Category Finance

Getting into bed with the celebs

Not about frocks Keep up won’t you; I’m not asking you to actually sleep with the celebs. I don’t allow anyone to sleep with me. Simon Cowell’s unofficial biography mentioned Dannii Minogue but not me. Yet, coincidentally, I also have a chic shorter ‘do and a couple of designer frocks with an of-the-moment statement shoulder.…

7 Questions To Ask When Considering Equity Finance For Your Business

Do you have a registered limited company? For equity finance to work, you need to have a limited company (occasionally limited partnerships are acceptable), which then allows for the allocation of company shares to your external investors. If you are unsure about the advantages and disadvantages of moving from your current structure to that of…

Yes, Ex-Minister,#MicroBizMatters!

Question Time Just before I flew home to Canada I was asked by my inept agent, Tony Robinson OBE, to chair a ‘Question Time’ type debate at a large micro business conference in his home town of Scarborough. Micro businesses (0-9 employees) are, apparently, quite important to the UK. There are 4.5 million of them…

The Real Deal – Don’t Accept Anything Less

Entrepreneur Conferences need a business health warning. November and March are always the biggest months for Enterprise and Entrepreneurship conferences. Last week, I was lucky enough to be in Liverpool for the Global Entrepreneurship Congress. Last year it was in Dubai and next year it’s in Rio de Janeiro so we were lucky to have…

Crowdfunding – could it work for your business?

Crowdfunding is becoming an increasingly popular method for small businesses and social ventures to raise much needed funds.  The map below gives you some idea of the scale of growth in Crowdfunding over recent years.  Interestingly, the same source indicates that 46% of all UK Crowdfunding platforms were launched in 2011 alone, so with the…

The rate of insolvency is not helped by lies, damn lies and statistics

I saw a couple of news stories today that were reporting on new figures that have come out of Experian on the number of business insolvencies in different parts of the UK. The first (Huge rise in insolvencies, but London fares better than rest of the UK) was from Londonlovesbusiness.com and looks at the November…

WinWeb Business Cloud - Creating Financially Sustainable Businesses