As a founder or product lead, you may have noticed how crowded the obvious markets are, leaving you with massive market opportunities that large corporations often overlook. Changing demographics, cultural shifts, and greater public awareness have created unmet needs that agile startups can service in various ways.

As summer holidays have wrapped up, Brits are entering what’s becoming known as the “Winter Arc” – the late autumn period where people focus on productivity, goal-setting, and getting ahead before the year-end rush. Employment Hero data shows that households and employees largely back in rhythm, making October and November key months for productivity.

Raising the topic of artificial intelligence (AI) often sparks debates about job losses and automation replacing humans, and this can be the case in hospitality, but in my view, in an industry built on personal connection, a different story is unfolding. In hospitality, AI isn’t replacing people – it’s empowering them. The next frontier of automation is human-centred, using technology to amplify empathy, not erase it. I believe everyone in hospitality needs AI.

There’s a dangerous myth that continues to linger in startup culture – if you build a great product, they will come. Though it’s the mantra widely attributed to Facebook’s rise in 2004, it simply no longer holds true in today’s world.

When National Australia Bank (NAB) recently disclosed it faces a staggering AUSD 130 million in costs due to historical payroll underpayments, some dating back more than a decade, it was headline news. However, while reports tend to focus on the scale of such mistakes made by large institutions, the underlying message should resonate deeply with organisations of every size: payroll errors are a serious issue, and can lead to significant financial, regulatory, and reputational consequences, for organisations of any size.

The full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 posed unprecedented challenges to the nation's startup ecosystem. Yet, against all odds, Ukrainian entrepreneurs have demonstrated remarkable resilience and innovation. From navigating funding shortages to adapting business models and entering international markets, Ukrainian startups have not only survived but thrived.

We’re living in a moment when technology cycles no longer stretch across decades, they compress into single-digit years. Cloud went mainstream in less than a generation, mobile rewrote consumer behaviour almost overnight, and generative AI stormed the enterprise in record time. But speed hasn’t equalled success. Scratch beneath the headlines and a sobering fact emerges: according to MIT, 95% of enterprise GenAI initiatives have yet to deliver measurable impact.

AI is no longer just a trendy technology that companies promote as a value add; it has become a must-have for organisations aiming to stay competitive. This message is heard in many technology events and workshops during 2025.

Since the global financial crisis of 2008, successive governments have placed high-growth companies at the heart of the UK’s economic strategy. The goal is to create an environment where innovative startups can grow into globally competitive businesses such as the fintech giants Revolut, Wise, Monzo, and Ebury.

Your startup’s story isn’t just a pitch, it’s the playbook for how you attract customers, talent, and investors. Here’s how to tell a story that sells your vision as much as your product.

I spent eight years working for a small British manufacturer in Oxfordshire. The sort of outfit that, like so many brilliant UK manufacturers, makes astonishing kit in an unassuming shed tucked away in the beautiful countryside. I’ve lost count of the number of days I’ve watched vanish: chasing a work order hidden in someone’s desk, sitting in a meeting that should have been an email, or typing the same numbers into two systems that hate each other. So I started Mithryl with a goal to turn that chaos into usable knowledge and give teams their time back.

In just over a year, AI funding went from explosive to cautious optimism. After the staggering $108 billion poured into AI startups in 2024, 2025 has shown the emergence of a new pattern.

Enterprise AI is facing a severe reality check. Amidst a massive rush of investment, a recent MIT study has delivered a sobering finding: 95% of corporate generative AI pilots are failing to progress to scaled adoption and deliver measurable financial returns.

UK SMEs say specific Government initiatives designed to help them survive and grow don’t go far enough, according to new research from Bibby Financial Services (BFS).

America is the land of promise for many small British businesses. The population is generally fairly well off and there’s almost five times as many people as there are in this country. The potential to sell many more of your products and services there is enormous.

In Germany, physics curricula include almost no breadth requirements; students take only physics or closely related courses. In my cohort, entrepreneurship wasn’t presented as an option at all. Where university spin-outs do occur, they frequently address extremely narrow problems. These observations reflect a broader European issue: cultural and structural barriers discourage technical talent from founding companies and from working on actual problems that scale.

In a tough economic climate, we hear a lot about ‘productivity’, often reduced to a statistical measurement associated with the economic output of a country or region. Because of their relatively small size, mathematically, startups don’t contribute significantly to the macroeconomic productivity figures.

For most startups, the Cloud is not optional. It’s the backbone of rapid experimentation, product iteration, and go-to-market execution. Platforms like AWS make it possible to launch with minimal upfront investment and scale globally in a matter of weeks. But while the Cloud lowers barriers, it also introduces complexity.

Any business in the startup phase is under immense pressure. Limited budgets, high expectations, and the relentless pace of early growth can put pressure on every function of the business – particularly marketing. So the recent explosion of AI, promising automation, scale, and cost reduction, has left many founders wondering whether AI can take the place of a Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) within their business?

With the Government’s new Growth and Skills Levy on the horizon, the way small businesses access training and upskilling is set to change. At a time when skills shortages are biting hard and business owners need straightforward, affordable ways to develop their people, this reform is a chance to get things right for SMEs, which make up 99% of the UK’s business community.