The rise of women business angels

The trouble with UK exporting

Viewing statistics on British exporting is a bizarre experience and not one that should fill us with pride. Certainly it is no secret that UK manufacturing has been at a low ebb for many years, but it is still remarkable just how far behind we are when compared to other countries. Research from Grant Thornton showed that only 37% of British companies do any exporting at all, which leaves us bottom...

Politicians be warned, entrepreneurs need investors

Coaching tomorrow's leaders

Although starting your own business can be the most liberating, exciting and challenging pinnacle in your career, the race to secure venture capital funding in an increasingly competitive world can prove a daunting experience, whatever your level of business experience and acumen. 

For years, European businessmen who 'had a go' at starting up a new business, but for some reason didn't make the hom...

Business angels: a male thing?

To paraphrase a popular ditty (less poetically but more pertinently), where have all the female business angels gone?

In fact the question should be: where the heck were they to start with? More than 95% of the UK’s business angels are men, peculiarly – peculiar since long gone are the days when the millionaires of this world wore beards and top hats, and we’re even past the dismal age when the fe...

Cashflow control or cashflow crisis!

Managing cash flow effectively is really a matter of life and death for a new business. Government figures show that small businesses are owed as much as £17bn from debtors at any one time and that 10,000 UK businesses fail each year because of late payment from customers.

Ironically, one of the reasons for cash-flow problems is that small, growing businesses can find themselves ‘overtrading’ i.e...