Category Archives: Venture Capital and Funding

Students are educated about various funding sources, including venture capital, angel investors, crowdfunding, and traditional loans, to help them secure the financial resources needed to start and grow businesses.

9 stages, Blog, Entrepreneurship Theory, Venture Capital and Funding

8 factors which control productivity

The productivity of a business is controlled by a number of factors and as entrepreneurs we need to understand these factors to ensure we have sustainable businesses. So what do we mean by productivity?

Productivity is very simply defined as the ratio between output and input. Therefore increasing productivity means greater efficiency in producing output of goods and services from labour, capital, materials and any other necessary inputs.

It’s more important metric than just measuring this ratio, as it provides a benchmark by which you can measure nations, regions, industries and and most importantly for us entrepreneurs, businesses. Businesses which have higher productivity are more sustainable and therefore employees have safer jobs, paying more taxes and enable stable economic structures surrounding these businesses.

So when I review the literature on productivity I have found a number of factors which control productivity, we can put these down to eight controlling factors, In alphabetical order:

  1. Finance
  2. Industry & Market
  3. International Trade
  4. Management
  5. People
  6. Place
  7. Processes
  8. Technology

Finance

The financial capital structure of a business dictates the productivity of the business.  Managers are instructed to maximize shareholders benefits and if this requires short-term (annual) rewards then this may not beneficial for the longer term productivity aims. Hill, C. W., & Snell, S. A. (1989) found that businesses with one or more of the following; a diversification strategy, R&D expenditure, capital intensity and stock concentration were all important financial factors in a business productivity.  At a national level Guariglia, A., & Santos-Paulino, A. U. (2008) found that national GDP per capita and national investment generally exert a positive and significant effect on business productivity.

Industry & Market

The level of productivity is related to the industry as some industries are highly automated whilst others are still manual handmade.  It’s also dictated by the market, some customers require personalised service while others want fully online and automated. One example is holidays, some people want book online without ever talking to a person from that company whilst others require a home visit and discussion of every aspect of the holiday.

The OECD provides a detailed list of productivity data sets whilst the UK provides this, and many other countries do the same.

International Trade

Trade increases productivity. Badinger, H., & Breuss, F. (2008) found an increase in the export ratio of a manufacturing business by one percentage point increases productivity by 0.6 percent on average. To be able to export your products or services a business should be of a comparable price and quality and therefore productivity. Export focused businesses have therefore higher productivity Guariglia, A., & Santos-Paulino, A. U. (2008).

Management

A number of these factors requires good management and leadership. However, a considerable amount of research has consistently found that use of effective human resource management practices enhances firm performance. Specifically, extensive recruitment, selection, and training procedures; formal information sharing, attitude assessment, job design, grievance procedures, and labour-management participation programs; and performance appraisal, promotion, and incentive compensation systems that recognize and reward employee merit have all been widely linked with valued firm-level outcomes. Huselid, M. A. (1995) and others have argued that the use of these practices will result in greater business performance, independent of the industry and business size.

People

Bakker (2014) demonstrated that to ensure a knowledge worker is optimally productive and happy, it is important that he or she can attain personal objectives and that facilities and services fit with personal needs. Bailey (1993) noted that the contribution of even a highly skilled and motivated workforce will be limited if jobs are structured, or programmed, in such a way that employees, who presumably know their work better than anyone else, do not have the opportunity to use their skillset. Most academic frameworks present variables including buildings and facilities, work processes, organisational characteristics, personal characteristics and the external context may have an impact on labour productivity (Clements-Croome, 2000; Van der Voordt, 2003; Batenburg and Van der Voordt, 2008; Mawson, 2002; Haynes, 2007).

Place

Especially within the service industry, location is one of the most important factors. The best coffee in the world may be served in Seattle but living in Cirencester doesn’t allow me to get my daily fix from there. However, the competitive environment in these two places will be different and therefore I would guess the productivity of a coffee shop in Seattle will have to be higher than that in Cirencester. (Due to taxes, real estate costs, staffing, ..etc)

We should also take into consideration business clusters, which also draws in the people and process factors. Business which form clusters will end up employing the same staff over time and therefore develop similar processes. Clusters are concentrations of highly specialized skills and knowledge, institutions, rivals, related businesses, and sophisticated customers in a particular nation or region. Proximity in geographic, cultural, and institutional terms allows special access, special relationships, better information, powerful incentives, and other advantages in productivity and productivity growth that are difficult to tap from a distance. As a result, in a cluster, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

Each location has a unique set of taxes, international trade arrangements and laws which dictate the level of productivity. Some industries are protected by law and therefore can operate with lower or higher productivity.

Processes

The first set of innovation around productivity was designing processes to improve productivity by simplifying the task, for example Ford’s production line and McDonald’s restaurant. Process engineering focuses on the design, operation, control, optimization and intensification of processes. In a knowledge economy this is typically information and data through electronic means. Data like money is not worth anything if it is not used or traded, also like money needs to be kept secure and have some form of traceability.

Technology

In traditional manufacturing (Think car manufacturing) the first stage of increasing productivity was designing the processes so that a person could do a smaller task faster, then using a machine to semi-automate the task and finally reducing the role of the person down to supervision and maintenance.  

The computer has increased the productivity of many increases, most notable the Banking which now allow us access to our money from our phones, no longer having to go to a branch. Service industry productivity is increasing faster than manufacturing over the last twenty years.

For the knowledge and service economy this requires typically a computer to have knowledge and provide service. So if we are booking a flight, then the computer needs to have been programmed with a process to book one or more flights and a complete list of flights and there availability. The problem arises when you say I want to fly anywhere on friday night. So in these industries AI will provide the increased productivity that robots have provided in the car manufacturing industry.

Blog, Enterprise Education, Skills Development, Venture Capital and Funding

7 obstacles experienced by entrepreneurs

As an entrepreneur we have lots of do, but sometimes we just do it wrong, we let obstacles get in our way. So what are the typical obstacles we entrepreneurs have to deal with:

  1. Perfectionism – For entrepreneurs, practice doesn’t make perfect; action does. You simply cannot wait until you are 100 percent ready before you take action. Think MVP.
  2. Procrastination –  Sometimes its easier to delay the decision, the action or even dealing with the problem, so each day “Eat the Frog” and take action of the real issues within your business.
  3. Fear – Entrepreneurs’ resolve is tested from the very first step of starting a business. In fact, one entrepreneur compared starting a business to jumping off a cliff and assembling your parachute on the way down.
  4. Worry – As an entrepreneur, worry comes with the territory. In fact, over a third of entrepreneurs told Gallup they worried a lot about yesterday. While worry is a quotidian experience, it is not productive. You have to make peace with the things that concern you, and not let them stop you from taking action and pursuing your dreams.
  5. Financing – Experienced entrepreneurs don’t have it easy when it comes to funding a new business, but they do have a few advantages over newcomers. They might have a pool of capital from a business they previously sold or a steady stream of revenue they can use to fund a new business’s cash flow.
  6. Team building – This is especially hard if you’ve never run or managed a team before, but even if you have management experience, picking the right team for a startup is stressful and difficult. It’s not enough to find candidates who fill certain roles — you also need to consider their cost to the business, their culture fit and how they’ll work as part of your overall team. Such considerations are exceptionally hard when you’re under the pressure of filling those positions as soon as possible.
  7. Decision-making – Believe it or not, this is probably the most stressful challenge on this list. New entrepreneurs are forced to make hundreds of decisions a day, from big, company-impacting decisions, to tiny, hour-affecting ones. Decision fatigue is a real phenomenon, and most new entrepreneurs will experience it if they aren’t prepared for the new level of stress.
Blog, Resources, Venture Capital and Funding

5 Sources of funding to start a business

If you are looking to fund your startup and not sure where to start? Here is a quick guide to five potential sources of funding for your small business. I have tried to put them in order with the best way first:

    1. Bootstrapping: Many billionaire entrepreneurs find a way to grow without external financing so that financiers don’t control their destinies or grab a disproportionate slice of the business.
    2. Customers: Advance payments from customers can give you the cash you need, at a relatively low cost, to keep your business growing. Advances also demonstrate a level of commitment by the customer to your operation.
    3. Friends and family members:  If you’re lucky, friends and family members might be the most lenient investors of the bunch. They don’t tend to make you pledge your house, and they might even agree to sell their interest in your company back to you for a nominal return.
    4. Startup Loans: Start Up Loans is a government-funded scheme that fund your startup and mentors entrepreneurs. They have a series of delivery partners  who will help you develop a business plan.
    5. Bank loans:  Banks are like the supermarket of debt financing. They provide short-, mid- or long-term financing, and they finance all asset needs, including working capital, equipment and real estate. However, they typically are not the first place to look for funds for your startup.

When taking loans to fund your startup from friends and family, banks or another you must, have a written agreement covering every last detail regarding the loan. This includes the loan amount, the repayment period, the amount of each repayment instalment, the interest rate if any, consequences of non-repayment etc.  If in doubt get a lawyer to help you.

Blog, Skills Development, Venture Capital and Funding

Startup Incubator Best practice

What do people need from an incubator when starting a business ?

Over the last six years I have visited, be a participant of and worked in an startup Incubator. So I have had the opportunity to see it from all sides. The one thing I learnt very early on was it’s not about the physical space. Those with the most colourful, innovative decor or largest wall hanging tended to be the worst. Those that I liked focused on a few important things, so lets consider them in the right order:

Business Networking

The opportunity to network and be associated with a network is the most important factor. Entrepreneurs that do well network, it provides co-founders, investors, customers and the most importantly great staff. So having this provided on a plate to you, when starting out, is the golden egg which your business should be incubated in.

Mentoring

Most people who run incubators have never started or run a business, so having a mentor is very important in creating perspective, inspiration and raw guidance. The mentor and mentee should be trained to understand the expectations placed on the each other. The selection of the mentor should be based on the stage of the business, business sector and the location of the entrepreneur. Having more than one mentor should also be encouraged.

Flexible Space

It’s important that formal meeting space, serendipitous meetings and water cooler moments are all facilitated within the incubator. The majority of business people today expect to meet in a cafe or open space but a closed space is also needed for formal meetings. The hot desking should have great wifi.

Friendly Support

Having people who can support you when things don’t go as expected is important. The ability to ask someone who can sign post you to additional support, grants, loans and people is so important when starting out, pivoting and trying to bootstrap your business. When selecting an incubator, do the staff seam helpful and knowledgeable.

Skills Development Events

In the process of starting a business most people learn new skills naturally, but don’t know it and need reminded of the distance covered. Some people need organised session whereby they develop skills and knowledge which will be needed in the future, next month/year. The majority of incubators will have a speaker series to support this.

Funding Support

Most people don’t need that much, if you are outside London, the costs of living is less. If the office is free then it’s just some living expenses and then some Stuff to move the business forward. However access to finance at various stages is important to scale businesses and the staff should be able to support you in this endeavour.

Free or Discounted Stuff

Most businesses need a tool bag of stuff which can help them more forward their business. This may include websites, accounting software, payment solutions, discounted travel, …etc. Its also helpful if the incubator can recommend software solutions for you, saving you the research space and money.

 

The important factors in starting a business are sometimes softer that you think. Its not always Money, Staff and 1000 sq ft office space. It may just be a cup of tea with someone who has done it before and has a story to tell.

Blog, Resources, Venture Capital and Funding

Essential Software Tools for a Startup Business

Over the last year I have either started mentoring or joined the advisory board of several technology startups. These are technology led businesses with a team of both techies and non-technics. For every startup its important to set the tools early on as it influences the culture of the business and also the pace of the business growth. Selecting the wrong tool delays development as everyone has to learn it or even stops the business as no one wants to use this tool.

There is no one tools I recommend and it depends on the team members and then the project attributes, such as the size of team, selected coding platform, use of third party plugins and also the length of the creative cycles. So below you will find at least two options for each core tool. The tools selected below all start off with a freemium model which is ideal for startups.

Another factor in selecting the tools below was they should work on multiple devices (mobile, tablet and PC) and also with multiple people (sharing, editing and also distribution).

Startup Documents

Criteria: Need to share, edit and collaborate on documents. Multiple people should be able to view documents at any time.

Evernote

I have been a fan of Evernote since it was first launched. I use it in several ways:

  • Research – I use the Web Clip extension to save web pages which then allow me to develop a collection of articles very quickly and then index them against tags and within notebooks. For early stage startups understanding what competitors are doing and how certain technology works is important. This can then be shared with everyone on the team, ensuring a similar knowledge base.
  • I have multiple notebooks that I use for all sorts of things including my task management, goal setting, lists of all kinds, photos and random notes.

Google Apps/Docs

Its taken me some time to get happy with Google Docs and still don’t put documents I want to be secure on it, but as an editor which multiple people can use to generate a shared vision its the best tool out there.

  • Collaborative Documents – The document editor is better than MS Word and has a better spell checker, it also loads faster.
  • Save As function, especially to PDF and Website is worth using as it allows you to email and share document very quickly.
  • Google Forms is the best way to create surveys. Since I found this I have stopped using Survey Monkey which has got too expensive.

Startup Internal Comms & Project Management

Criteria: A place where everyone can state what they are doing and when, any issues are discussed and logged.

Skype

This is a must have tool for collaborative teams.

  • Team Chat – To have a open chat box which everyone can contribute, add files and also URL links is extremely powerful. This always on and open team collaborative culture is extremely important to generating momentum for the business.
  • Team Calls – Every team has to go through the storming/norming phases and chatting on Skype for hours on getting the vision/mission/strategy right is the only way. Most of my team members use Skype of their mobile/tablet for this, so they can walk around the house, trying different rooms during each stage of the meeting.

Trello

This provides a digital kanban board for project management, allows the team to contribute and on one page see the entire set of tasks.

  • Great way to show projects, tasks and business mapping on one page which everyone can buy into.
  • The graphical interface provide a simple way to get the team to contribute and set/agree their tasks

Startup Cloud Storage

Criteria: Always on and backed up to the cloud. Low cost.

Dropbox

Keeps my working files available to me wherever I am, synched across multiple devices.

  • For one startup all their large images are shared through dropbox with all documents shared through Google Docs.
  • I also backup google docs and websites  to Dropbox
  • For another startup they use this for their business plans and external funding applications

Backupify

This is a cloud-to-cloud backup provider which enables you to draw down these resources and also edit and repurpose.

  • So backing up what’s on Flickr, Twitter, Delicious, Zoho, Google Apps/Docs, WordPress, Basecamp, Gmail, Facebook, Google Calendar…

Startup Code Management

Criteria: Version control for multiple developers

Github

This is the default repository for any startup source code plus task lists for developers.

  • It offers as standard distributed revision control and source code management functionality you need.
  • The Wiki and bug tracking features are important once development has started. A wiki can help track the outcomes of those conversations you have about “Should we do it this way or that”. As you know you one of these will be wrong and you will need to reserve this decision.

Windows Azure

This feature rich version allows expansion and future proofing.
You can get this free on the “www.microsoft.com/bizspark/” programme

  • As with a lot of Mircosoft products they are very well designed, (sometimes too over engineered), so choose the options carefully to start with and then open up additional features later on when needed. This way you can grow into the product and not be over “controlled” by the tool.

Startup Social Media

Criteria: Simple tools to tell the world of your progress during development. Management of multiple channels during launch.

Hootsuite

This is my default social media management tool, as it has Instagram, Youtube and others.

  • Management of multiple streams
  • The fact you can see all tweets from a particular Search and interact with these is very powerful

Buffer App

A simple and elegant way of scheduling tweets and posts.

  • Easy to get started and set a scheduled tweet or facebook feed
  • The sharing and timing when these posts go out is very powerful

There is lots of research on how startups work and the process. The vast majority of it states that time, finance and commitment is limited within the team. Therefore a simple limited set of tools is more powerful than having a expanded and more complete solution. The startup process to MVP and Alpha testing is a non perfect process and therefore over engineering the need for support tools just over complicates the project and therefore inserts delays.