We’ve just negotiated 1/3rd off the price on a networking morning starring Richard Farleigh of Dragons’ Den. If you want to see Richard speak as part of a ‘Hub Showcase – The Timing of Success’ event, ReferOn Hub Showcase, just quote Royal Holloway Entrepreneurs and pay only £20+VAT! See this PDF for details. It happens early on October 5th, so don’t forget to get your Dragons’ Den entry in before you go!
“Almost all the companies that I’ve invested in that have failed, or that I see fail, have business models, great products, have pretty good teams but they have no users.
Getting users, getting distribution, getting attention, becoming viral – that’s the single most difficult thing on the internet to do. And just about every product fails because they don’t have any users.
Entrepreneurs tend not to focus on that. There are very few companies that have been able to get to tens of mills of users that have failed, other than for being sued or some other reason like that.
The other thing is that the people who would pay you for things, like carriers or big companies, typically don’t want to talk to you until you have tens of millions of users. If you have a thousand users and you go to British Telecom and say ‘I want to come up with a business model with you guys’, they’re not going to sit at the table with you.
So the focus on user growth initially may sound like an internet bubble-era way of thinking about things; but if you think about statistically what’s successful and what’s not, that is usually the succsessful thing, to focus on the virality and the user growth; and once you have that, what you look at is ‘who are we benefiting?’”
Royal Holloway Entrepreneurs stormed Freshers Fayre, with 147 new members joining on the day. Many students expressed an interest in the committee positions on offer and we saw several also enter the Dragons’ Den competition.
“Painted with a broad brush, it [capitalism] is characterised as a one-way relationship in thrall to profit margins and shareholder returns. But I have always believed there is more than one type of capitalism. It is true that unbridled capitalism can be a destructive beast, not just to those it does business with but to the company itself. History shows that those who operate in this way inevitably come undone.”
Cadbury chief executive Todd Stitzer in a speech at a fair trade conference today. Stitzer is thought to be referring to Kraft’s current takeover bid, in this article in the Guardian. What are your views?
One thing is for sure – if you are starting a business, you will need friends, soul mates or partners. Life gets pretty lonely otherwise. But not all friends are partners, and not all partners are good for you (I think we’ve all been there…). Read this guide to the ten worst partners, written by Scott Gerber, to find out who is bad for your business.
Come and see us in Medicine at this year’s Freshers Fair – we’ll be modelling the exclusive new Royal Holloway Entrepreneurs T-shirts! We will have tons of information about all our activities over the next few months and entry forms for Dragons’ Den. You can even enter right there and then – why not give it a shot? Plus we will be looking for committee members for the next year: a great opportunity for budding entrepreneurs. You don’t have to be a fresher to come, so hope to see you all there!
Dragons’ Den meets YouTube on a video pitching website which connects investors with UK universities’ entrepreneurial talent.
Today sees the launch of an exciting new website, nacueventures.com, the first UK website to specifically connect university enterprise with investors.
A network of investors registered on the site are then permitted to review pitches and inform their investment decisions. Initial contact is managed via the site, before both parties meet in person to explore opportunities further or to close a deal.
NACUE is the creation of Victoria Lennox, former President of Oxford Entrepreneurs, Oxford University’s enterprise society and the largest of its kind in Europe. Recognising the fast-growing interest in entrepreneurship, Victoria has pulled together the country’s entrepreneur-focused societies, representing 25,000 students.
Hermione Way, founder of Techfluff takes elevator pitches to their natural conclusion – in an elevator, of course (a lift to our UK viewers). Check out the latest video from her tech blog.
Seedcamp, an intensive technology boot camp with teams from across Europe competing to win seed capital, started today at UCL. Visit the seedcamp website for videos of the teams’ progress throughout the week.
Jack Lenox and I both headed to see Doug Richard (from BBC TV’s Dragons’ Den) talk for more than 8 hours yesterday, at his School for Startups at the British Library. He’s an incredible performer. I’ve never seen anybody able to hold a crowd for so long – all the while coming up with insightful solutions to their problems. Hopefully we’ll try to get some video of him up on the site soon.
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We’ve just negotiated 1/3rd off the price on a networking morning starring Richard Farleigh of Dragons’ Den. If you want to see Richard speak as part of a ‘Hub Showcase – The Timing of Success’ event, ReferOn Hub Showcase, just quote Royal Holloway Entrepreneurs and pay only £20+VAT! See this PDF for details. It happens early on October 5th, so don’t forget to get your Dragons’ Den entry in before you go!
“Almost all the companies that I’ve invested in that have failed, or that I see fail, have business models, great products, have pretty good teams but they have no users.
Seedcamp
Jack Lenox and I both headed to see Doug Richard (from 