Posted by president on January 20, 2012 under News | 
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.
Posted by president on January 18, 2012 under News |
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
Posted by president on January 16, 2012 under News |
Sales 4 Entrepreneurs from
ESSA
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.
The videos are available at:
http://theessa.com/sales-4-enterprising-societies/
They can also be view via youtube here: http://www.youtube.com/user/ESSAContest
The booklet is available at:
http://theessa.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Sales4Entrepreneurs.pdf
Posted by president on under News |
Business Game Feb 9th
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.
Posted by president on under News |
The New Age of Business
- Want to accelerate the success of your business?
- Need a logo or website makeover?
- Unsure how to navigate the online marketplace?
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.
This Thursday 19th Jan, 6pm Cafe Rialto
Posted by president on December 8, 2011 under News |
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 |
Posted by president on December 1, 2011 under News |
Posted by president on November 29, 2011 under Advice, News, Research |
Fear of Ignorance.
by Rand Fishkin
This past week, I was interviewing a candidate for a VP role along with two of our engineering leads. Everyone in the room excluding myself was classically “technical” – they could write code, had experience solving hard software problems and a background in computer science. I wrote my last line of PHP in 2004, and it had to be rewritten by a real programmer within 6 months.
go to http://randfishkin.com/blog/153/fear-of-ignorance to finish off the article.
———————————————————————————————————————————————
Don’t. Waste. Time
by Jason Freedman
Stuff we startups do that doesn’t delight users:
Office space
Launch parties
Health insurance plans
Salary negotiations
Founder equity splits
Series F stock
Office Food
Team-building activities
CRM systems
Bookkeeping
Head count
Working in SOMA
Convertible debt caps
Valuations
TechCrunch
Karma scores
ISOs
Powerpoint
Business Cards
Banks
Lawyers
Desks
1099s
Bug Trackers
Agile Processes
Advisory Boards
Hiring
Cap Tables
Payroll
Meetups
Meetings
Of course, much of this stuff still needs to get done. At some point. And some of it really is important to the process that eventually creates delight for users. But none of it directly delights users. They’re all inputs. None of it is product. When you build a great product, one that delights users and achieves product-market fit, you’ll have lots of time to work on all these things and optimize them to your heart’s content. When your product is not even built yet, none of this stuff matters. But your startup, in the pre-product phase, is basically a ticking time bomb. The only thing that can prevent it from exploding is user delight. User delight attracts funding, enhances morale, builds determination, earns revenue…Until you get to user delight, you’re always at risk of running out of money or, much more likely, losing a key engineer to something more interesting. Time is your most precious resource.
Finish the article here http://www.humbledmba.com/dont-waste-time
Posted by president on November 28, 2011 under Events, News |
Gareth Davies is one of the UK’s most successful and respected TV Producers – Producing award-winning shows like Strictly Come Dancing and helping to carve the career of countless TV Presenters – from Claudia Winkleman to Graham Norton.
A former music and drama graduate from Royal Holloway Gareth went on to work at the BBC for 9 years on countless TV shows before going freelance. His work has taken him around the globe and 2 years ago he set up The Presenter Studio – a TV Presenter Training Company that gives people access to the industry. The business has seen presenters go on to present for all the major channels and continues to make the stars of tomorrow.
Gareth will be talking at Royal Holloway on the 1st Dec from 6pm in Rialto in SU – giving a rare insight into how TV works, how to get yourself on screen and how to get a business off the ground.
RSVP on Facebook
Posted by president on November 25, 2011 under News, People |
Nowadays, people are producers, not just consumers. They have mountains of digital content – images, recipes, blogs and photos – to be shared and remembered.
That explains the plethora of content-sharing sites out there. Facebook shares connections, Twitter shares opinion, YouTube shares videos, Flickr shares photos…
And so Jack Lenox realised — hello! – What about writing?
If you were to survey the items on the average person’s bucket list, they would go something like this: run a marathon, learn a language, fly first class, fall in love, start a business. But the most common item is to write a book.
When it comes to writing a bestseller, the traditional route to market is thorny, with the off-putting submission and rejection merry-go-round.
Even so, the landscape is beginning to change. Sites like Lulu and Amazon’s CreateSpace allow new writers to self-publish, by producing print editions of their books without the hassle of multiple rejections and the grind of setting up a publishing business and dealing directly with print-on-demand publishers.
But, self-publishing is limited. Yes, it’s possible to make it into print or digital format, but without the backing of a publisher, it is difficult to find an audience. Promotion is the key.
Ultimately, self-publishing continues to be seen as a last resort. It’s still better to get your book published and distributed at someone else’s risk and expense. But it’s difficult to find a publisher to take that risk. And so publishing continues to be a vicious circle.
Jack Lenox has come up with an idea to break it.
He says, “When it comes to sharing writing online, there is no real household name like a Flickr or YouTube.” Maybe Jottify, the online community for writers, will be it.
Jottify allows members to write, upload their work and share it with the community to receive constructive criticism and ultimately get noticed. The site converts material into iPad and Kindle formats so that members can sell their finished work in the store.
The biggest benefit is that it also serves as a platform for publishers and agents to discover new talent. Jack is currently working on deals with independent and bigger publishing houses. He says, albeit early days, there is already serious interest in one work published on the site. It looks like Jottify could be just the platform to bridge the gap between traditional publishing and self-publishing.
Amazingly, the company has only been in existence for 2 months! It has evolved from its forerunner “eNovella”, which was a rudimentary creative writing community without a commercial element, to a thriving business. Jack was commended for his “outstanding entrepreneurial business idea” at the Santander Universities Entrepreneurship Awards, beating other UK entries to win the top prize of £5,000. And he received great PR when recommended by one of the foremost Twitter influencers, Stephen Fry.
Jack is no stranger to the internet. His drive and vision started as early as his first year at secondary school, when, inspired by the dot-com era, he began designing websites. Having designed a number of commercial websites for small businesses, he moved on to building and selling computers on the internet and through eBay during sixth form. During a gap year between school and university, he also set up a browser-based online game during a gap year between school and university.
Having cultivated his online expertise, he looked to media while at university. Despite still being an undergraduate, Jack founded two companies, Bold Media, a media development company, and The Founder, the independent student newspaper of Royal Holloway University.
And with the experience of setting up a number of businesses under his belt, Jack also founded Royal Holloway Entrepreneurs (RHE), holding the position of Sabbatical President for the academic year 2009/2010 with the aim of helping students launch their own businesses.
For your chance to hear how Jack has tapped into the Zeitgeist, he will be speaking at both Warwick and Coventry on Friday 18th November as part of the SVC2UK events.
Source http://nacue.com/2011/11/jack-lenox-tapping-into-the-zeitgeist/Written by Caroline Dean
