The Burnout UK Epidemic: Managing in the world of entrepreneurship

Burnout is a common issue that affects millions of people around the world. No more so than for entrepreneurs placing everything on the line to launch their businesses. 

This article explores burnout causes and potential solutions from exercise and breathing exercises, to innovative potential solutions like water soluble CBD.

Whether working from home, in an office, or any other work environment, the pressure to perform can quickly lead to exhaustion, cynicism, and a lack of motivation. It’s a vicious cycle that can be hard to escape, but it’s not impossible.

With the right tools and strategies, you can learn how to manage your workload, reduce stress such as by using cbd, and maintain your mental and physical health.  Whether you’re an entrepreneur, motivated team member, or a student, this article is for you. So, let’s get started!

What is burnout?

Think of burnout as a slow burn, like a candle that has been lit for too long and is starting to lose its light. It creeps up on you, taking over your thoughts and energy until you feel completely overwhelmed and exhausted.

It’s a feeling of disillusionment and disconnection that can make even the simplest tasks feel like a burden.

It’s important to understand that burnout is not just a state of mind. It’s a natural and complex phenomenon that can seriously affect your mental and physical health.

But the good news is that it’s also preventable. By taking care of yourself, setting boundaries, and learning how to manage your workload, you can avoid burnout and live a more fulfilling and balanced life.

So, if you feel that slow burn, don’t ignore it. Take action and put out the flame before it consumes you.

Identifying burnout symptoms

Before qualifying how to recover from burnout, it’s essential to understand its symptoms.

Common signs of burnout include:

  • Difficulty concentrating
  • Confusion
  • Irritability
  • Apathy
  • Unproductive
  • Inability to focus

On a physical level, burnout can manifest as

  • Fatigue
  • Headaches
  • Other kinds of physical discomfort

It can be challenging to recognise the signs of burnout, as they can be subtle and easily overlooked. It’s essential to be aware of the warning signs and take action to prevent burnout before it becomes a severe issue.

How to recover from burnout

Recovering from burnout requires taking care of both your physical and emotional wellbeing. If you’re tired from work, it’s important to take some time off to recharge and refocus.

As an entrepreneur you can promote wellbeing as a policy that supports work-life balance and provides resources for stress management.  Ultimately, you will be more productive with a healthy mind and body.

As individuals, simple wellbeing tips can be used to prevent burnout. Remember, taking care of yourself is not selfish; it’s essential for your long-term health and wellbeing, both on and off the job.

Prioritising self care

To protect yourself against burnout, you must commit to making time for self-care. This doesn’t necessarily mean expensive spa trips or activities outside the home – it can be as simple as having a regular bath or doing pilates for 10 minutes at home.

What is important is that you make time to do something for yourself each day, even for a few minutes. This will allow you to relax uninterrupted and focus on your self-care.

Creating a daily routine

Creating a daily routine helps provide structure and encourages self-discipline. As much as possible, try to be consistent with meal times, bedtimes, and leisure activities so you’re not constantly questioning what you should be doing next. A routine also helps reduce stress by giving your mind a sense of structure and familiarity.

Breathing Exercises

Your breath is one of your greatest tools in keeping calm. Breathing exercises are a simple and effective way to reduce stress, improve mental clarity, and promote relaxation. By controlling your breathing, you can improve your heart function, reduce anxiety and calm the mind. Breathing exercises can be performed anywhere and at any time, making them a convenient and accessible tool for managing stress and promoting relaxation.

There are several different breathing techniques to choose from, each with its own unique benefits, so you can find the one that works best for you. Whether you’re new to breathing exercises or have been practicing for years, incorporating them into your daily routine can help you feel more relaxed and rejuvenated.

Eating and sleeping well

Adequate sleep and nutritious meals are two of the most important ingredients in avoiding burnout. To ensure you’re getting enough rest, try sleeping at the same time every night and sticking to a consistent schedule.

Eating nutritious meals will help fuel your body with the energy it needs throughout the day. Additionally, try incorporating small workouts into your daily routine – even 15-20 minutes of light exercise can help keep your body energised.

Exercising regularly

Exercising regularly can be an effective way to strengthen your body and mind while avoiding burnout. Physical activity reduces stress hormones while stimulating endorphins that make you feel good.

Regular exercise will also help you get better quality sleep in the evenings while supporting your body’s overall health. As a bonus, physical activity can also help clear your thoughts, making staying focused on the task at hand easier.

Supplements such as CBD Drops

CBD has become a popular alternative for those looking for new methods to manage burnout. It’s not just a trend either – as the CBD market has exploded globally, with the UK market said to be worth more than vitamin C.

As an entrepreneur, you are looking for anyway to boost performance and so CBD is an obvious choice to test as a bio-hacking tool.  Water Soluble CBD drops are one of most effective forms, due to being fast acting and highly absorbable.  

Of course, everyone is different, and results may vary, but there are those that swear by it, CBD might be a game changer.

Setting boundaries

It’s important to set clear boundaries with employers, colleagues, and family members to protect yourself from burnout. This may require saying no more often or delegating tasks to free up some time for yourself.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed with responsibilities, take a step back and re-evaluate how you can manage those duties more efficiently to make some extra time for something more enjoyable – like reading or taking a walk.

Connecting with Friends and Family

Socialising is an essential part of self-care that is often ignored in our busy lives. Make time to socialise with friends or family members regularly.

Whether that be regular phone calls home or having supportive conversations with colleagues at work, staying connected can help you stay mentally engaged while creating a sense of community support.

Seeking professional help

If all other methods fail, don’t hesitate to seek professional advice from a doctor or therapist who can help guide you through any issues that may be causing burnout in your life.

Burnout is a serious problem that you should not take lightly. With simple lifestyle changes to prioritise self-care, relaxation, exercise, and socialising – as well as seeking professional help when necessary – one can effectively avoid burnout while recharging their energy.

Final say

Burnout is a growing concern in today’s fast-paced society, but taking care of oneself and utilising alternative methods such as CBD, exercise and seeking help can greatly aid in managing its symptoms.

By Oliver Osgood, co-founder of Master Plant

How Much Does It Cost to Start Your Own Business?

When it comes to launching a brand-new startup business many entrepreneurs miscalculate how expensive it is to launch, and what sorts of things that they will need to spend money on to make their business successful.

We explore some of the main start-up costs that efficient small businesses owners may need to consider when they set up a new business. Not all these business startup costs apply to absolutely every business, but they might apply to certain types of business.

Also, many of these costs will apply to all businesses, so it is a good idea to familiarize yourself with some of the common expenses and business costs that entrepreneurs should have planned and covered for in their business plan, and for employees forms, the use of a w9 creator can be the best choice.

Research & Development Costs

When it comes to research and development, the costs here can be astronomical depending on what it is you are hoping to release. If you are bringing a brand-new concept to market, the cost of development might be so high that you will immediately require third party investment into your business. If you’re an entrepreneur with an existing track record, this might come from venture capital companies.

These costs do not apply to everyone. Some businesses do not really have much exposure to research and development outgoings, aide from some basic market research. This is especially true if the organization is being built on your own skills or as a services company.

Incorporation Costs

Although you could start your business on the side unofficially, as soon as you need to grow and lay some proper foundations for your business down, you will need to register it, and this will incur some incorporation costs.

The cost for incorporating your business is dependent on your own local market. For instance, the cost varies at a state level in the US. You will also need some documentation created depending on the type of company that you intend to create. With that in mind you may need to hire an expert to help you incorporate your company correctly, so you may need to factor this in as well. However, this expense is typically a one-time cost, and the fees are quite low in comparison to other things that you will need to invest in for your business.

You may also need to look at specific business licenses covering the area that you want to work in. These might be one-off costs or re-occurring but often you’ll need to get these before you begin trading so you should include them at the time of incorporation or trading if there is going to be a big delay between the two points.

Real Estate & Property Costs

When it comes to office space, warehouse space and retail space in general, the costs can range from effectively zero to a huge amount of money. It all depends on what sort of business you will be running and what your operational needs are.

If you are looking to launch a new business, one question you need to ask yourself is whether your business model can operate without office space in the first place. Many businesses today can run just as well with its team members working from home. When starting a brand-new business, it is a good idea to trim the expenses and costs down as far as you can, and often, renting or leasing expensive office space is a good way to burn through your finances quickly, without much to show for it.

Of course, some businesses require real estate, so this cost must be factored in. Size and location are the key factors to consider when choosing a retail property for your business. If you need to save some of your money on rental think about what your needs are and what location, you could base your business in.

Product, Tooling, Machinery

If your business sells physical products, then you will need to consider the costs of the products you sell. Retailers will look to source products from resellers, distributors and manufacturers and you will need to research where you can get your products from.

One problem is that many larger manufacturers won’t supply a new business with product directly, they will push you through to a reseller or distributor and even these companies can be picky with who they deal with since often they will look for a track record in retail and a decent credit score. Many new retailers find that the ‘doors are closed’, and it can be hard to buy product in the first place.

Other businesses that aren’t looking to sell other companies products look to create their own and bring a new product to the market. For these companies there is a different problem. How will the product be developed and produced?

Ultimately this will depend on the product you are creating. Sometimes it is a good idea to create the product yourself, but for this you may need tooling and machinery. Often, a different approach when a business first starts out is to outsource all of this to a third-party manufacturer. With this method a new business can at least get quotes and ascertain what the outgoing cost is going to be at an early stage, prior to investing in expensive machinery or tools. Often this is the preferred approach for a new business and many large multi-national companies also use this approach when manufacturing products for sale.

Another aspect that is overlooked that is relevant to this type of expense is shipping. Both from manufacturing plants and to your customers. It can be expensive and often it is an aspect that can be overlooked when calculating product profitability.

Business Equipment

Business equipment is another expense that is often overlooked. Some brand-new startups can get away with just one computer or laptop to get started but many people do not consider that if they recruit employees, each of these individuals will likely require a laptop if they are office-based staff. This then leads to the need to go to the furniture store for office furniture such as desks and office chairs. Even things like the office kettle or coffee machine can fall into this category, so again, have a long hard think as to what you will need for your business. This also includes all the software packages you will need to buy.

You will need to buy office supplies, from coffee, to stationary and all sorts of other things that employees need in their day-to-day activities. These will also need to be replenished on a regular basis, so you’ll need to consider this in your general day-to-day business expenses.

When it comes to software often there are free versions that offer similar features to the main applications that many businesses use. Perhaps you can cut costs and use these instead in the beginning. Other software packages such as with accounting software, you may need something that is specialist, so you cannot cut cost easily for all packages. Either way, anywhere you can save money on your startup costs and ongoing expenditure is something worth doing since all these business costs add up, especially in the beginning.

If you’re thinking of opening a retail outlet, then you will need to fit it out and invest in a whole range of different things to Point of Sale equipment to shelving and signage. It’s a long list of things that you’ll need so you will have to set a lot of money aside for this aspect. Warehouses, specialist outlets and manufacturing plants come with their own types of expenses, and these costs can add up quickly, so it is a good idea to have a comprehensive plan as to what it is you need in terms of startup funding. Often the expenses are a lot higher than first expected.

Business Insurance & Cover

There are a lot of different business insurance products available to help protect yourself when you are trading as a company. You might not need them all in the beginning, but lawsuits and claims can be expensive.

Some of the different types of business insurance products that might be applicable to your business (but not always all) might include: general liability insurance, professional liability insurance, product insurance, hazard insurance and insurance to cover issues with employees.

It is worth sitting down and going through the different insurance packages that are available to work out what you need and what doesn’t apply to your business type. It is an added expense to your outgoings but could make the difference to whether your business survives or fails if something is to occur that is unexpected. You’ll need to shop around to find out what the average cost of insurance is for your small business.

Recruitment, Employees, Outsourcing

Generally, a business needs people to service it and that’s where employees come into the picture. Payroll and salary expenses normally take up a huge amount of a businesses operating cash so you will need to factor in as to what employees you need and what budget you will need for them.

When evaluating how much an employee costs, you shouldn’t forget that they usually need items to do their job. Think about the uniforms, laptops, chairs, desks and even coffee! This also needs to be factored into your budgeting.

How are you going to find employees? If you use recruitment firms then these can be great at finding the right employee for your business, but they come with their own set of fees.

Often when a business is new it can be pragmatic to consider using freelances and external companies to service some of the areas of the business which you would need to typically need to hire a person for. One example might be too hire a third-party accounting firm to handle your books or to outsource your IT services. Although these costs can be high it is a lot easier to switch or cut back on an expense from another company than lay-off internal staff.

there are a wide range of professional services and freelancers that you might need for your business anyway, regardless of employees. These include accountancy firms, book-keeping, legal firms and lawyers to handle legal fees and issues, IT, and even marketing and advertising agencies, who all bring specialist skills into your business which you would otherwise have to recruit for. However if you or someone you love has sustained a traumatic brain injury, you’ll be needing good lawyers for the legal representation you need to make sure that you are fairly compensated.

Marketing & Advertising

Marketing and advertising is another area that you might need to spend money on as a business. If nobody knows about your product or service, how are you going to sell it? You need to get the word out about your new business and the way to do this is through marketing and advertising.

How much you may need to spend on marketing is dependent on your budget and your industry, but the good news is that there are some ways to reduce your marketing costs by utilizing some of the free marketing channels, such as social media. If you manage to get a post trending on social, then your customers can come in from that. Of course, social media is not always useful for every type of business, but it is one option out of many.

Most businesses these days have a website and if you’re an online business this might be a necessity. Building a web site can be expensive, but you can find free packages available for your site with free templates. You could pay someone to create a custom template, but if you’re looking to cut costs then a free one will get you started.

Once it’s time to launch your business then you will need to think about branding and design. This is something else you’ll need to spend money on at the beginning, because you will want something that looks professional and unique.

Types of Business Cost

When it comes to your business there are a lot of different costs, and these can be broken down into different expense types. Unfortunately, in the first year of trading there are a lot of different expenses and business needs, and this can have a big influence on your cash flow.

Some of the different business operating cost types are classified as:

Fixed and ongoing costs – these are the costs for your business that you cannot change. For example, your business property rent might be considered both fixed and on-going (even if it might be subject to change at some point or if you move location). In this case this is an expense that you need to factor in to pay your bills each month.

Variable costs – are the costs that can change depending on what happens in your business. Examples of variable costs are employee expenses and business travel.

One-time costs – These one-time expenses can be the big investments that your business needs, such as tooling and machinery, or even things like office equipment, such as laptops. You may occasionally need to replace items, but typically they can be classified as one-off costs. Often this is a type of upfront business cost that is quite high in the beginning.

How to Finance Your Business

So how do you finance your business? There are many ways to get the money to launch a new business. The question is what business finance method is right for your own startup?

Often new businesses are self-funded by the entrepreneurs own personal savings. You may even hear of businesses being launched off the back of someone’s credit card. These success stories are few and far between.

If you have a business idea but lack the funds to realize it, then you could look to outside sources for money for your business.

When you open a bank account you might expect that the lender will also offer you a small business loan. Unfortunately, that is not the case for most brand-new businesses and a line of credit is not open to most. Often, they will not even give you a business credit card.

The good news is that there are other financing options such as angel investment. Angel investors are high net worth individuals who look to invest in brand new businesses and startups in return for some equity in the business.

Often angel investors can help with business startup expenses or expansion costs and offer an invaluable service to would be entrepreneurs what have good business ideas but do not have the means to launch themselves with their own finances.

If you’re looking for an angel investor to help fund your business, then the Angel Investment Network can help. Sign-up to pitch your business to investors located all over the world.

Startups & Covid-19

This week we spoke to Harun,  the Co-founder & COO of Glorifyapp.com about the effects of Covid-19 on Glorify. Glorify is a Saas design tool created specifically for eCommerce entrepreneurs. It eliminates the need for professional designers, making it easy for anyone to design product imagery and marketing content for their e-commerce business in just a few clicks.

Our interview with Harun:

How has the coronavirus impacted your business?

Glorify is performing very well despite the coronavirus outbreak. Our greatest asset is that our company has a solid runway and therefore, all our key players have remained intact and have been working harder than ever to grow the business. 

From February 2020 – to March 2020, we’ve had a whopping  358% growth in our user subscription numbers. This clearly reflects the fact that businesses need a Saas product such as Glorify, in order to propel their own businesses at a time where most are losing money quite drastically. 

Furthermore, with the vast majority of countries on lockdown, the need for online shopping has grown tremendously. This has created a massive requirement for more eCommerce businesses to spring up to fulfil this demand. Glorify offers these businesses an affordable platform to create all the design and marketing material that they need to keep their businesses afloat. 

Have you had to pivot your business and if so?

We haven’t had to pivot the business, however, we have offered a 60% discount on our annual plans to ensure that we are affordable and considerate towards businesses that we know are struggling during this period. 

Have you been engaged in a fundraise during this time?

We started to fundraise just two weeks before the outbreak began in London. We are still reaching out to investors to secure our first round of investment. If we have to, we will bring Glorify in front of 100’s of investors to eventually find that outstanding investor to partner with. 

How has this been impacted and are you adjusting your plans?

We understand that most investors will be a lot more cautious in their decisions at this current moment. However, we feel it’s important to let investors know that we are a thriving and growing business, we have a winning team and a superior product despite the current difficulties.

We also feel that it’s important to make the first point of contact with investors regardless of time and circumstance, because it will take a number of contacts before the investment round will be close. 

What message would you have for investors?

Our message to investors is that Glorify is a highly investable organisation, particularly due to the massive surge in eCommerce businesses. With the Covid-19 pandemic, more and more people are turning to online shopping which creates the need for more eCommerce businesses. And for an eCommerce store to do well, they need to have high performing ads, a trustworthy brand, a website/online store with images that represent their products authentically and attractively. These businesses most likely cannot afford the high paid services of professional graphic designers, and so Glorify is the answer to their design and marketing needs. 

We are also confident that once the pandemic ceases, online shopping will remain as popular as it is now, purely due to the ease of just clicking what you desire and having it delivered to your doorstep. 

How are you coping with lockdown? What is your strategy?

My team and I are coping well with the lockdown. We are all geared towards facing any problem that comes our way with positivity and determination, and to make something good out of a bad situation. 

The co-founders of Glorify have two mandatory meetings each week (apart from the several other calls over the week). These are scheduled on Mondays and Thursdays. The meeting on Monday covers mostly the expectations of team members and what goals and deliverables each department is expected to fulfil. 

On Tuesdays, we have team meetings with the heads of each department and discuss the work they’ve completed the previous week, and then outline the goals of the upcoming week.

The heads of the department then in turn, have meetings with their relevant sub teams to ensure that there is 100% alignment and coordination. 

We use Slack for communication throughout the week and everyone has been responsive, communicative and on top of their game. In fact, most of us even work on weekends!

Is there anything your business is doing to help in your community or with the wider crisis?

Yes. Since our launch in September 2019, we have been involved in charitable ventures. We have offered donations to various organisations such as drop of life, save the children, little hearts, Oxfam International and more. We have also offered free Glorify accounts to registered charities such as Child Aid Gambia and the Namaste Welfare Trust. 

We are now shifting our focus to Covid-19 related charities and have reached out to our Glorify community to suggest charities that we can donate to. More on this here.

What do you think about the measures that have been introduced by the Chancellor?

It is indeed reassuring to see the Chancellor announcement to help and support small to  large businesses across all industries. He promises to make available an initial £330 billion of guarantees – equivalent to 15% of UK GDP. 

I think the real challenge will be to ensure that those who need it most receive such funding easily and quickly. Otherwise, many business owners will end up losing everything they have worked so hard for. 

What else do you think the Government should do?

I believe that the government needs to pay attention to the strat-up spaces as much as  the large companies. Big companies no doubt need help at this moment. Airlines, for example, are severely hurting and looking for a bailout. Hotels, cruise ships, national foodservice chains, manufacturers, and more may find themselves in line, too. Assistance should, and likely will, be given.

Startups may be small companies but they can play a significant role in economic growth. They create more jobs which means more employment, and more employment means an improved economy. Not only that, startups can also contribute to economic dynamism by spurring innovation and injecting competition.

What advice would you give to other startups at this time?

Improvise! We understand that not all businesses can thrive at a time like this, but it’s crucial that start ups come up with coping strategies. Remember, Covid-19 will pass. And when it does, it’s important that you come out of this pandemic ahead of the game, and not remain buried under it.

If you have the resources, try to invest in essential and fast moving products that you are certain will sell. If you are not, we would advise you to come up with coping strategies such as using relevant ebook lead magnets, offering giveaways that would be useful during a lockdown, create content strategy around the current hot topic as Glorify has done.

Regardless of what you choose to do, Glorify is here to help you out. We are offering our annual plans at a whopping 60% discount purely because we understand that businesses are running on low fuel during this unfortunate time.

For more tips on dealing with the impacts of coronavirus, visit our Startup Survival Guide.

Startups & Covid-19

This we spoke to Chantal, the Founder of the music licensing for performance sports platform ClickNClear, to find out how Covid-19 is effecting her business.

Our interview with Chantal:

How has coronavirus impacted your business?

It has certainly affected our market (we license music to performance sports) and slowed a few things down but it has not drastically impacted our business yet. We are still early stage and technically pre-revenue and were planning on launching in the summer. It may delay our launch slightly but we do not see it drastically affecting when we will be revenue generating. Sports events will happen again, it’s just a question of when so we just need to be as prepared as possible.

Have you had to pivot your business and if so how?

To some degree, yes. We are a music tech company licensing music to performance sports teams. We have been in beta for the last year and are planning on doing a launch this summer. All events have been cancelled however and whilst that would seem like the end of the world for a business like ours, we actually see it as an opportunity.

We have been busy focussing on our technology and continuing to sign more deals with music industry labels and publishers so when we are ready to launch, we have the best tech and the best music possible. Now that sports teams are closed for training, sports federations and coaches have the time to engage in conversation, browse ClicknClear and think about their music for next season. Instead of attending events and meeting people, we can focus this time on building education around music licensing and closing deals with international and national sports federations which will help us generate revenue as soon as events start up again.

Have you been engaged in a fundraise during this time?

We had just started a new fundraise when COVID19 hit and have seen a slow down in response and interest. Many are looking after existing portfolio companies and are less interested in investing in new companies especially if they are in a market that has been negatively affected. 

How has this been impacted and are you adjusting your plans?

There’s a lot of uncertainty right now so we have been re-thinking our raise and ways we can continue for longer without additional funding or ways we could close less funding now, with a potential bigger raise once this is all under control.

Another consideration for us is that we are a global company. We work with national federations all around the world and each of them will go in and out of lockdown at different times. We are keeping up to date with all the latest news and keeping conversations going with those federations so we are in the best position possible.

What message would you have for investors?

The time to explore and start conversations is now. Most people have more time. Some of us are still very busy but if we start conversations now, you can learn how founders operate and react to some of the most difficult challenges. It is possibly the best test of the capability of a founder(s) and should mean that an investor can become much more comfortable with their investment and more understanding of the businesses plan. 

We are open to having initial conversations and keeping potentially interested parties up to date as things progress.

How are you coping with lockdown? What is your strategy?

We all remotely work so we’ve been fairly accustomed to lockdown for a while! It hasn’t affected us too much at all. It’s actually been really nice to not be on an aeroplane every couple weeks and spend some much needed time to focus on new ideas and projects we’ve been wanting to do. We are a small team but this has essentially increased our resources! We can get more done, we are becoming even better at communication and are getting creative with solutions to challenges.

Is there anything your business is doing to help in your community or with the wider crisis?

We have been thinking of some potential ways to help but given we are still pre-launch, we are still building some of our community. We have been putting out themed positive playlists of music to help support people but are really focussed on building all of our educational material covering music licensing so coaches have additional resources and understanding of it.

What advice would you give to other startups at this time?

These are challenging times for us all. Some will make it but others won’t and we can’t be too hard on ourselves for something that is out of our control.

You have to focus on the small things that you can control in your business – scale back expenditure if you need to, ask yourself the difficult questions, have a plan a, b c, d and more! Be ready to adapt to anything that comes your way and try and remain positive but accept that you will have bad days and know what they will pass. 

For more tips on dealing with the impacts of coronavirus, visit our Startup Survival Guide.

#SixtySecondStartup

This week we spoke to Sara, Co-founder of On Good Authority – a premium outdoor lifestyle brand with sustainability at its heart. In the middle of fundraising before Covid-19 struck, Sara spoke to us about how they have had to change their business plans and why shopping sustainably is more important than ever.

Co-founders Sara & Hannah

Our interview with Sara:

What does your company do?

On Good Authority is a premium outdoor lifestyle brand that merges contemporary styling with waterproof technology using recycled fabrics and non-toxic water repellency techniques. We bridge the gap between fashion and function in a truly conscious way.

Why did you set up this company?

We felt frustrated at the compromise between style and practically in women’s rainwear. 

How did you get your first customer?  

Like many startups, our first customer was a friend who experienced the same challenge and had been looking for a stylish waterproof for years.

We knew we were onto something when? 

When we started speaking to our friends and wider circles. We realised it wasn’t just us that shared this frustration and with our relevant industry backgrounds it occurred to us that it was a problem we could actually solve.

Our business model: 

We are primarily a D2C fashion brand supported by wholesale partnerships.

Our most effective marketing channel has been:  

Speaking directly to our audience, whether that’s organically through our social media channels, at Pop-Up events or with carefully curated influencers with shared vision, style and values.

The biggest mistake that I’ve made is: 

Maybe being a bit too conscientious and trademarking our name quite early on in the overall process to then re-brand and change our name! 

We think that there’s growth in this sector because: 

We’re at the forefront of an emerging global movement where consumers are demanding sustainable product and conscious lifestyles. It’s not a fad, it’s here to stay because we have to make fundamental changes in the way we live and consume if we are going to secure a future for our planet and the next generations.

Has Covid-19 had any impact on your fundraising plans? And if so, how are you adapting? 

We were in the midst of fundraising when Covid-19 hit the UK. It soon became apparent that investors were unlikely to take risks on new business startups, as they may need to step in and financially support those already within their portfolio. So with this in mind, we decided to put our fundraising efforts on hold.

We are now taking the opportunity to hone our proposition even further and reframe our business plan so that we can relaunch in summer 2021 in tandem with the UK music festival season. We believe (hope) that by then the economy should have settled and people will be extremely keen to get outside and party come rain or shine!

How are you coping with lockdown? What is your strategy?

Right now, we are focusing on keeping engaged with our audience and using our platform to continue to raise awareness about the importance of shopping sustainably. Now more than ever, we are becoming aware of the importance of conscious living. From the way we eat, to how we travel and to how much clothing we consume. It feels like the perfect opportunity to continue to spread this message so that when we come out the other side, we carry forward these new learnt behaviours and consume more responsibly.

We are also keeping in regular contact with our family and friends including those that we have met along our start-up journey. It’s not an easy time but knowing that we are all in it together and that we can all play our part in supporting key workers by staying at home is what keeps us going. We are so grateful for modern technology allowing us to get creative with video calls and virtual house parties!

Is there anything your business is doing to help in your community or with the wider crisis?

We are using our social platform to share positive and motivational news to help spread a feeling of community. For every sale we make, we are donating £5 towards our nominated charity: RCN Foundation. This is to support the nurses who are so bravely working tirelessly on the front line supporting our nation through this very difficult time.

For more tips on dealing with the impacts of coronavirus, visit our Startup Survival Guide.

Startups & Covid-19

This week we spoke to Rob Pringle the Co-Founder of Kinsume about how they are adapting to the effects of Covid-19.

Kinsume offers unlimited scalability to influencers’ work by enabling them to earn money from recommending their favourite products to their followers and friends. Operating in ecommerce and online shopping, they have had to change their approach to counter the fall in usage that they have experienced.

Our interview with Rob:

How has coronavirus impacted your business?

As we operate in ecommerce and online shopping, we’ve seen a significant fall in usage and sales through our platform. This is exacerbated by the nature of the products we mostly deal with: fashion, beauty products, makeup – mostly non-essential items purchased after recommendation from influencers and content creators. Mapping out your business plans in advance with the help of Andy Defrancesco is a great idea.

Have you had to pivot your business and, if so, how?

We haven’t had to make a full pivot, but we’ve angled our crosshairs towards industries and products we already work with that are more robust (and even performing abnormally well) in the current global market climate, such as sports equipment and health supplements.

We’re now taking this time to take a step back from the sales end and implement a complete UX/UI overhaul of our platform, ready for when the market is more fruitful.

Have you been engaged in a fundraise during this time?

Prior to the pandemic and international lockdowns, we had already closed a round of funding, however we’ve secured additional emergency capital from our investors in case we need it to extend our runway if the situation persists.

How has this been impacted and are you adjusting your plans?

We have had to make slight adjustments in securing backup funding and changing our budget to suit the current circumstances.

What message would you have for investors?

Sit tight. As the world panics, you should remain calm and trust in your investments – this is a long game after all. Offering support and demonstrating your confidence in founders you’ve backed will be an exceptional motivator and pay dividends.

How are you coping with lockdown? What is your strategy?

Our team, spread out over the UK, mostly work from home anyway so this is not much of a curve ball for us in that regard. Optimism and a positive outlook are key here – this is perhaps a once in a lifetime chance for self-improvement. Being stuck indoors for the majority of each day has turned me to pursuits I’d never given much of a chance to such as yoga. I’ve also increased my weekly reading to 2 books per week and have kept in regular contact with friends and family which I otherwise might not have done.

Is there anything your business is doing to help in your community or with the wider crisis?

Currently our CSR program is planting trees in sub-Saharan African countries to help the environment and the communities there. We’re now exploring options for temporarily suspending this program and redirecting contributions to help produce PPE for NHS workers.

What do you think about the measures that have been introduced by the Chancellor?

A good start but certainly needs some fine tuning and improvements, I’ve noticed some adjustments have already been implemented.

What else do you think the Government should do?

That depends on the timeline of the situation and the measures that will warrant. I expect even more funding in the form of soft loans, as well as easing/extending existing loan repayments for SMEs will become necessary.

What advice would you give to other startups at this time?

Seize this time as an opportunity. It has been noted that 2009, the year after a global economic crisis, was the best year to launch a $1B unicorn. Now is the time to throw everything you have at your startup (you’re not exactly going out for dinner or socialising anytime soon!), as others slack and slow down, you should take the chance to surge ahead. By the time the economy takes off, your preparatory work has been done, the market fit proven and you’ll fly faster than you otherwise would.

For more tips on dealing with the impacts of coronavirus, visit our Startup Survival Guide.

#SixtySecondStartup

Our latest #SixtySecondStartup is with Demos Co-founder of Blazon, a new social media service for startups. We spoke to him about why they set up the company, how they started to grow it and what effects Covid-19 has been having on their business.

Co-Founders Nargis and Demos

Our interview with Demos:

What does your company do?

We are a social media services company to help startups be more active on social media channels with a low cost and flexible solution.

Why did you set up this company?

We were frustrated with the types of social media agencies out there not catering for startups. Solutions were expensive and not adaptive to the constant changes in a startup. We know what it’s like to build a startup and we want to champion startups in any way possible to give them a greater chance of success.

How did you get your first customer? 

While at an event trying to build another startup our first customer asked us who actually did our social media. When we told them, we did it all ourselves, they asked for our help because they loved our content. That was the catalyst to start a new service targeting startups just like them.

We knew we were onto something when:

We started asking startups if a service like this was available would they use it. When they said yes and then signed up when it was available, three of them in just two weeks we knew we were onto something.

Our business model: 

Startups £150 per month for us to post across their social media platforms regularly, engaging with their followers and producing 1 x blog per month for them.

We think that there’s growth in this sector because:

Social media is used by almost half of the planet. Many people often look to social media to validate a business or support them if they are customers. In order for that to happen a startups content has to be interesting and engaging for followers. There are so many startups who just do not have the time to get involved in the engagement as they are busy building their startup.

How has coronavirus impacted your business?

As our business is all about other startups, we’re governed pretty much by their business activity during this time. Some of our clients, particularly those based in countries or localities worse hit by the virus, have understandably slowed down their efforts during this time, so we’ve been making sure their social media reflects that and is kept managed despite everything else – but there are other founders we work with who have flourished despite the crisis and their startups are continuing to gain traction and grow. We’re flexible in everything that we do for our clients, so we’ve altered our business accordingly during this time – offering support and guidance to those startups who need it and reacting to the requirements we’re faced with.

How are you coping with lockdown? What is your strategy?

We’re actually really grateful that we’ve been able to trade at all during this time, as we realise not every business has been so fortunate. Our team work remotely anyway, so social distancing hasn’t affected us in that respect (plus we’re already firm friends with Zoom and other work-from-home resources!), plus working with startups at different stages in different sectors means we’re already used to adapting to different circumstances. Lockdown for our team has involved various strategies, depending on the client we work for and events going on.

So, whether that’s creating new content for social media, filming new videos to offer advice and support to the community, writing blog articles on current trending topics, strategising new ideas for when ‘normal life’ resumes or anything else that’s required of us – we’ve been non-stop! Lockdown has its fair amount of challenges as both our co-founders are working parents, but we’ve been able to support each other and our team and make the most of the situation in hand.

Is there anything your business is doing to help in your community or with the wider crisis?

Most of our time ordinarily is spent chatting with other founders, and during this time that hasn’t changed. We still talk to startups, about everything to do with their journey – their concerns, their challenges, their triumphs, etc. But we’ve enjoyed, particularly more so now, being able to offer them advice, tips or find ways to connect them with people within our network. Some people just need a sounding board, and founders are no different – talking through a situation with someone who just “gets it” can often give rise to new ideas or help solve problems. 

Our regular features, #startupshoutout and #just50, create opportunities for us to champion startups and give them a bit of free promo on our social media pages – and during this time, we’ve tried to ramp that up. It’s hard for some businesses to attract those customers when so much has shut down, so anything we can do to give them a voice, we’re more than happy to do so. The most recent feature we posted was a link to the Save Our Startups petition that is challenging the UK Government to support and save startups from collapse. It’s important to get startup businesses thinking as a community and helping each other – it’s the only way you can grow and economy to flourish.

For more tips on dealing with the impacts of coronavirus, visit our Startup Survival Guide.

Startups & Covid-19

In this blog series we are speaking to founders of startups to find out how coronavirus has effected their business, how they have adapted, and any tips they have to help others cope with these challenges. If you are struggling to adapt or looking for some advice, make sure to have a read of our interviews.

Our first interview is with Edward Upton, Founder and CEO of Littledata, which is an ecommerce analytics app and Google Analytics consultants for Shopify and Shopify Plus.

How has coronavirus impacted your business?

Luckily for us the impact has been mainly positive. We work as a globally dispersed team in normal times, so operations have not been disrupted. We saw a slight uptick in churn as smaller clients reacted quickly to slash costs, but our sales cycle for larger clients has been accelerated: people working from home have more time to take sales calls!

Have you had to pivot your business and if so how?

The core need – helping ecommerce companies get a complete view of the customer lifecycle – is more pressing than ever, as every retailer switches their focus to online sales. So there’s no need to pivot, but we have scaled back hiring plans as we push for breakeven later this year.

Have you been engaged in a fundraise during this time?

Yes – our fundraising strategy had been to raise little and often as our recurring revenue and valuation increased, and with hindsight that was always at risk to a big change in investor sentiment. We closed the latest round this week.

How has this been impacted and are you adjusting your plans?

Unfortunately we saw a number of new investors pull out of the process in March. The reasons given were a combination of wanting to keep cash for funding calls from their portfolio, a reluctance to sell their public equities at a big discount to fund our company and a general uncertainty about startup survival in the downturn. We’re very grateful for a few of our current angels who actually offered to double down and invest more than initially planned.

So we’ve closed a smaller amount than we’d planned, but we can adjust our burn rate to compensate for that – and carry on fundraising later in 2020.

What message would you have for investors?

Now’s the time to back startups! Huge global disruption will lead to acceleration of long-term trends such as the shift to online sales and marketing, and the automation of knowledge-intensive processes. Startups with a quick route to profitability and a robust business model will grow faster than before.

How are you coping with lockdown? What is your strategy?

Most of the team work from home normally, so there hasn’t been major disruption. We’ve been turning the video on more often for internal calls – it’s just nice to see another human sometimes –  and been buoyed by some funny memes on our #random Slack channel. I’ve also encouraged the team to get outside and take exercise where they can. Sitting in front of a laptop all day is not good for anyone, and we all need to stay fit and healthy in mind and body.

Is there anything your business is doing to help in your community or with the wider crisis?

We’ve been involved in a cross-agency initiative to help retailers that need to switch to online trading fast to survive. I truly believe local small businesses are the foundation of our liberal democracy, and they all need a way to keep trading and keep afloat during the lockdown. We’ve been giving free advice on tactics for trading in the crisis, and extended free trials of Littledata’s software to assist with measuring their website performance.

What do you think about the measures that have been introduced by the Chancellor?

The job protection scheme to pay for furloughed staff, and parity for the self-employed with small businesses, is the most helpful measure. I do worry about the bureaucracy of claiming back the money from HMRC – and whether launching a new IT system for HMRC to make the payments is possible within a month – but it is a bold and inclusive initiative.

Unfortunately the offer for government backed loans to SMEs is less useful. This is channeled through high street bank lenders, who still apply deeply risk-averse lending criteria – and are asking for personal guarantees from directors, even when the government is underwriting 80% of the risk. Last time I tried to tap bank funding the loan assessor didn’t even understand the economics of a SaaS business, so I won’t be wasting time on applying for now.

What else do you think the Government should do?

I am a libertarian, and I believe people’s liberty to move, socialise and shop should only be restricted in extreme circumstances. I see the UK government had no choice but to restrict movement but before this lockdown is extended again I’d like to see an open debate on weighing the massive costs to national health and wealth of restricting everyone against the assistance to the small percent of people getting hospitalised from this virus.

What advice would you give to other startups at this time?

Persevere and adapt where necessary. Startups thrive on disruption, and economic shocks like this bring huge disruption which smaller, nimble companies can exploit. Funding will be difficult in the short term, so get creative on ways to fund your growth: prepayments from customers, loans from friends and family or cutting costs.

For software companies, the main problems in many sectors have been the war for talent (and huge salary inflation for developers) and rising customer acquisition costs. Hiring and marketing should get a lot easier as big companies scale back, as long as you’re still around to take advantage.

For more tips on dealing with the impacts of coronavirus, visit our Startup Survival Guide.

#SixtySecondStartup

This week’s #SixtySecondStartup is with Giuliano, the Co-founder of Get Groomed. He started Get Groomed with his Co-founder Sabrina after moving to London and realising how inconvenient it was to get an appointment at a barber shop. Spotting a gap in the market, he started Get Groomed which allows people to book a barber to their home or office. Since starting 2 years ago, Get Groomed has now rolled out across London.

Giuliano and Sabrina, Co-founders of Get Groomed

Our interview with Giuliano:

What does your company do?

We connect mobile barbers with customer. Customers can book barbers to come to their home, office, a hotel or where ever they may be. We also provide male beauty services for weddings and events. 

Why did you set up this company?

When I arrived in London, I tried out different barber shops and salons and noticed some issues with them. Most shops are only open between 10am-5pm, making it difficult for customers to find the time to go. If they go at the weekend, there is often a long waiting time. I also found it difficult to know if a barber would be any good and able to do the hairstyle I was after. My Co-founder Sabrina mentioned that there are apps for women to book hair appointments, however we realised that there was a gap in the market for men. We built a prototype, hired a few barbers and found customers very quickly.

We knew we were on to something when:

A few months after we started, we got approached by a famous Fintech startup to provide male beauty services at one of their events. This was despite us having no marketing budget, and not sending a single email or doing any cold calls. It showed us that there was demand at a corporate level.

Our business model:

Our business model is commission-based. It helps us to keep working hard to connect barbers with customers: the more money they make, the more money we make.

The biggest mistake I’ve made is:

Establishing a strategy to increase revenue at all costs. It might be attractive for people who can burn a lot of money each month, but it is not sustainable over the long term. We believe in lean ways to improve the business: we are now profitable every month and we are growing every month.

We think there’s growth in this sector because:

One word: convenience. We have a lot of customers contacting us because they can’t find the time to go to a salon or it’s inconvenient for them to go as they have caring duties or are ill. In the same way that there was a boom in food delivery services in the last decade, customers are looking for on-demand, high quality male beauty and grooming services from the comfort of their own home.

We worked with AIN because:

We have been running our platform for 2 years and we are operating across London. So we are confident that this is the right time to scale-up and expand to more cities in the UK. We are looking to partner with forward-thinking investors who share our vision and AIN is one of the best tools to connect with those kind of partners.

Get started today and view pitches from entrepreneurs around the world.

#SixtySecondStartup

In this week’s #SixtySecondStartup, we spoke to Will Ross who is the Founder of Tendo, a skills passport for frontline workers. Will started Tendo to make frontline work more secure for employees and to make it easier for companies to hire, retain and train their workforce.

Our interview with Will:

What does your company do?

Tendo allows frontline workers to generate workplace credentials while they do their jobs, building a verified, portable history of skills and hours at the end of each week.

Why did you set up this company?

We started Tendo to make frontline work more certain. For the worker, this means improving their long-term economic security. For the business, certainty comes through having a loyal, dependable workforce and an ability to encourage employees to learn new skills.

What is your business model?

We bill businesses on a per user basis. This monthly charge is a way to offset the cost of workforce churn.

We think that there’s growth in this sector because: 

Frontline workers remain offline. By bringing them online, visibility of supply provides a major step forwards. We also consider this workforce to contain a massive amount of untapped operational and creative potential – we aim to empower.

How did you get your first customer?

By building a feature that removed an administrative overhead for a training provider.

We knew we were onto something when:

When employees indicated that they would be motivated by having a trusted way to generate and retain a record of their work reputation.

Our most effective marketing channel has been: 

Going to events where we can speak directly with decision makers.

The biggest mistake that I’ve made is: 

Spending time marketing to cities where Tendo can’t have a repeatable physical presence.

What we look for when recruiting: 

A willingness to experiment and an inclination to speak more in terms of immediate actions than long-term plans.

We worked with AIN because:

Angel Investment Network provide a clear way to signal company type to a list of investors, ensuring that angels can search for early stage companies where they can significantly influence growth.

Get started today and view pitches from a huge range of entrepreneurs around the world.

Behind the Raise

Welcome to the first of our Behind the Raise blog series! We know how difficult fundraising can be, so these interviews offer some tips, advice and insight into what has worked for different entrepreneurs.

For our inaugural interview, we are delighted to be speaking to Andrea Armanni, Co-founder of Mammalo. Mammalo is transforming the service industry by making it easy and quick for people to book the services they need. Through Mammalo, people are paired up with local professionals, making it hassle free to get the boiler repaired, hire a photographer or source a makeup artist.

Tell us about Mammalo:

Mammalo is a marketplace for on-demand local services delivered at home, where people can find and book anything they need from a painter to a hairdresser. With over 3 million people moving to cities every week, finding trustworthy experts in large urban areas has become much harder and very time consuming. Mammalo’s mission is to connect those in need with the right people that can help, and is set to become the go-to website where people can find any service they need, delivered to their door.

Why did you decide to raise investment?

Without funding the vast majority of startups will die. A startup usually means a company that is built to grow fast, and fast growing startups usually need to burn cash to sustain their growth prior to reaching profitability. In our case, we raised a friends and family round in the beginning of 2018 which allowed us to launch our first MVP in November 2018 and work towards finding the right product market fit. In less than 3 months, we managed to gain over 1500 users. We needed more liquidity to invest in marketing and tech development, so we decided to start working towards our first seed round.

What is your top tip for anyone raising investment for the first time?

It may sound obvious now, but one thing that we learnt whilst raising our first seed round is to be “Investment ready”. For some founders it’s enough to have a story and a reputation to raise funds, but for most it requires much more. Angels invest when they believe in the idea they hear, in the founders’ ability to realise its vision and in the market opportunity. When, as a founder, you are ready to tell this story, and bring some proof of customer adoption, you are ready to raise money.

What attracted investors to your company?

I believe what really helped us was getting the right launch strategy in place and the first 400 users within our first month. Then, a solid data vault with a detailed business plan, financial forecast and investment deck.

Andrea, Co-founder of Mammalo

My biggest fundraising mistake was…

Our biggest fundraising mistake was undoubtedly underestimating the amount of time and effort that was going to go into the fundraise process. Since we started working on it, we spent nearly 6 months on the fundraise trail before completing all the legals and receiving the investment.

Why did you choose to use Angel Investment Network?

We came across Angel Investment Network through a friend of ours at Y Combinator SUS as we were about to launch our crowdfunding campaign. As for every business looking to raise their first seed round, finding the right angel investors can be challenging and time consuming. Angel Investment Network was a great opportunity to gain exposure from the largest angel investment community in the world. Our pitch was posted to over 200,000 investors and remained live over a 2 month period in which we had a chance to talk to multiple investors and present them our vision and future objectives.

To find more fundraising tips, visit our learn section.

#SixtySecondStartup

Our latest #sixtysecondstartup interview is with Greg Geny, Co-founder and CEO of BeRightBack (BRB). Fed up of spending so much time planning weekend breaks, he decided to create the world’s first travel subscription service to make booking short trips easy. Through BRB, customers get 3 trips every year to surprise European destinations, making travel fun and stress free.

Our interview with Greg:

What does your company do?

BRB is the world’s first travel subscription service. We offer customers 3 trips per year to surprise European destinations for a fixed monthly fee.

Why did you set up this company?

BRB came from very personal pain points. I did a lot of travelling in my 20s and early 30s and a few years back I realised that I was spending more and more time researching and booking my weekend breaks. The root cause of this comes from the fact that the onus is still on the customer to do all the heavy lifting and as the market has become more and more fragmented, this research process is now taking on average 10 hours and is spread across 4-8 weeks. So not only do customers need to spend hours researching their next break, but by the time they are ready to book, flight and hotel prices have gone up. This did not feel like a very customer-centric approach to travel. 

What is your business model?

We are a subscription based model delivering 3 trips per year to surprise European destinations, for a fixed monthly fee. We leverage data to tailor the breaks to the exact preferences of our customers. Customers can also purchase additional services.

How did you get your first customer?

We ran Facebook and Instagram ads and got 3 customers on our first day. Whilst social media advertising remains a strong channel for us, we are now building our brand across a range of channels – from social, SEM and content creators to large partnerships. The latter will allow us to leverage synergies between BRB and established audiences in other verticals such as financial services, telcos, travel or media. 

We think that there’s growth in this sector because: 

The market has grown 29% since 2012 and is set to grow further over the next 5 years. At the same time, Millennials and Gen Z have very different expectations from previous generations. They love travelling (particularly city breaks), they value convenience and they want a personalised service. BRB meets the needs of this new generation by turning travel into a lifestyle. 

We knew we were onto something when:

We got picked up by major media publications – the Telegraph, the Guardian, Lonely Planet, SKIFT, CNBC and more and started seeing the traction behind the business. We’re grown 350% this year alone. 

The biggest mistake that I’ve made is: 

Not starting the business sooner, although I believe that timing is everything and now is the perfect time for BRB to disrupt the industry.

We worked with AIN because:

We wanted to tap into an existing network of investors to support our fundraising efforts.

Get started today and view pitches from a huge range of entrepreneurs around the world.

#SixtySecondStartup

This month our sixty second interview is with Firdaus Mogul, Founder of Check An Invoice. Check An Invoice uses AI and machine learning to identify invoice fraud. Firdaus set up this business after one of his friends was a victim of invoice fraud and he realised that there were no products addressing this problem.

Our interview with Firdaus:

What does your company do?

We identify and prevent invoice fraud using the latest advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Why did you set up this company?

When I ran my own B2B payment business, which I sold in June 2019, many of our customers spoke about instances of invoice fraud. On researching, we could not find any companies that offered solutions to this problem. So we decided to launch our own SaaS application that addresses the needs of both small and large businesses.

We knew we were onto something when:

Every prospect we met and investor we spoke to started complementing our market positioning and how the product is addressing an unsolved need.

How did you get your first customer?

Like all startups, our first customer was an acquaintance, who found the solution very helpful for his business as it reduced the manual workload of checking the invoices

Our most effective marketing channel has been:

Forming partnerships with accountancy firms, FinTechs and banks. These partners then offer our solution to small and large companies as a value added service on top of what they already offer.

The biggest mistake that I’ve made is: 

Assuming that there was already a good understanding of invoice fraud among SMEs. Although our research suggested that over 50% of SMEs are affected invoice fraud, when we went out and spoke to people, we discovered that awareness levels were relatively low.

We think that there’s growth in this sector because: 

Invoice fraud results in over $26bn of losses worldwide (Source FBI) yet, there are very few solutions which address this issue. Our platform operates globally giving us the ideal first mover advantage.

We worked with AIN because:

We worked with AIN because they have the largest and most engaged network of angels.

Get started today and view pitches from a huge range of entrepreneurs around the world.

#SixtySecondStartup

Welcome to the first in the series of our #SixtySecondStartup blog. Each month we will be profiling a different founder with some quick fire questions.

This week we are talking to Julian Hall, Founder of Ultra Education C.I.C. Ultra Education teaches young people aged 7-18 entrepreneurial skills to help them grow or start a business. Through their app they ensure that all young people, regardless of their background, have access to the tools needed to develop their entrepreneurial skills.

Our interview with Julian:

What does your company do?

We teach entrepreneurship to kids aged from 7-18 years old. We have developed an A.I. powered chatbot that can deliver entrepreneurial education to kids at scale through a native mobile app.

Why did you set up this company?

We believe that entrepreneurship is a great vehicle to help increase the life chances of children and young people. It helps them to develop life and work skills.

We knew we were onto something when:

A parent told us that their child never concentrates in school but we had captured their imagination in less that 20 mins. 

How did you get your first customer?

Word of mouth! I told the story about how my own daughter picked up entrepreneurial skills by watching me working at home. After we realised these skills could be taught and started sharing that idea, we got immediate demand from both parents and schools.

Our business model:

Is a subscription based mobile app powered by A.I. and supported by human mentors in the chat. 

Our most effective marketing channel has been:

Word of mouth through social media. We promote the successes of our ‘kidpreneurs’ and which other people also share on their social media channels.

The biggest mistake that I’ve made is: 

Not growing our team early enough and not capturing the impact of our work.

We think that there’s growth in this sector because: 

More and more kids want to work for themselves and have ambitions that schools are unable to currently support on their own. Entrepreneurship is becoming common place, but kids and young people still don’t have access to on demand support. 

We worked with AIN because:

We believe that angels are not just thinking about a monetary return but also a social return.

Get started today and view pitches from a huge range of entrepreneurs around the world.

A worldview on startup stats

Angel Investment Network connects startups and investors from all over the world. But what does the current global startup climate look like? We have drawn together some statistics to give a brief global overview. 

In terms of numbers, the USA has by far the most number of startups at 46,606.  The UK comes in third place, with 4,901, just a couple of thousand behind India.

However, despite the USA having the highest number of startups, it is Uganda which has the greatest number of entrepreneurs per adult population at 28.1%. Interestingly, 5 out of the 15 countries with the highest proportion of entrepreneurs are in Africa, and Southeast Asia and South America are represented by 4 countries each.

Moving on to unicorns, meaning private companies with a value of over $1 billion, China is in the lead with 149 unicorns, compared to 146 in the USA. These two countries are vastly ahead of any other, with the UK and India coming in a distant third with 13 unicorns each.

Whilst these statistics only scratch the surface of the global startup landscape, they show that it certainly is an exciting world out there! 
All statistics and infographics are from the article Startup Failure Rate and 80+ Other Startling Statistics About Startups.

Angel Investment Network has networks around the world. Wherever you are based, if you are looking for investment find your country’s network, register and then upload your pitch.