Royal Holloway Entrepreneurs launch the annual Minigrants competition today, the Arora Awards for Enterprise.
Apply for anything between £100- £1000 to kick-start your business!
Stage 1- Applyhere
The best applications will be invited to Stage 2- Interview (all interviews will take place on 27 Feb)
An Awards ceremony will be held on 19th March in the evening, which you must attend in order to find out whether your application was succesfful.
DEADLINE FOR APPLICATION 25TH FEB
Open to Royal Holloway Students Only
Email me at president@royalhollowayentrepreneurs.com if you have any questions or would like some help with your application
“Apple: World’s Largest Startup” – a special presentation by Adam Lashinsky, senior editor at large, Fortune magazine.
6-9pm, Monday 30th January, Innovation Warehouse, 1 East Poultry Avenue, EC1A 9PT
Adam has been following Apple for over 15 years and, through interviews with the company’s staff over the years, has uncovered many of the secrets that have made Apple the success it is today – and he’ll be passing that knowledge on during his talk. This event is absolutely ideal for students interested in product design, innovation, business modelling and learning effective leadership tactics.
Students have a discounted rate available here: http://insideapple.eventbrite.com/
BeMyApp Mobile App Hackathon
6pm Friday 24th Feb – 8pm Sunday 26th Feb. Venue TBC, London
Participating in a hackathon is the absolutely perfect way for students to get a real taste of what it is like to build a product prototype that is sell-able in the global marketplace. Students from all backgrounds can participate in the event as a developer, designer, marketer, business developer or app idea generator. Many people who have participated in hackathons have described the experience as life-changing and we have two participant stories for students who might not know about the benefits of joining an event like this: http://techmeetups.com/2012/01/20/bemyapp-participant-story-1/ http://techmeetups.com/2012/01/20/bemyapp-participant-story-2/
Bootcamps- Capital Enterprise’s sector specific bootcamps that will give entrepreneurs serious about starting or growing a high growth business an opportunity to get the insider knowledge, contacts and resources they need to get ahead. The Bootcamp extras are free seminars where you can meet funders and fellow entrepreneurs looking for money to start-up or scale their “brilliant” new business.
Guide to Raising Finance- A list of links on available sources of finance for a growth focused business.
Free advice and support- Check out the members section of Capital Enterprise to find your local or specialist business support agency.
BootLaw – free events where you can get your legal questions answered (and be entertained, too!)
Microsoft BizSpark – startup community offering free Microsoft software. Or if you are one of the millions now using open source software to run their business why not check outUbuntu
Launch48 – meet potential co-founders and try to start a business in a weekend
Board of Invention- Check out 20111 10 best business models- The software is cool also.
Bootcamp Alumni Offer- Dream stake- the touch down space/club for creative entrepreneurs- is offering 20% discount for the first 6 months membership.
Quirky- Ok it is not free but it is a innovative way to get an idea to be developed into a product and
Minibar – see entrepreneurs pitch their startups while you drink free beer
Start-up Britain- a good place to navigate yourself around new services and activities on offer for new entrepreneur and a great one-stop shop
Fiverr – get small tasks done for $5 (try this out for fun at the very least!)
Lean Startup – methodology to help figure out whether you’re starting the right business- There is a new bootcamp organized by Sal Virani that uses the lean method to help people bootstrap am ambitious new business.
Mixergy – learn from interviews with successful entrepreneurs
Shell Livewire- Under 30 and fancy a £1000 to start your business- if you do then shell livewire gives out 6 such grants to new businesses each month. The pitch is very simple so well worth a look.
Hacker News London – meet techie startup people in the flesh. Drink beer with them
Business Link – find official government information about business regulations
WordPress – build all sorts of websites quickly and cheaply (definitely not just for blogs) and also check out Wix.com if you want your site to be built in flash.
Woothemes – get a great-looking theme for your website
TechHub – work surrounded by fellow entrepreneurs at this startup-centric office space. Capital Enterprise gets offers of discounted space all the time so do e-mail us if you are looking.
Bootcamp Alumni offer- Get your business plan developed and partly written by experts from the Centre Engineering Management Excellence . Only available for tech businesses looking for funding- apply through Capital Enterprise
Innovation Warehouse- London’s version of Plug and Play where you can receive accommodation, support and investment. Bootcamp Alumni Offer- further 20% sign-up discount to those who join before the end of 2011.
Camden Collective- Subsidised incubator space in Camden for creative start-ups. An opportunity to be at the heart of London’s Creative sector. Just to show that London is not all about Tech, if your a fashion businesses then check out CFE, Jewelry business -Hatton Garden, a new Bio Tech company LBIC and a new High Tech ManufacturingCEME if you want incubator space specific to their sector.
OpenSoho – have drinks with startup and digital media folks
HUB Westminster- The new incubator / accelerator for the ethical business.
2 Display.com- The cheapest place on the web to get display stands. I was going to recommend the cheapest place to get good quality business cards and stationary but it changes so often you are best place searching for yourself but you might want to start with Moo.com
Indiegogo.com – A paste and wait investment site where creative with ideas paste up their projects to attract 100’s of small scale investors to fund their new ventures. Alternatives are Kick starter and Crowd Cube
Linkedin- Probably the best B2B contact list – join me and maybe I can get to 500+ and be officially a well networked person.
Twitter – it’s big already. Follow me if you’d like to hear about more resources like this- You might also want to check our Twitter page http://twitter.com/#!/capenterprise
Paul Graham’s Essays – pick up entrepreneurial wisdom from the guy behind Y-Combinator
Stack Overflow- Looking for a coder, want to talk to a programmer, want to go where programmers go then check out stack-overflow. There is also an version for start-ups looking to post questions and receive answers from the assembled crowd- check it out and if you put UK after your question I for one will be putting my suggested solution for you to consider.
PickyDomains – challenge people to find you a great domain name or slogan
Enternships – hire entrepreneurially-minded interns
HELO- Get a team of students from UCL and London Business School to carry out a research or development project for free. Great if you want a business plan developing, an idea beta-testing or your competitors checked out. Also check out UCL’s free mentor scheme for high growth companies- SMILE
Mentors- The BBA has set up a portal called Mentorsme for inexperienced entrepreneurs looking for a mentor willing to share their experience and insights. If you are in London then check Capital Enterprise who will try to find you a mentor from amongst our members.
Seedcamp – get money and coaching in return for a share in your business
UserTesting – find out whether anyone can use your website
PSD2HTML – convert that slick PSD your designer created into CSS and HTML
Technology Strategy Board- The TSB is offering to part fund the R&D cost of businesses with innovative new products and services. They run competitions that offer substantial grants to businesses who can offer technology solutions to a challenge facing UK industry as well as offering “Proof of Concept” grants to businesses with cutting edge ideas who need help with R&D.
VirtualBox – run a virtual Windows machine so you can test old and annoying versions of IE, even if you have a new and shiny Mac
Google Docs – share documents with your co-founders and edit them together
London Creative Labs- A great place to check out if you want to get involved in the Capital’s booming social enterprise networks. You should also check out Un ltd and our member Red Ochre if you want support to start a social enterprise
Bootcamp Alumni offer- Poq Studio is offering a Free App for any fashion retailer- well is not exactly free and its only available for Alumni but do check it out.
Marketinvoice.com- A relatively new venture set by our friend Anil Stocker that has a host of funders looking to forward fund your working capital needs.
Toastmasters – become more confident talking in front of an audience
Soft Loans for Business Growth- Mainly for businesses with trading history but well worth checking out organisations such as ELSBC, GLE and HBV to see if you could be eligible for these £2000-£50000 loans.
NESTA- the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts is an independent body with a mission to make the UK more innovative. It provides investment, guides and the attest insights to early stage businesses who are attempting to drive the UK into the 21st Century.
R&D Tax Credits- If you have not worked out that you could be eligible to get back 200% of the money you are spending on R&D then what are you waiting for?- Check out Terry Toms guide and book for a free consultation and book on www.for a free Bootcamp Extra event on www.capitalenterprise.org/whats-on
Looking for a grant?- Check out J4B- the best place to see if there is grant available in your sector or postcode. Alternative Capital Enterprise has access to the UK funders database. So if you want a bespoke funding search please arrange a 1-2-1 with Carly-cary@capitalenterprise.org
In their final post in a week of articles on e-commerce innovation, Business of Fashion are pleased to launch Elevator Pitch, a recurring feature on BoF that will showcase one exceptional fashion-technology start-up per month and provide valuable feedback from a panel of fashion, technology and investment experts, as well as the BoF community.
BoF has a track record for being the first to spot and support the most innovative start-ups making a mark in the fashion space.
BoF are currently witnessing a veritable surge of innovation and venture capital interest in the fashion-technology space. Amongst e-commerce start-ups alone, they have seen the emergence of new business models like curation, subscription retail, social merchandising, mass customisation, retail gaming and collaborative consumption.
What business models will be next to emerge? Who will be the next Net-a-Porter, Gilt Groupe or Pinterest? If you have a promising business idea in the fashion-technology space or are already working on a start-up and looking to raise your profile or attract funding, they are putting out a call for your Elevator Pitch: concise pitches that you might give to a potential investor, partner or key hire if you bumped into them in an elevator.
For entrepreneurs wishing to participate, please respond to the questions below for the opportunity to have your pitch featured here on BoF and receive valuable feedback from a panel of fashion, technology and investment experts.
THE QUESTIONS (maximum 500 words):
1. What is your business idea and what problem is it solving?
2. What market does it address and how big is this market?
3. Who is your competition and how are you different/better?
4. What is the revenue model?
5. Who are the team that will make your idea a reality?
6. How much funding are you seeking and why?
HOW IT WORKS:
1. They are accepting Elevator Pitches by email only and review the first 500 words you submit. Please send your submissions to elevatorpitch@businessoffashion.com. They cannot respond to every email and will only contact those pitches selected to be published.
2. Each month, the selected Elevator Pitch will be presented to members of our Expert Panel, who will provide their feedback on the business idea and its potential.
3. They will publish one Elevator Pitch per month, along with feedback from our Expert Panel, and invite the BoF community to join the discussion.
THE EXPERT PANEL:
Sonali De Rycker, Partner, Accel Partners, London
Sonali has been active in the European venture business for 12 years focusing on investments in the consumer internet and digital media sectors. Sonali is responsible for investments in KupiVIP, Lyst, StylistPick, Spotify, and Top10.
Kirsten Green, Founder, Forerunner Ventures, New York
Kirsten has been in the investment business since 1996, investing in both public and private companies and building a focus on the consumer sector. Representative investments include: Birchbox, Bonobos, Chloe & Isabel, Cleanwell, Serena & Lily, Skullcandy, StyleOwner, Warby Parker.
Ben Lerer, Founder, Thrillist, New York
Ben Lerer is a Manager of Lerer Ventures and the Co-Founder and CEO of Thrillist.com, a leading men’s multi-platform lifestyle publication with over 3 million daily subscriptions in 19 localized markets in the U.S. and the U.K.
Rachel Shechtman, Founder, Cube Ventures, New York
Rachel has been a marketing and merchandising consultant since 2003 working with clients including Gilt Groupe, TOMS, and the CFDA; and advising others such as Birchbox and Quirky. Recently she launched a new retail venture in Manhattan called STORY.
Imran Amed, Founder and Editor, The Business of Fashion, London
Imran is a fashion business advisor, writer, and digital entrepreneur, and is Founder and Editor-in-Chief of The Business of Fashion.
The year’s biggest student enterprise conference is back!
In February, NACUE will present its 3rd annual National Student Enterprise Conference (NSEC), book now at http://nsec2012.eventbrite.com/ on Feb 18th and 19th.
With this year’s theme Ctrl Alt Disrupt!, NACUE are declaring 2012 the year of disruptive business and innovation. In 2010 they said no to ‘Business As Usual’, in 2011 we ‘Re-Shaped Britain’. In 2012 they’re calling for all out disruption!
They’ve teamed up with Aston University in Birmingham to present you a weekend ideas, creativity and change. Join over 300 students, meet some of the UK’s biggest entrepreneurs and get what you need to launch into disruptive entrepreneurship.
NSEC 2012 gives you all you need to change your entrepreneurial career and be part of a disruptive side of business.
Conference highlights:
Learn to compete with industry giants
Access to top entrepreneur moguls from across the country
Identifying global trends
Prepare yourself and your business for disruption
Build a networked business by creating killer social media content
Start-up Crash Courses covering everything from financing your startup to building an all-star team
Masterclasses will take those of you already in business a step further with lessons on securing an entrepreneurial career and creating social media thunderstorms
…and so much more!
Who’s this for?
Students and graduates interested in starting a business
Young entrepreneurs looking to take their business to the next level
Join them for what will be one of 2012’s biggest events and book now at http://nsec2012.eventbrite.com/ Use discount code: nsec 25 for 25% off.
This is a series of 28 videos developing sales skills for students and entrepreneurs from ESSA. Each video is around 3 minutes. They have also created a downloadable booklet, which provides further information and worksheets for each video. This is a great resource for your those moving ahead or considering starting a business in 2012.
This business game is designed to both teach you how to tackle common problems that businesses face, but also to give you some practice with what you will face at an Assessment Centre, showing you how to demonstrate team work, developing your communication and presentation skills according to what employers want to see.
The event will be taking place on February 9th between 2-4pm in IN031
Places are limited, please email me at president@royalhollowayentrepreneurs.com if you would like to attend.
The way that we think about, develop and promote business needs to adapt to the new age of technology. The marketplace has changed and will continue to change rapidly in the years to come. We need to learn how to navigate this new market and exploit it in order to succeed. We’ll be welcoming NeBWeb, a media consultancy that will teach you to how connect with the web in order to grow. We’ll also be hearing from the founder of UpBeatAgency, who will teach you how to create a compelling and uplifting website with a clear focused strategy.
It’s free. Bring your questions and business logos, website and ideas to show our experts. Join in later in the evening for networking over food and drink.
A message from LWIP:
Dear students,
We are looking for committed, dedicated, well rounded and extraordinary female students to join the first of its kind Leading Women in Power (LWiP) Network. Our ambition is to become the internationally most recognised network, bringing together exceptionally bright female students and high achieving female professionals.
By holding networking events, workshops and international conferences, we aim to provide a platform for communication and exchange between both parties. Furthermore our goal is to present female students opportunities, to be inspired by LWiP and through networking, follow in their steps to become the Leading Women of tomorrow.
Joining the network through a prestigious awards ceremony places you in a circle of extraordinary individuals for the rest of your life. We are now looking to recruit the core team of LWiP, based in London HQ.The position is solely voluntary. However, joining us will provide you with the unique opportunity to be a founding contributor to the LWiP network.
Not only will this position enhance your CV but also provide you with “real- hands on” business experience. However, above all you would get the unrivalled chance the join the network and help us to realise our vision of LWiP’s global success. By joining us you will automatically receive the benefit of membership and therefore place yourself in a circle with unique individuals. You will network with LWiP all over the world, get to know the CEO’s of big companies and the woman behind today’s success. You will be inspired, you will learn and you will connect with students and LWIP all over the world, forming a sorority like network to strengthen the female position in our growing world.
We encourage you to apply for the advertised positions below. Please indicate in your application whether you are applying for a team member or team leader position.
Deadline for applications 30th December, midnight!
Please sent your CV, a cover letter and any additional questions you may have to lwip.hq@gmail.com
Cordial Regards,
Jamilah Issifou, Kathryn Larin
Founder LWiP
Positions available:
Website (IT)
(Experience and background in IT required.)
Tasks you would have to perform:
- Create and maintain website
- Engage with Social Media
(Group spaces, Linked in, Facebook etc.)
Creative (Design) Team
(Experience not necessary but skills in design and a high level of creativity required)
Tasks you would have to perform:
- In charge for aesthetic look of LWiP
(logo and business cards, letter head, brochures, flyers, banners)
- Decorations such as Interior design of event venues
Marketing and Advertising Team:
No experience necessary but good social skills are desirable.
Tasks you will have to perform:
- Being in charge of event advertising and media relations
HR Team
Tasks you will have to perform:
Recruiting students
- Responsibility for ensuring high- calibre students are admitted to the network by processing applications and by running Assessment centres
Speaker Recruitment
- Responsibility for recruiting high- profile, female LWiP
Events team
Tasks you will have to perform:
- Organise upcoming events, including workshops, panel discussions and networking evenings
(Logistics, Catering, Venue etc.)
Sponsorship team:
Tasks you will have to perform:
- Liaise with current and potential corporate sponsors for LWiP
- In charge of Fundraising and competition initiatives throughout the country
Be the First to Comment 
Royal Holloway Entrepreneurs launch the annual Minigrants competition today, the Arora Awards for Enterprise.
of Fashion are pleased to launch Elevator Pitch, a recurring feature on BoF that will showcase one exceptional fashion-technology start-up per month and provide valuable feedback from a panel of fashion, technology and investment experts, as well as the BoF community.
ESSA
