businesses might be unnerved by the prospect of homeworking becoming the norm, startups are in the privileged position of being able to adapt to a ‘virtual’ workplace with relative ease.

Redundancy is not a modern phenomenon. Recessions date back to the year 1430 and at each occurrence, swathes of hard workers have lost their jobs.

In April 2020, the UK’s Office for National Statistics revealed 49.2% of the UK’s workforce were operating remotely as a result of COVID-19.

The Central Research Laboratory has teamed up with KPMG Emerging Giants and a group of leading VC firms to create a 3 day bootcamp for startups raising equity rounds between £300k and £3m.

Award-winning startup, e-peas, a supplier of advanced energy harvesting solutions, has just completed its latest funding round.

Made Smarter, the movement helping SMEs join the Industry 4.0 revolution, has reached a major milestone having now funded more than 100 businesses.

Recently I connected with a non-profit civic engagement company called New Union to create a 'tactical urbanism toolkit.' Its aim is to bridge the gaps between governments and their citizens, starting conversations, and ultimately teaching communities that they can and should enact change within their communities – often for little or no cost.

We’re ending our leadership series by taking inspiration from the 1989 film ‘Field of Dreams’ and focusing on your role as a leader in creating a place where people love to work. If you’ve got a vision for what you want your business to look and feel like, you play a significant part in helping to create the environment so that people can deliver that vision and more.  

Before the dreaded c-word hit the UK, and the rest of the world, most businesses were just planning for a busy Q2. With everything turned upside down and a full lockdown, it’s forced many SMEs and startup businesses to completely pivot and significantly adapt strategies.

Britain’s small businesses achieved three years of innovation in just three months as they battled to keep trading during the coronavirus lockdown. While such efforts to keep revenues flowing have been successful for some owners, concerns about employment prospects and future investment remain for many as lockdown restrictions begin to ease.

Performance marketing agency, Journey Further, has announced it has teamed up with Europe’s first revenue-based finance provider, Uncapped, to offer performance marketing support to entrepreneurs, startups and scaleups across the continent.

Embracing her entrepreneurial spirit and pursing a new venture, Suzann Bozorgi launched a tech platform designed to make interior design more accessible for clients.

We live in changing times. Rapidly changing times. Times always change and move forward but what has been remarkable recently has been the fact that the speed of change continues to increase year on year. It is no surprise, therefore, that many founders, both first time entrepreneurs and serial entrepreneurs, often ask themselves, and me, ‘where do I go from here?’

More than two-thirds of business leaders across the UK have no idea how much employee sickness is costing their business, according to e-days, the absence intelligence platform.

The world is changing and what we witnessed in the last months all over the world is the creation of a stronger sense of community: people supporting each other and companies getting together to fight the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The old world is over, as its rules. The new world is going to be different, with new rules.

Let’s not beat about the bush: social media has tonnes of benefits. It empowers people to stay connected across huge distances, it has kept people motivated during crises such as the coronavirus pandemic (you thought you could read a blog without that being mentioned?), it empowers quick and simple customer service, and for businesses, it’s a free way to demonstrate your brand values.

The coronavirus pandemic has shaken up the way we work – and the seismic shifts it has brought about could be long-lasting. According to a Gartner survey, 74% of CFOs intend to shift some of their employees to remote work permanently.

Driving disruption, embracing change and new ideas and generally just jostling for place at the bleeding edge of innovation has always been part and parcel for any company in the tech industry, particularly at the startup stage. But how do tech companies ensure they’re always one step ahead, and how do they create agility and disruptive thinking at the strategic leadership level?

Does affiliate marketing have an image problem? Almost certainly. The industry has been dogged with claims of fraudulent practices in the past, and many advertisers have a bad story to tell about ‘data cowboys’ who’ve ripped them off.

The vision for Alexa is to set customers free to do more in life. To achieve this, Amazon is continuing to assist the growing number of startups and entrepreneurs working with voice technology.

2019 was a record breaking year for VC investment in UK startups ($13.2bn, an increase of 44% compared to the previous year) and the amount of VC dry powder in Europe is higher than ever before(more last year’s raises here). Success stories of companies raising millions without a formal pitch deck (Hopin, an online events platform) or still in beta and during lockdown (Clubhouse, a voice-based social media app) do sound inspiring.

A new survey from HJS Solicitors has found that more than two thirds of employees want to carry on working from home. As the Government continues to lift lockdown restrictions a poll of nearly 2,000 workers shows 68% would like to continue with life in a 'remote' office. 

Centaur Robotics is the British technology company behind a pioneering personal electric vehicle, set to usher in a new era of personal mobility.

With the IMF warning that the ‘Great Lockdown’ global recession will be the worst since the Great Depression, organisations are being forced to reset and reinvent faster than ever before. The race is on for entrepreneurs and business owners to craft new plans, develop new products and deliver new solutions in order to survive.

Quickly responding to the impact COVID-19 and lockdowns are having on tech startups, Capital Enterprise has collaborated with OneTech and Mindful Team, with support from J.P. Morgan, to launch the Startup Resilience programme. Over six months, startup founders will be provided everything from webinars and community slack channels, to mastermind sessions and accountability groups, to be helped through this period of uncertainty. 

With almost 11 weeks of lockdown in the UK, we have only just got to grips with our new working conditions. Now, with lockdown restrictions slowly beginning to ease, offices are planning for reopening. A new ‘blended’ model of working will become the norm, with some employees always working from home, in the office or a combination of both. 

Wearables allow users to monitor their health, receive alerts for potential health issues, and preemptively contact a doctor. With many people housebound during COVID-19, wearables help people track daily exercise habits and maintain a healthy lifestyle while many gyms remain closed. Here, Emily Clark, Content Developer for The Manifest looks at the market for healthcare wearables and discusses how people use wearables for healthcare and the limitations of these wearable devices.

The world is now facing a public health crisis known as Covid-19 and a financial crisis. The crisis on our hands manifests differently for individuals and companies. The uncertainty over our ability to revert to our normal state creates pressures on mental health, relationships, and business performance.

Placing marketing over product, dismissing potential partnerships and overstaying in a single market are key mistakes entrepreneurs should be on the lookout for when building a challenger bank.

Europe’s AI ecosystem is consistent with many of the continent’s other expanding startups, with the UK emerging as the most dynamic country for AI: that’s according to new research from PNY Europe in collaboration with 33INSIGHTS. The UK leads the pack with 529 incorporated companies (27%), followed by France with 424 (21%) and Germany with 182 (9%).

Introducing the Renegade Academy - the programme for new founders brought to you by Huckletree.  

Following lockdown, the digital trust that blockchain creates for networks of remote users started to re-define relationships between customers, suppliers, partners and funders in earnest.

When you are trying to navigate the management of a business in the midst of a global pandemic, it’s all too easy to neglect the maintenance of your company culture. Yes, it’s true that other priorities might seem more pressing right now; after all, your clients and suppliers won’t be sending you impatient emails demanding to know how you plan to safeguard your internal team relationships.

The day has arrived...your new freshly baked web designs, hot from the design oven are about to go live. You’ve briefed the designer thoroughly to make sure your new look matches the moodboard. The excitement is palpable and the expectations are high.

Let’s face it. Sales and customers are a startup’s bread and butter. Even if you’d like to go the VC route, you need to show traction. But how do you acquire users and customers without much, or any money? Seems like a chicken and egg problem doesn’t it.

As the nation continues to work from home for the most part, more than half of those currently working from home (59%) say being without the office has changed their lives for the better, new data has revealed.

In the midst of a global pandemic our leaders are necessarily focused on the immediate.  Survival - in life and in work. Entrepreneurs and executives alike are shoring up business, optimising current operations and cashflow; the need to stay afloat taking precedence over the long view. But with the passing of this crisis, may there come a sustained shift in values?

Over the past three months, small businesses have faced intense struggles, with only those deemed ‘essential’ by the government able to stay open due to the lockdown. Although these restrictions are now beginning to ease, the financial impact will have been significant.

For all businesses operating in the digital arena, there has long been an advantage to be gleaned from better understanding how your customers behave online. Can you identify which website visitors are on the verge of clicking ‘buy’? Can you spot a disgruntled customer desperately searching around an online FAQ for the product support they require? Is it possible to determine whether a prospective subscriber is ready to commit, or whether they need further incentives to push them over the line?

Startups faced with an entirely new trading environment are being encouraged to use the next 100 days to carefully align their shifting commercial goals with an effective approach to IP or risk being left behind by innovative competitors.

The founders, marketers, brand managers, whoevers, who remember to think long term in times of crisis will be the ones who come out above the rest once things settle. We’ve been seeing this theory plastered all over our Linkedin feeds recently.  

As companies across the globe are closing their physical offices, the business world has transformed dramatically within just a matter of months. More emphasis is placed on business being conducted online. For example, retailers, IT service providers and even personal trainers are utilising their online platforms and video chat software to remain engaged with their customers.

When starting a business it’s easy to get consumed by P&L and that all-important bottom line (understandably so), but as Sezer Sherif, Founder and CEO of brokerage and investment advisory firm Vector Capital Group explains, that doesn’t mean you can’t build a business with a strong code of ethics and corporate social responsibility (CSR).

An important global competition is under way that will determine the fate of many nations. By this, I am referring to the global artificial intelligence (AI) ‘arms race’ which has seen countries battle to develop the next generation of intelligent technologies.

Echo is an online NHS pharmacy which allows patients to order prescriptions directly to their door - and during COVID this has been invaluable for people who are self-isolating and can't risk a trip to bricks-and-mortar pharmacies for the sake of their health. Ana Maria Ciubotaru, Operations Manager at Echo spoke to Startups Magazine about how the team have had to work extraordinarily hard, shifting dispensing and dispatching operations to 24 hours a day, six days a week. 

If I was to tell you that water is the most used material in the world, I doubt you’d be surprised. However, if I asked you what material comes second in that list you may be left scratching your head. Plastic? Copper? Carbon Fibre? Good guesses all. However, you’d be wrong – it’s actually concrete.

The number of businesses with a positive outlook for the next 12 months exceeds the number with a negative outlook for the first time, in the clearest sign yet that parts of the economy are slowly springing to life, according to the latest wave of the Opinium-Cebr Business Distress Tracker.

Kindness - a word used so frequently. Social media feeds are covered in quotes including: "In a world where you can be anything, be kind" and many more. Especially now, given our current Corona-climate, we’ve all realised the power of kindness.  

The founders of Bulb, a green gas and electricity supplier, met five years ago when they were both working in the energy industry and disillusioned with the way the industry treats its customers and how much businesses were charging for renewable energy. Hayden Wood and Amit Gudka are aiming to make the industry better with Bulb by making energy simpler, cheaper and greener.

You know you need cloud skills within your startup, you have prepared the job spec for the right person (see our Cloud Skills Startip for details), and now you want to make sure that the world knows you are looking for this person and that your startup is the best place to work on earth. And preferably, you don’t want to spend a penny finding that person, because your startup is a lean startup. So how do you do this?

We’ve all seen ultrasound images, undoubtedly so if you’re a parent. And while the technology is used for a multitude of other healthcare-related reasons, the procedure has traditionally been the same, involving the patient having to pay a visit to a hospital. However, this could be about to change with the growth of point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS). Here, Startups Magazine speaks to Nevada Sanchez, Co-Founder of Butterfly Network, a company pioneering such technology.

The world is embarking on a period of great technological innovation. This means that innovators themselves need a place where they can grow their ideas. Technology startups are fast becoming a growth area for semiconductor manufacturers, as they are often at the coal face of design innovation, pioneering the journey towards the fourth industrial revolution.

Sage has published its SMB Tracker highlighting the latest sentiment from the UK’s small and medium sized businesses in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak.

Many startups know what building a culture means in their startup, and most founders will - smartly - work to prioritise that closely to ensure their company culture is warm, positive, and creative. But few know what building a digital culture means. Without a digital culture, your business will struggle to scale, and will struggle to expand internationally. It’s often ignored and that means you can make it a real positive difference between you and your competitors.

ÜberEnergy develops artificial intelligence algorithms that predict energy requirements for residential and commercial buildings. The artificial intelligence engine uses information such as weather patterns and forecasts, current indoor and outside temperature, human building occupancy, electrical usage patterns, along with a myriad of other data points collected by the system to produce predictions of future energy consumption requirements.

For many businesses, cash in the bank is often a concern especially during periods of uncertainty. Making sure you know exactly what’s going in and out and when has never been so important.

The government’s £500m Future Fund is now open for applications with innovative and high growth British businesses able to secure investment to help them through the COVID-19 outbreak. UK-based startups can now apply for a convertible loan of between £125,000 and £5m, to support continued growth and innovation in sectors as diverse as technology, life sciences and the creative industries.

Space Forge, the organisation leading the space manufacturing revolution, has secured a £600k of funding package from the Development Bank of Wales, alongside Bristol Private Equity Club and Innovate UK. This funding will help the company continue developing their reusable manufacturing satellite, ramp up their capability in Newport, Wales and Bristol and build upon UK and European partnership schemes.

There is nothing better than being able to walk out of the house to exercise in the park, the countryside or even to stroll by the sea. Just the ability to go outside gives us a new sense of perspective, and enables us to maintain our health and wellbeing.

A new smart employee app, called Blink has officially launched. Over the past 15 months, Blink has been developed and deployed in partnership with organisations including Stagecoach, Domino’s and the NHS to empower and protect frontline and key workers inside their organisations.

One of the significant demands resulting from the Coronavirus crisis of 2020 has been the need for new and novel ways for voluntary support to be facilitatedfascilitated. The ability for assistance to reach the most vulnerable or living in isolation or quarantine in safe ways is vital to saving lives and mitigating the spread of the pandemic. 

Having worked as a solution architect and designed multiple SaaS applications over the years, I could see most startups struggling to choose the right SaaS architecture for their product offering. In this article, I’ve compiled all my learnings into a cheat sheet to help startup founders, who’re looking to build SaaS applications, make a pragmatic decision backed by proven facts and data.  

The concept of co-working has become synonymous with tech ecosystems across the globe. It came to prominence around the same time as the birth of some of the biggest tech companies you’ve heard of, as well as those you haven’t. 

LuggageHero is bucking the trend by showing that investing in travel startups is not over during these uncertain times surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic.

One of the biggest trends right now is IoT, especially Industrial IoT (IIoT) and the security around data. Having taken off massively in the past few years, in the tech startup industry if you were going to create a business, these areas would be two of hottest in the current climate. Innovative startups or scaleups with cutting edge IoT hardware technologies capable of securely retrofitting industrial facilities for predictive maintenance, are extremely sought after and very desirable to investors and businesses. Also we have seen a rise in the number of startups working within data security at sensor level to avoid data breaches.

As part of its ‘back to work’ strategy, the UK government is allowing businesses to return to their premises when they cannot work from home. It will be essential that all returning employees are kept safe at all times on the return to their workplaces.

SharkNinja although known for producing vacuums, have been doing some very different work during the COVID-19 crisis, as they had some more time on their hands, and wanted to help. We spoke to Mohammad Hatia, SharkNinja Prototype Lead Workshop Manager and asked him a few questions as to what SharkNinja have been up to.

As investors look beyond the pandemic, Clim8 Invest - the app that offers everyone the opportunity to have a positive impact on climate change through sustainable investment - has reached £1.35m in pre-launch crowdfunding from 1,200 investors. This exceeds its crowdfunding target by more than 300% and makes it one of 2020’s most successful raises on the Crowdcube platform.

After weeks of lockdown, start-ups across the UK are beginning to ask: 'What next?' As many prepare to return to workplaces and look to bring back employees back to work this is likely to be one of many questions they have. Here, in a special feature, Harper James Solicitors’ provide the answers to nine problems many start-ups may be facing as they look to the future.

How hard can it be to design a logo? Simply draw a shape, choose a font, type in the company name and that’s a job well done, right? 

The model and motivations are in alignment and all bodes well for the energy company’s collaboration with a startup. Excitement is high, as are expectations. There is one thing left to attend to though: the environment you create. Will it be a space where collaboration can thrive? Or where it will wither on the vine?

Being a business owner is now more stressful than ever, with the outbreak of COVID-19 seeing companies both big and small shaken and left to find new ways of working. For small businesses and new business owners especially, this is a particularly daunting time with cash flow and employment being some of the biggest worries to face over the coming months.

National Health Service (NHS) workers are being offered free initial financial advice from Fintuity via their state-of-the-art online platform, the United Kingdom’s only FCA regulated-online Independent Financial Adviser (IFA).

This Startip provides a concise list of skills needed to migrate to the cloud or from one cloud provider to the next, so that you can fill the gaps in your team’s expertise. Startups have to have a cloud migration strategy or know how to build cloud-native products, and therefore need the skills to do so.

More than six weeks after the Government ordered people to work from home many businesses have gone under while others remain fighting for survival. Yet thousands are also finding a way to get through - often by diversifying the way they work and seeking out new opportunities. In this special report by Harper James Solicitors - who support more than 1,000 firms from start up to scale up five firms share the story of their life in lockdown. 

Once its motivations are clear (see part two of this series), an energy company looking to collaborate with a startup must establish how exactly it will do so.

When a startup has a headache, it is far more critical to the business than if it was a corporate. Why? There are quite a few reasons...

Depending on who you pay attention to, the current crisis is either a great time to be starting a business, or a pretty terrible one. There are growth opportunities out there, for sure, but there is also a huge amount of uncertainty with which to contend.

North Wales fintech startup, monva has announced it has exceeded its initial crowdfunding target of £250,000, as it enters a period of overfunding across the next two weeks.

Grenade is one of the UK’s leading healthy snacking FMCG brands, offering high protein and low sugar nutrition products. Officially launched in 2010, Grenade successfully secured a prominent position in the Sunday Times’ Fast Track Top 100 for four consecutive years, with its products now sold by leading retailers in over 80 countries worldwide. Here we talk through  defining moments in developing Grenade, whilst providing top tips for female entrepreneurs inspired to launch and grow their own business. 

The Institute of Economic Development (IED) has today launched the Commission for Economic Renewal, which will bring together some of the UK’s foremost economic development practitioners and academics to formulate the policies and interventions it believes will be needed to rebuild economies in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. 

Leadership is required more than ever in this COVID-19 world and according to Gallup and their extensive surveying of the US workforce, a very specific type of Leadership is required in times of crisis. 

Small and medium sized businesses (SMEs) should check the security and data protection of the technology they are using during COVID-19 lockdown, urges the MCA. Although there has been a rapid adoption of technology by firms, some have not been able to assess security quickly enough, risking exposure of confidential data and client information. The MCA has created a free checklist for SMEs to ensure that they ask the right questions about technology and how staff could use it before it is purchased.

It is certainly a testing time for the UK’s startup ecosystem. No sooner had small businesses put in place contingency plans to get them through Brexit, when a new, and bigger, challenge arose in the form of the novel coronavirus, or COVID-19.

Does design really impact how your brand is perceived? We break down how this ‘hidden’ visual language of design can be used to influence in branding.

The process of obtaining a business loan can be challenging at the best of times. Normally, though, the loan is part of a larger restructuring or growth plan, whereas at present companies across the UK are requiring financial support just to survive.

Confidence levels among UK tech startups have dropped significantly over the past three months as the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic takes hold, Studio Graphene’s latest Tech Tracker survey reveals, as Studio Graphene has published the results of its Q1 2020 Tech Tracker survey.

Cievert was founded in 2011 by former NHS therapeutic radiographer, Chris Kennelly, who began his mission to make routine healthcare a thing of the past.

Youth Business International (YBI) has been awarded a $5m grant by Google.org to support over 200,000 underserved micro, small and medium businesses in 32 countries to respond to the COVID-19 crisis. The global economy is suffering from an unprecedented shock as a result of COVID-19. With typically tight margins, micro, small and medium businesses are particularly vulnerable to economic downturn.

Founding Lanistar was the start of a revolution. The personal finance world has been broken for far too long – to banks, customers are simply numbers on a spreadsheet, instead of real people with feelings and desires. I knew that there must be a better way to manage money, so I started Lanistar not just to challenge the current financial system, but to completely take it over.

The last few weeks has seen an unprecedented shift across the country from working in offices to working from home. Entire teams are working remotely and in truth this is a far bigger challenge than having just the odd person working from home.

Across the globe we have witnessed a plethora of brands hit impressive targets in terms of sustainability. Despite clear leeway opening up between these brands and those left behind, an opportunity presents itself for reinvention.

Science, technology, engineering and mathematical modelling save lives – we see that more than ever in this C-19 crisis. We are relying on our scientists, technologists and engineers to come up with solutions, fast, to improve health and survival rates, to support businesses, organisations and the economy, to enable virtual social connection. They are essential contributors, key workers and equal among them are many, many women.

Amid the current pandemic, the economy is taking a brutal hit, and as fledgling businesses, startups have a particularly fierce challenge to keep afloat. To try and help companies that aren’t eligible for existing relief schemes during this time, such as the CBILS loan, the government has announced a £1.25bn fund to try and help these companies - including startups - survive.

For the majority, the word entrepreneur conjures an image of a male in his twenties or early thirties. It’s unlikely the picture of someone in retirement age would come to mind and even less likely a woman in her 60s. However, a new wave of silver start-ups is emerging and with good reason! One such disruptor is Sheila Holt. Having traded on a smaller scale for a few years, Sheila embraced her entrepreneurial spirit and began scaling her finance business, Sapphire Lending Ltd, at the age of 60. 

After graduating from university in 2016, I found myself working for one of the biggest tech companies in the world, Amazon. Although ironically, I was working as far away from tech in operations, managing up to a hundred warehouse staff at a time. I watched the guys working in tech and the entrepreneurs starting new ventures with envy thinking there was no way I’d be able to segway my career in that direction now that I had started climbing the corporate ladder.

As part of a wider initiative to support businesses during the coronavirus pandemic, a global affiliate network is offering members of the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) 30-minute consultations on the benefits of affiliate marketing.

While there may be stories of some brands named in eureka moments, there is a methodical process you can follow so you don’t have to rely on random inspiration. We break down what goes into naming a brand.

The Chancellor’s £1 billion package for startup businesses is another brilliant move to support the UK’s business infrastructure during the COVID-19 crisis, but it will need backing from private investors if it is going to work, say leading tax and advisory form Blick Rothenberg.

It’s always been clear to me that I’m not a math person. Or at least that’s the story I’m used to telling myself. Soon after graduating from Political Science and International Relations, I started working for Panama's foreign service in Geneva. This was an opportunity of a lifetime, representing my country on issues I cared for like gender, climate change, and mass migrations. 

Balpro helps businesses balance aggressive revenue goals with employee wellbeing, creating aspirational corporate cultures that are safe to log off from. A typical client would be a company that’s flown through hyper-growth but forgotten to nurture their staff along the way, meaning that they’re suffering from a decline in productivity and have started haemorrhaging staff. Balpro helps their leadership get their mojo back, reignite employee engagement, help employees reconnect to the corporate vision and create a more safe, supportive and sustainable environment. Here we interview Founder Amber Coster.

We are now a few weeks into the UK’s ‘lockdown’, and the existence of many small – and large - businesses is under threat. An inability to operate cash flows as normal is undoubtedly a major concern and so many are seeking ways to cut costs and access cash, and fast.

In 2020, companies throughout the world are investing significantly in colleague training. 94 per cent of British businesses’ suggesting, ‘that even in the current economic climate, learning and development is at the heart of their strategy’. The report by UK L&D noted how none of the companies who are spending more than the national average of £300 on training for each employee have a retention rate of less than half a year. Clearly, staff morale and job satisfaction are enhanced by sufficient training.

The current Covid-19 pandemic is causing havoc for businesses across the world. If you are an employer with a small business, you are likely struggling or are concerned about the future of your company in the current economic climate.

Inspiration can be found in the most unusual of places, although clinging to a yacht’s mast in the middle of a Caribbean storm might not be an obvious source of entrepreneurial zeal. However, this was the case for Jelte Liebrand, Founder of marine navigation platform Savvy Navvy, who has also recently been named as the Seedrs Entrepreneur of the Year. We caught up with him to find out more.

As the global retail industry continues to feel the full impact of the Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, Swiss retail technology company meepl - the easy-to-use and time-saving online shopping companion for clothing - has announced it will offer complimentary access to their smartphone-enabled, 3D body scanning technology for vulnerable SMEs working within the fashion industry. 

With many office-based businesses still required to work from home, it can be stressful trying to manage your company and protect your employees, customers, and interests. Capital on Tap's CEO, David Luck shares his 'business health MOT' checklist, to ensure you’ve got the best plan in place for your business’ longevity.

During times of great uncertainty for businesses large and small, global affiliate network Awin is giving startups and SMEs a helping hand, by waiving the monthly fee for the first three months for companies launching an affiliate programme using its Awin Access self-managed solution. This is in addition to zero setup fees. 

When Google for Startups announced its accelerator on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in November, it did not foresee how dramatically day-to-day life would soon change. The COVID-19 pandemic and its widespread health, social and economic consequences have made the goal of the program - to help founders build technology to solve serious issues facing our world - even more pressing. 

For the UK, innovation has become a top priority. Indeed, adapting to the coronavirus economy is the most important objective for most businesses and those that innovate successfully will thrive. However, R&D has become a much more public discussion over the past few weeks. In the recent Budget, the Government put significant emphasis on increasing R&D activity. It recognises that the UK could be more of a global innovation hub.

Every business was once a single person with an idea. Some companies stay that way of course, but most founders will inevitably reach a point where they need help from others. If not before, then at the time when they’ve finished building a product, found a foothold in the market, and their natural next step is focusing on growth. 

UK startup OpenSpace, whose digital twin platform measures real-time passenger movement, have discovered a new use for their technology in the fight against coronavirus. The pioneering system currently deployed at St Pancras station in London, can monitor social distancing through detecting and visualising the distance between passengers in real-time. It can also compare historical weekly and daily information for trend analysis.

As parent to a young child growing up in London, entrepreneur Chris Turner wanted a greater understanding of the air quality in the capital and how it impacts on peoples’ lives and that of his family. However, when he failed to find the air pollution monitor that he was looking for, he decided to set up his own company, BREATHE Tech, and create his own. Startups Magazine caught up with him to find out more.

WhatWeWant (WWW) encourages people to perform acts of kindness amid Covid-19 crisis, and has there for announced that it will be donating all fees incurred by people using its crowdfunding app to charity.

Half of women have experienced discrimination while working at a tech firm, new research from Studio Graphene has revealed. The London-based digital agency commissioned a survey of 500 full-time workers in the UK tech industry. It found that 49% of women have experienced some form of discrimination in the workplace, while 20% have resigned from a role in the past because of discrimination or harassment.

“To me, ideas are worth nothing unless executed” - Steve Jobs. You know you have an incredible idea with which you could disrupt the market. But to do that, you need first to transform it into a software product. And you're possibly wondering what the starting point is, and at what stage you need to take to the market. You're worried because you know of people who did not make an impact despite their great idea. These thoughts are but natural and every entrepreneur goes through them.

Ontruck is an innovation-oriented logistics and transport company, founded in order to develop technologies which will make the road freight experience a smooth and efficient one for both truckers and companies who send shipments.

There are a lot of solutions and products out there to help, monitor and control our physical health but what is out there to help with mental health problems?

British startup Guild, in partnership with London Research, has launched a new study 'Mastering Messaging in the Workplace' aimed at helping businesses and professionals understand the opportunities and challenges of using messaging at work.

In February, digital bank Revolut became the UK's most valuable fintech startup after a funding round saw its value triple to £4.2bn. It has since announced that it’s set to launch in the US very soon, where no doubt it will continue its swift growth trajectory.

Your brand identity is how customers perceive you. A simple way to look at it, is to view your brand as a person. Someone unique, with their own beliefs, values, look and feel. Your brand identity is what sets you apart from others. So, it’s important to have this down pat. Here, Carie Barkhuizen, founder of Seymour PR, shares her top tips for building brand identity quick-smart.

Across the globe, millions of employees are being advised to begin distant or home working, but managing and coordinating a remote workforce is unfamiliar territory for many business owners.

Dhaka, Bangladesh; 2013 - around 1,200 people died and a further 2,500 people got seriously injured in a garment factory collapse. The ugly side of fast fashion reared its head.

With the outbreak of COVID-19 there is increased concern around next steps for businesses, particularly regarding the impact this could be having on supply chains and contractual obligations that need to be met. As the situation evolves and disruptions are becoming commonplace, there is every chance that you may need to find alternative means of carrying out your contractual obligations.

Upscaling can be a daunting task for any business, many will find it difficult to step outside their comfort zone or be reminded daily the risks with investing in new opportunities. While this approach may work in our personal lives, it can be detrimental to new business opportunities as well as the entrepreneurial mindset when it comes to upscaling your business.

Congratulations! You are officially moving from the status of startup to scaleup. It’s a big move that brings lots of opportunities, and you have managed it because you have been successful. What that success looks like will be different for different companies. For some, it’s because of sales: either a few big global sales, or in other cases, huge numbers of small scale sales. For others, it will be because you’ve landed investment. In some parts of the world, grants allow a startup to accelerate their growth and really anchor themselves in the market.

As the founder of a startup, you’ll have developed and nurtured a great idea over many months, maybe even years. Perhaps you’ve isolated a problem and worked out how to solve it. Or been frustrated by the lack of options available in a particular sector and hit upon the perfect way to fill the gap.

Is the coronavirus filling your days with anxiety and dread? Are you waking up each morning feeling like it is all a bad dream? Here’s how to restore a balanced mindset and get back a level head in the current circumstances. 

Atypical is combining the finest natural ingredients with cutting edge customisation technology to create luxury bespoke skincare. Each product is individually made and personalised to suit individual skin types, skin goals and lifestyles. Empowering people to co-create their own skincare products with the help of Atypical Cosmetic’s clever customisation algorithm, using real data to create a bespoke product that helps meet their skin goals.

I was 39 when I came out of the mental health closet – about six years too late. Once I emerged, my stress levels were so high they had morphed into a condition called agitated depression, which led to a dramatic mental breakdown, four months off work and an attempt on my own life.

Today nearly 2 billion people do not have reliable access to clean water, and by 2030, according to the UN, that number will rise to half of the world’s population. Access to clean affordable drinking water represents probably our planets greatest resource issue.

The Institute of Coding (IoC), a government-supported initiative designed to respond to the UK’s digital skills gap, recently hosted its second annual conference at the IET Savoy Place in London. At this two-day event, new research from the IoC and Deloitte was shared that provides powerful insights into the factors that motivate women to study and work in the digital sector.

To remain competitive, every company across every industry is now compelled to rethink its established ways of doing business. Change is set to continue, the ride is only going to get faster and the differences more fundamental. The risks of not adapting are now outweighing the risks of staying the same.

Not all investors are equal. They each have different expectations and require subtly different information to be able to make a decision. So how do you know what kind of investor is best for your company?

If you are considering beginning a new startup business, you will not be happy to hear that 90% of start-ups fail; according to the Startup Genome Project. However, if you understand the reasons why new companies fail to become successes, you can avoid falling into those pitfalls.

Also at the Business Travel Show we caught up with Khalid Medaghri, Chief Executive Officer at FlightBox, who offer multi-brand and ready-to-go travel kits with Personal Care essentials in travel size (cabin luggage adapted).

The startup landscape is notoriously difficult to navigate. The numbers speak for themselves – 60% of startups will fail in the first three years of launching. Whether it’s because their core proposition is unworkable and fails to fulfill a market need, or the fact they simply haven’t built the right team, there are a variety of reasons that could lead to a company ultimately closing its doors.

TouchNote recently led a debate on showing how to make membership models work, as the year 2020 is set to become the 'decade subscriptions dominate'. 

Angel investment is one of the best ways early stage startups can raise investment. Therefore the behavioural trends of investors will be closely followed by savvy businesses looking to ensure they have what it takes to raise finance.

The shortlist for the Business Book Awards 2020 has just been announced and we’ve cherry picked the titles that should be on every entrepreneur’s bookshelf. Here are the top six picks…

CerbAir offers complete Anti-Drone solutions to secure sensitive sites and events against malicious drone use. With a number of detection and counter-measure systems already installed around the World, the French leader in Anti-Drone systems announced the conclusion of a 5.5 million € round of financing.

Mental health is a topical concern. It’s also sensitive, delicate and for entrepreneurs specifically it can be sore, often kept secret. At the end of 2019, while running my men’s mental health magazine MAN_AGE, I found I work the equivalent of four, maybe five jobs. 

Disruptive, next-gen online booking tool partners with global TMC to unleash the benefits of best-in-class travel management for the SME market. taptrip, part of the Barclays Techstars Accelerator is currently the most disruptive name in online booking, has entered into a new partnership with the leading corporate travel and events business and pioneers of technology, the ATPI Group, which will roll out in the UK from March 2020, with Benelux, France, India and Asia set to follow later in the year.

Building a website is about more than just an online page that shows who you are in today’s society, it is part of your brand identity, and imperative to your company or business. Wix really understand that, it’s not just putting some text and images onto a page and sharing your website with people. It’s something that reflects your business which is a part of you, and that’s why it includes a number of features that help you take your website further.

Companies have been marketing their business in weird and wonderful ways for centuries, but, in 2019, what is the best way to draw in, and retain a solid customer base through strategic marketing. When you think of Nike, you think of ‘Just Do It’, when you think of McDonalds, you think of ‘I’m Loving It’.

Global technology and media festival NewCo, has announced the return of its London event, which will take place from the 11-13th March across several city locations.

Running a small business is not easy. There are any number of hurdles and challenges to overcome, and they can creep up without much warning, meaning it is absolutely essential to keep focused and remain on top of your game. 

Entrepreneurs are always looking for new opportunities to raise their profile and drive their business forward and one way to do this is to win a business award. Even if you are not successful it is a great way to take stock on progress to date.

The main challenge met by recruiters when hiring developers is to find qualified candidates for the job vacancy. Because mis-hires are increasingly costly in the tech industry, it is imperative to assess a programmer’s technical skills during the recruiting process to validate whether or not they will be a good fit for the job.

With an office already in Tel Aviv, the Israeli-founded business travel management platform, Arbitrip is now opening up a London office to expand its European market share. Its exciting new expansion now means that the tech startup is ready to rapidly drive its footprint across Europe. 

RECENT figures showed that 2019 was a record year for startups, and 2020 is set to be even better. With the uncertainty surrounding Brexit finally out of the way, experts predict we will see a surge in the number of businesses setting off on an exciting new journey.

Turkeys don’t have votes, and even if they did, they wouldn’t know what Christmas is. But it turns out PR people do have votes and we do know what Christmas is, so please, dear startup executive/founder/creator, don’t use our services.

Startups Magazine speaks to Mariusz Zabrocki, London General Manager at Kapten - the ride-hailing app working on both social and environmental initiatives.

Of all the questions that I overhear or am asked, the one with the most variants is without doubt ‘how long will it take? The simple reason that it has the most variants is because ‘it’ can apply to almost anything and everything in a startup or a business at any other stage. 

SETsquared Bristol is delighted to announce that its 80+ tech startup and scaleup members have collectively achieved record turnover revenues exceeding £58m in 2019. In addition, its members, across 27 sectors, created 240 new jobs in the city region last year.

The process of raising investment differs for every startup according to numerous factors, including the stage of development of your product, how much money your business requires and the type of investors you target.

What determines success vs failure? Why do so many businesses fail while others thrive? It is widely reported 90% of all startups fail.

Having worked across a number of industries such as manufacturing, food-servicing, software, cosmetics, plastics and engineering, The Leyton Group sets out to help companies generate bottom-line savings. But how did Leyton emerge from CES as a true champion for developing companies?

Many companies think the only way to grow is through Venture Capital (VC) investment. Most companies who seek VC investment, however, fail to get it.

Greek philosophy and public relations: two subjects that rarely inform the same discussion. But here we go (please bear with me).

London-based technology startup CloudStratex helps clients become confident and self-sufficient in cloud computing and its usage, rather than being reliant upon external providers to manage their IT operations. We spoke to Founder and CEO Adrian Overall to learn more.

Described as the world’s most important mobility event, MOVE is just around the corner and promises even more disruptive technologies and innovation to drive much-needed change. Taking place at ExCeL on the 11-12th February, MOVE focuses on models, technology and sustainability, and also has a section dedicated to startups.

As we approach this new decade, it is clear that chasing after customers is getting increasingly harder and harder. Social media advertising is now as saturated if not even more than its traditional counterpart.

Professor Mike Trenell is Co-founder and CEO of Changing Health, a company than began as a spin-out company from Newcastle University in 2016 to empower people to live longer, healthier lives at scale, delivering personalised behaviour change programmes for Type 2 diabetes management, prevention and weight loss.

Seeing is believing, as they say. But what do you do if you have something to show off, but it’s in a remote, hard-to-access location that would involve a significant amount of time and cost to take people to?

Norway may not be the best in the world when it comes to baseball, rugby or tennis, but there is one thing for which Norwegians are extremely well-known… and that’s Ultrasound.

Last week was of course the last real working week of the year, but whilst many will have found opportunities to celebrate in one way or another it does not mean that most will not still have been working hard.

The middle of December is a strange time of year for all. Some are already starting to slow down and getting into the full swing of the season’s festivities, whilst others are rushing around even more manically than normal in an attempt to finalise matters before things shut down properly.

Solutions to tackling waste plastic were the focus of four eco-inventors who went head to head at Plus X Brighton Disruptors finals this November 12 at Untapped Brewery in Brighton.

The spirit of innovation in Britain was alive and well on 26 November as four Modern British Inventors showcased their new products at the Central Research Laboratory (CRL) Demo Day.

Different things drive different people in different ways. That is because each of us wants something different from our lives and we are prepared to make different levels of commitment to achieve what we want to achieve and strike that critical personal balance.

I am sure that each and every one of us would accept that we cannot be good at everything that we do, or that we do not have time to do everything ourselves. And actually, I would suggest that it is in fact both. 

In each of our lives, some weeks are more predictable than others. Some people are a little afraid of change and facing new, unexpected challenges, whilst others face the world with a ‘can do’ approach and even relish unpredictability and the need for flexible thinking and action to jump over the hurdles put in our way. And just like the best race horses, this keeps us fit and agile.

This round-up’s inaugural theme looks at startups that help users incorporate sustainability and sustainable development into everyday living. These companies stand out for how they ask for a nearly imperceptible lifestyle change while providing impressive solutions. These are some startups we stan:

Over the last two weeks I have written special articles on ‘Business Plans and Pitch Decks’ and on ‘The Art of Fundraising’ but this week I return to writing 'The Mentor’s Journal'.

As a mentor I get involved in a huge cross section of businesses in different sectors and at different stages of their development. As a result I have been involved in many hundreds of meetings about almost every aspect of setting up and running a business, but it would be true to say that raising money is the most common conversation of all.

Have you heard of ‘associative learning’? If not then, very simply, this is the basis upon which people mentally connect things together.

LegalShield recently launched a consumer app, LegalDefence, that helps the average consumer combat their legal disputes in an affordable but effective way. The Oxford-based startup has been disrupting the industry tremendously since its launch.

A survey of 200 startups and scale-ups – commissioned by Envestors in 2019 – has uncovered a number of misconceptions which are ultimately impacting the ability of companies to successfully raise funds using the crowdfunding model. Furthermore, the results show the approach - which hasn’t changed since its genesis in 2011 - is ripe for disruption.

What people require from their employers, managers, and colleagues, is different to what it was in past years. The days of having one job for life are long gone. In the highly competitive tech industry, hiring is but the first challenge - retaining and growing a sustainable team for the future is the holy ground.

As readers of either my Mentor’s Perspective or Mentor’s Journal series will know, one of the most common themes that I come across is that of fundraising in all its guises. 

Most of us would associate the phrase ‘fit for purpose’ with a product or service that we have seen or used, but that we do not think actually does what it is meant to do.

When it comes to R&D Tax credits, a tax incentive designed to encourage companies to invest in R&D, businesses claim some of these credits back as a part of their R&D expenditure, which can be a process that turns into a bit of a nightmare.

This was one of those weeks that saw me meeting with business from every possible stage of growth from ‘enter stage left’ to being a massive player that is looking for interesting new arrivals.

The old saying that ‘from little acorns mighty oaks grow’ came about to show that sometimes something very large can grow from something very small.

When I think about all of my conversations and meetings last week there was a very common thread tying them all together, and that was of people or businesses reinventing themselves.

As highlighted by last Friday’s global Climate Strike, the world is increasingly aware that we stand on the edge of an imminent climate and ecological crisis. It was heartening to see that, around the world, so many people took to the streets to call on government and business to make serious changes.

FK Group, one of the UK’s leading full building envelope specialists, has launched FK Accelerate in partnership with L Marks as part of its commitment to driving innovation in the construction sector.

Carlene Jackson, CEO of Brighton-based tech company Cloud9 Insight, is one of the UK's top 25 SME culture leaders for 2019, according to the recent report by Real Business magazine. Here, she shares her views on employee happiness and wellbeing.

Despite the vertigo-inducing surroundings of the 24th floor of the Shard Building in London, it was none the less a glamorous location for the inaugural Seedrs Alumni Awards.

This was one of those weeks where everything seemed to be on fast forward. Not just the number of meetings but the speed of progress in the companies that I met was truly remarkable. 

Innovation company business mix is the key contributor and platinum sponsor for the 2019 festival from 7th-12th October 2019. The Malvern Festival of Innovation is a week-long celebration of innovators, host to multiple symposiums, a gala event, comedy night and formal dinner.

America. In some ways, it can be and has historically been a tough nut for UK technology companies to crack, while in many other ways, the PR strategies and campaigns that work in Britain will work equally as well Stateside. 

Marta Krupinska, Head of Google for Startups UK, recently created the Google for Startups first UK Immersion cohort for African startups, to help them along their business journey.

Calmer launches the digital Calmer Community platform for busy professionals and joins forces with Startups Magazine as Mental Health & Wellbeing Partner.

Knowledge Transfer Partnership, or KTP, is a part-government funded programme that for the past 40 years has helped businesses – including startups – to improve their competitiveness and productivity through the better use of knowledge, technology and skills that reside within universities.

For the supremely talented entrepreneurs and startups doing great work around the world, marketing and PR are often low on their list of priorities. After all, there’s the running of the business to get on with, the development of amazing technology and launching of innovative projects, investment to secure, and people to hire.

Mentoring is something that everyone will come across in their life, most probably because they need some help and guidance, but also from the mentor side, because they want to help others and both parties always benefit.

The world of business has changed, from the heyday of household corporations like Ford in the 90s, to the rapid rise of tech-applied products and services born over the last three decades.

Following on from the nine articles in the ‘A Mentor’s Perspective’ series that I wrote recently that looked at some of the main points that any startup or early stage business should consider, I will now be writing a brief weekly article in a new series – A Mentor’s Journal. 

As more cities become smarter, and technology grows, what do we need to do to keep with the needs of these smart cities, but also make them sustainable?

A company formed a decade ago in 2009, Deciwatt is older than you’d imagine most startups to be. Created off the back of a brief from Solaraid with therefore, a London-based product design consultancy, Deciwatt’s first product GravityLight was an answer to this  problem: develop an extremely low-cost solar light for $5, a sustainable alternative to the dangerous and expensive kerosene lamp depended on by millions as a source of light.

According to the British Chamber of Commerce, recent figures have shown that the UK economy is predicted to grow at a lot slower rate than expected in 2020 and 2021, and one big reasoning behind this is Brexit and the possibility of a no-deal result.

Advanced Engineering is on the lookout for startups to showcase their inventions as part of its Enabling Innovation zone.

When Mikela Druckman, Marco Paladini, and Nikola Sivacki founded Greyparrot in January 2019, the three founders set out to utilise their computer vision and Augmented Reality (AR) experience in the B2C sector and translate it into the B2B industry with the mission of creating a positive social impact.

Quite often the best ideas are born out of adversity, and that was certainly the case for Immersive Rehab, a startup specialising in the creation of interactive and engaging physical and neuro-rehabilitation programmes in Virtual Reality (VR), part of the unbound50 Zone at unbound London 2019.

The Victoria Embankment in central London might not be the obvious place to find out more about Scotland’s vibrant startup scene. However, representatives from the country’s board of trade, business incubators, educators, R&D partnerships and innovation centres headed south for London Tech Week, and Scotland House, where they spent the evening showcasing the business opportunities north of the border, creativity, the potential of data science and the country’s talent.

Introducing Dannielle Haig, international Business Coach and Business Psychologist, as Startups Magazine's resident Business Psychologist columnist. 

As a child growing up in Western Australia, Neil Daly was fully aware of the dangers associated with exposure to the sun, and the importance of covering up when playing outside. We have all of course had the experience of being sun burnt at some point in our lives and as such, it’s not surprising that skin cancer is actually the most common form of the disease in the world.

Most of our readers may not be old enough to remember pagers. However, in the pre-internet, pre-mobile world of the early 1990s, if you had a pager you really were a trend setter as it made you contactable wherever you went… imagine that?

Stress is something that can affect everyone and anyone, at any point in your life. Admittedly some things are more likely to bring about stress, for example, creating your own business and trying to get it off the ground.

If your business has investors – then the importance of investor relations cannot be overstated - in Brazil, Egypt and Bulgaria, companies are mandated by law to have an IR function. That’s not the case in the UK – but it doesn’t mean you should ignore it.

Dr Christopher Hartland, patent attorney at leading European IP firm, Potter Clarkson, gives a step-by-step guide to managing your business’ ideas and innovations.

In this article, Dr Christopher Hartland, patent attorney at leading European IP firm, Potter Clarkson, explains how robust intellectual property protection can be a valuable asset in its own right.

Dr Christopher Hartland at leading European IP firm, Potter Clarkson explains how businesses can protect their most valuable assets – their intellectual property.

In this article - the last in this series - I am going to look at scaling your business and the fact that growth is often the hardest part of the startup journey.

The Data Analysis Bureau also known as T-DAB is a data science and engineering agency specialising in machine learning, hoping to empower whilst educating manufacturers to better the industry.

“At the heart of what people, companies and everyone does is innovation. Innovation is our focus.” This was the opening line from Gary Shapiro, CEO of CES at last year's unbound innovation festival in London.

As a startup, what would be your Golden Ticket to propel you towards success? Workspace expenses covered? Invaluable mentoring and guidance?

Having written your business plan, identified your existing and potential market and your target clients, and decided how best to market and sell your product, you should now of course actually be making sales. But how open has you mind been whilst undergoing this process, and how limited are your ambitions? Many smaller companies, whether startups or more mature, have a tendency to only look at selling to the home market of the UK rather than broadening their horizons and selling internationally. 

When you’re keen to win more customers, you turn to marketing. And more often than not, you look at advertising, PR, or anything else that you think that will make a change quickly.

When one thinks of countries with a focus on innovation, the true global leaders - USA, the U.K., Canada and Israel – traditionally lead the way based on the strength of their startup ecosystems. Not surprisingly, the next country to gain a foothold is Australia followed by no fewer than a dozen of the top industrialised nations in Western Europe.

Created by two former insomniacs in 2016, Moona is the first smart product to not only track your sleep habits, but to enhance them by regulating head temperature to help the user get to sleep faster, deeper and wake up naturally.

The Internet of Things is an exciting and expanding market. It’s one that many large organisations are already actively involved in, with competition mounting rapidly as a result; but it’s also a market ripe for innovation, with countless unexplored opportunities – across all industries – almost too compelling for an ambitious entrepreneur to ignore.

Subcon is introducing the Launchpad & Launchpad Awards to this year’s event. The Launchpad aims to propel startups and entrepreneurs by giving them a platform to share their innovations with thousands of engineering and manufacturing professionals with the power to influence and guide them to future success.

Director, Founder, Business Psychologist and Business Coach at DH Coaching & Consulting, Dannielle Haig, headed a personal development workshop powered by C&C, PA recruitment agency, teaching the importance of 'resilience'.

The audience at the Dublin Tech Show 2019 fell silent and slipped into awe as it listened to the man who broke into Mir using a Swiss Army Knife, flew into Earth orbit three times, was Commander of the International Space Station (ISS), has spent 166 days in space and was the first Canadian astronaut to walk in space: NASA Colonel, Chris Hadfield.

Moderated by Graham Hussey, Co-Founder of The Startup Van, this panel at the Dublin Tech Show 2019 (DTS) made up of celebrity companies in the startup arena, Expon Capital, 500 startups, Valor Ventures and Techstars, broadly discussed the ways in which a startup can succeed. 

On the ScaleX stage at Dublin Tech Summit 2019, April 10th, a panel comprised of: Andrew Lindsay VP Corporate Development and Business Development at Hubspot; Alan Costello Venture Investor Leader at NDRC; Niall McEvoy Manager of High Potential Startups at Enterprise Ireland; and moderated by Graham Hussey co-founder of The Startup Van, discussed how to position your team and brand for international scaling.

On the ScaleX stage at DTS 2019 (Dublin Tech Summit) Willie Morris got real in his talk about startup failure.

In this, the second part of looking at the different forms of finance available to a startup, I look specifically at the different types of equity finance and try to summarise the benefits and drawbacks of each. The March edition of the magazine looks at the question of finance in full detail.