INHERITANCE TAX: ENEMY OF ENTREPRENEURS October 23, 2011 AS chancellor George Osborne and his team try to simplify our over-complex tax system, they are looking at taxes whose harmful effects outweigh any good that comes from their revenue. Obviously the 50 per cent top rate of income tax must be a prime candidate, given that the Institute for Fiscal Studies has joined the [...]
Entrepreneurs: born or made with an MBA? October 12, 2011 DO not let Steve Jobs’s gown fool you in this photo. The recently departed, near-legendary founder of Apple and Pixar never finished his undergraduate degree, let alone got an MBA. In this picture, he is giving Stanford University’s 2005 commencement address. In the speech, he told his audience that he “couldn’t see the value” in [...]
ENTREPRENEURS NEWS | IN BRIEF October 9, 2011 ONLINE TRADERS HAVE DOUBLED The number of people earning a second income by trading online has doubled in the last year. A survey by Collect Plus, a parcel delivery and returns service, dubs these online entrepreneurs “e-pportunists”, finding that a third of them earn over £10,000 a year. Over half (59 per cent) of those [...]
Successful entrepreneurs’ advice on how to ride out the three-year glitch September 25, 2011 STARTING a business is not easy. It’s a monumental decision like getting married, buying a house or having children. So much energy goes into getting it off the ground in the first year that it seems odd to focus on the third. But the third year really does matter. It’s a decisive year when most [...]
ALTERNATIVE FUNDING FOR ENTREPRENEURS September 18, 2011 ASK entrepreneurs to name the biggest challenge they face in expanding their business and I would expect most to say raising the finance they need to grow. Whether it is thousands or millions, generating the capital required to expand will at some stage be on the agenda of every ambitious business. As a country we [...]
ENTREPRENEURS NEWS | IN BRIEF September 18, 2011 MAKING MENTORS OF ENTREPRENEURS A new campaign from Virgin Media Pioneers has been launched to address the challenges faced by aspiring entrepreneurs. The campaign plans to make mentors of experienced business owners such as Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones, the founder of The Black Farmer and Joe Cohen, the founder and CEO of Seatwave. The programme will be [...]
ENTREPRENEURS NEWS | IN BRIEF August 14, 2011 ENTREPRENEURIAL FESTIVAL LINE-UP MADE: The Entrepreneur Festival announced its headline speakers this week: government ministers Vince Cable and Mark Prisk, venture capitalists Julie Meyer, Luke Johnson and Dragons’ Den’s Peter Jones. They will be speaking on entrepreneurial inspiration, market disruption and business growth. Over 2,000 entrepreneurs will come to the city to share their knowledge [...]
ENTREPRENEURS NEWS | IN BRIEF August 7, 2011 BUSINESS CONFIDENCE FALLS BACK IN JULY Business confidence fell back in July after rebounding in June to a 13-month high, according to the Lloyds Bank Corporate Markets Business Barometer. Less than half (46 per cent) of companies were more optimistic regarding economic prospects, a reduction from 51 per cent in June, while those that were [...]
ENTREPRENEURS NEWS | IN BRIEF July 31, 2011 YOUNG PEOPLE WANT TO BE ENTREPRENEURS Eight in ten young people want to become entrepreneurs. Britain is brimming with future entrepreneurs, a new study into young people’s ambitions has concluded. According to the survey of 2,000 youngsters, commissioned to support the Ambition AXA Awards, more than three-quarters of 11 to 18-year-olds (77 per cent) say [...]
ENTREPRENEURS NEWS | IN BRIEF July 24, 2011 MAJORITY THINK GETTING FUNDING IS EASY A sizable 39 per cent of Britain’s entrepreneurs expect conditions for accessing external sources of capital to be “normal” or “easy” in the next 12 months. This compares to 25 per cent who said this six months ago, according to research from May 2011 by Investec Specialist Private Bank. [...]