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.

The UK’s recent lockdown has seen a surge in demand for on-demand. By addressing one of the most challenging aspects of lockdown, food delivery services alone have experienced a 29% increase in popularity, and even industries historically steeped in tradition - such as theatres, pubs and restaurants - have had to embrace on-demand options. Digital businesses, in collaboration with more traditional high street counterparts, have kept access to services viable during the pandemic.

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.

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.

I was young when I realised I came from a family of businessmen. At the age of eight, my paternal grandfather had been engaging in business deals between Africa and Belgium. One of my uncles had also started an import-export business based in Brussels. Then when I was ten years old, my father jumped on the bandwagon and launched a business engaged in the export of exotic meats from Botswana to the EEC. This is what began to pique my curiosity in business. 

Technology, especially new technology, has always had something of a divisive effect; that is it can be seen as black or white, working in good ways or bad. If we look back in history, any technological advance is greeted with great enthusiasm by early adopters and shunned and ridiculed by those with a more traditional outlook on life.

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.

The 23rd of June this year marked four years since the UK's EU membership referendum, and the rest of 2020 will likely see some decisive action on the UK's intention to leave the EU as a result. Much has been written over the last four years about the UK's currently gilded status as the preeminent global hub for financial services and fintech, and the risks of the UK losing this status to another European competitor once Brexit happens.

Scooploop is a social media neighbour and community networking site. It is a platform that you can use for your business, charity or personal use, and lets you join in with conversations, find out local information and get to know people that you may not have met yet.

Identifying your ideal client is one of the most difficult things, and yet the most important thing to do for your business. Before I start going into the how, let us spend a few minutes thinking about the why. Why does everybody bang on and on about this ideal client business!? Believe me I used to feel the same way. Then one day it clicked into place.

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.

Millennials are the first generation to be truly comfortable with digital technologies: most own a smartphone and use it for a host of activities ranging from social networking, playing games, watching TV and mobile banking.

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.

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?’

The COVID-19 pandemic has drastically changed the way the world works, and with some UK workers beginning to return to the office, some anticipating a phased return in the coming weeks and others working at home for the foreseeable future, it can be difficult to connect the workforce together.

Within the context of the economic crisis caused by COVID-19, Trump has accused China of being the cause of the virus. If this were true, Beijing would have eliminated 91% of UK exports to China over the past ten years in one fell swoop.

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.