Everyone in the startup world talks about your North Star and Magic Moment – but what are they? Why do they matter? And how do you both find your missing piece and use that insight to grow...
Seed fundraising in Europe is exciting and hot – but how do founders tackle seed raises and suceed? Nine Insights into Seed Fundraising in Europe I’ve been building a...
1,000 Hours – How Much Expertise Does a Founder Need? Surely 10,000 hours? In the noughties, books like Blink by influential author Malcolm Gladwell explained how anyone could become an expert...
2023 Prediction – Curious Startup Teams Win! Why we need to re-think our startup teams In case you haven’t yet tried ChatGPT from Open AI – take a look here. It writes blogs, articles and answers for...
Why the lean idea of ‘launch fast and iterate’ doesn’t work and what to use instead… In honour of the ground breaking behavioural economics book, Thinking, Fast and Slow, I thought I’d leverage their...
Are you asking ‘should I start a startup’? Or even, if you fell into your startup by accident, ‘should I continue’? Well, should you carry on? And what is the best career...
Let’s ask – What makes a Successful Startup? Answer: Data focus (not ‘tech’ focus) Let me explain… If we follow the startup and business media we can fall into the trap...
In the early noughties the idea of ‘move fast, break stuff’ caught hold (see more here). …but things are different now! It was used to break through the morass of dull headed...
Facebook advertising is the new opportunity for smart and agile businesses – simply because it allows you to reach more people for less cost than any other form of marketing. Yes, that’s...
If you want to change the world, you could do worse than follow the method of Bill Gates – Microsoft co-founder and now philanthropist who, working with his partner and wife, Melinda Gates, has...
Getting your startup pricing strategy right is like cooking – it is neither a science driven by numbers and data, nor is it an art based purely on instinct and ‘inner feelings’; it...
Digital marketing, and in particular, digital advertising is holding up surprisingly well in the coronavirus induced recession. In this article we take a deep dive into why that is the case and the...
This is the second of a series of three articles on startup pricing strategies. In the previous piece, I raised the notion of a ‘fair’ pricing strategy and the importance making the...
Last week saw the first Breakthrough Business event using our 2.0 version of the Business Model Canvas on a beautiful evening inside Manchester’s magnificent central library. As always, our...
1. Step back into Startup Mode Everything is now a fast moving experiment let go of control – ask instead for data and base all decisions on that data instead of custom or perceived wisdom move...
Here’s a photo of me about to write my Breakthrough Canvas at the start of 2019. Yes, I know, as a team we designed and built The Breakthrough Canvas… …then we tested it –...
I’m an optimist – despite the horrible politics of the last few years – Trump to Brexit to Orban in Hungry and Putin in Russia – I’m hopeful that the next decade will be a great one! As the saying...
You don’t need anyone to tell you that your revenues depend on digital marketing. Nor do you need reminding that ecommerce sales have (more or less) doubled and virtual sales meetings have replaced...
If it takes 30 days to change a habit, 6 weeks of lockdown will change society, work and our economy forever — so what will it be like in The New Normal? If you take just one thing, then choose this...
Many people will tell you that becoming (or remaining) an entrepreneur is all about money – raising money that is, so that you can stay in business. And, if you can’t get the money, you...
Why building trust is your ‘go to’ test for emerging safely… Quick take away: if you have only 10 seconds — the secret to firstly survive and then thrive in a time of crisis is to build trust —...
Welcome to the last of three in-depth blogs on startup pricing strategy. If this is the third article you are reading…. thanks & well done! (If you missed the previous ones, they are here;...
Like many of today’s startup founders, the 15th century architects of Florence began with a vision — an intuition of what was possible and then began the process of trial and error to find out ‘what...
Revenue is the new growth! So hack revenue – not growth! VCs have been talking about ‘profit’ since We/ WeWork’s IPO fell apart in summer 2019, but we’re now hearing the...
1. Instead of building an email list of prospects – build a Facebook Group instead? 2. Focus your email lists of your existing / renewing / repeating clients rather than people ‘getting...
How do you build teams when everyone works from home? How do you manage / control complex projects with distributed teams? Different people will face different challenges working from home, how do...
Raising funds is easy – if you have something worth saying, and say it well… so how do you do that? 1. Build a breakthrough business model canvas 2. Convert that into a 3 minute pitch...
How should resilient startup leaders and founders plan their summer break in 2020? Imagine, we’re back in January 2020, Christmas is done and you are sitting down to plan your summer trip! The...
Startup leaders need to be optimistic, forward looking and full of hope. That much goes without saying. But how do you do optimism when times are tough, people are hurting out of loneliness and...
I have conversations with founders on a daily basis whose persistence and resilience is awe inspiring. However, all startup founder paths to success follow similar patterns – where the...
We’ve changed the way we shop and buy since the coronavirus lockdown — in part or in full- so how does selling respond? The shift from problem solving to ‘problem finding’ is a trend that was...
If you are running a startup or scaleup, check out the video above… We’ve worked with new and growing businesses to help them achieve lift-off and magnify growth but also at key points of...
Is the development of the internet entering a new 3rd phase? I think so. And curiously, this phase is driven by credit and business needs not technical developments. In the first phase – pre...
Please stop spamming – just Network! So say many of the forums that you’ll find on fast developing social media sites like LinkedIn. Initially, this looks sensible – but look under...
…that keeps every entrepreneur awake at night! Whether it is wiser to struggle on in the hope of better fortune Or, to cut your losses and exit now before all capital and Reputation is...
We have a problem. Too many exciting startups get stuck in the ‘growth gap’ and struggle to expand rapidly. From one nation’s cohort of 2019 ‘best in class’ startups, a year later, only one of those...
In my latest book The Official CyberSafr Home Business Guide, I’m seeking to help home and micro business owners tackle the threat of cyber attacks and data hacks. What I’ve found...
As we saw in my last article – 9 Insights into Seed Fundraising in Europe, we saw that what matters is that your team build traction with users and (if possible) customers. Hence, in this...
Do you really need or want funding? Perhaps the answer to that question is yes, in which case, why do you want that funding? Or perhaps asking the question about funding will help you better...
Actually, spoiler alert – I already have an answer… and they are: Engagement, Engagement and Engagement! Engagement for your users (well, we know about that), but also, engagement with...
What stands out when fundraising in a time of crisis is that the behaviour and mindset of the startup or scaleup founder is more important than ever and especially critical to sourcing investment...
The question occupying all media folk is 'will content sell online?' To which there is not yet a satisfactory answer. Why? I suggest that the question itself is nonsense and hence the...
Do you recall the days when the £ sterling was strong and the € euro was weak and on the verge of collapse? And what changed? Well, it was July 2012 when Mario Draghi – the Euro’s ECB...
Myth no. 1 “You need a great idea before you start” No, you need two things a) to start b) a question Preferably a good question – one that makes people stop and think… Myth...