Oli Gibson

This article was written by Adeo Ressi and first published on Tech Crunch. I felt it was interesting enough to also be published on the SStartup Newsletter. Adeo Ressi, is the founder of The Founder Institute and TheFunded.com In this guest post he argues against ageism when it comes to to entrepreneurs. Ressi is 39. Over to Adeo.
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The recent articles proclaiming that 25 is the peak age for entrepreneurship deserve a considered and factual response. The demographic and racial profiling that has plagued venture capital and tech entrepreneurship has a new friend—ageism. This has to stop.

Anecdotal Evidence:
It does not take but one minute to look around the world and prove any thesis of a peak tech founder age incorrect. There are countless entrepreneurs over the age of 30, including Reid Hoffman (age 35 in 2002), Evan Williams of Twitter (age 35 in 2007), Mark Pincus of Zynga (age 41 in 2007), Arianna Huffington of the Huffington Post (age 54 in 2005), among many others.

A commonly held belief is that younger founders appear to inspire waves of innovation, like in the mid-1990s and even today with Facebook, while older entrepreneurs launch sustainable businesses. The reality is more complicated. There are older inventors and entrepreneurs, like Dean Kamen (age 60) or Elon Musk of SpaceX (age 39), who continue to create revolutionary products; and there are, of course, thousands of young entrepreneurs pursuing “me too” businesses.

Anecdotal data is at best inconclusive. I launched my first internet business at the age of 22 in 1994, and through naive optimism and blind luck, it eventually became worth over $600 million. My direct impact on the value creation was relatively low. In fact, many of the revolutionary internet businesses started in the mid-1990′s were founded by 20-somethings with blind optimism. However, the majority of the sustainable businesses created in the 90′s were founded or run by older entrepreneurs.

In some cases, older entrepreneurs paired up with the younger founders, like Google (Larry Page and Sergey Brin were both age 25 in 1998, and Eric Schmidt was age 46 in 2001). In other cases, more successful clones were launched by older entrepreneurs, like Amazon (Jeff Bezos was age 30 in 1994). And, many young founders were pushed out or sidelined for more seasoned leaders, like with PayPal (Peter Thiel took over from younger founders when he was age 31 in 1998).

Anecdotal evidence, personal stories, and biased sample sets are not the best way to draw meaningful conclusions, so let’s look at some facts.

Factual Data:
In order to identify the traits of successful entrepreneurs, the Founder Institute has conducted a battery of proprietary personality and aptitude tests on over 3,000 applicants worldwide, and then carefully tracked the progress of our nearly 1,000 enrolled founders and 350 graduates. Research scientists employed by the Institute have examined the results of the successful founders and the less successful cases, looking at high-level traits and even examining test results on a question by question basis.

The research shows that an older age is actually a better predictor of entrepreneurial success, and that three other traits also correlate strongly to success: strong fluid intelligence, high openness, and moderate agreeableness. Let’s dive in deeper on the four key traits of entrepreneurial success:

Older age has shown in the data to correlate with more successful entrepreneurs up to the age of 40, after which it has limited or no impact. Our take: Older individuals have generally completed more complex projects—from buying a house to raising a family. In addition, older people have developed greater vocational skills than their younger counterparts in many, but not all, cases. We theorize that the combination of successful project completion skills with real world experience helps older entrepreneurs identify and address more realistic business opportunities.

1. Fluid intelligence is a largely genetic trait that measures one’s ability to quickly learn a rule set and apply the learned logic to solve problems. It can also be referred to as abstract thinking, and fluid intelligence declines with age. Our take: Entrepreneurs are constantly faced with new problems that need to be understood and solved within minutes—from sudden resignations to service outages. It makes sense that they require fluid intelligence to succeed.
2. Openness is a Big Five personality trait that measures one’s ability to see and appreciate the world around them. It is often synonymous with curiosity, adventure, or cultural awareness. Our take: Entrepreneurs, particularly in fast-growth startups, need to challenge accepted norms, and be open to changes and new information that affect the success of their enterprise.
3. Agreeableness is another Big Five personality trait that measures cooperation versus antagonism. It can be synonymous with compassion, or, conversely, with suspicion. Our take: A moderate level of agreeableness correlates with the ability to stick to a chosen path despite conflicting information and naysayers, allowing an entrepreneur to persevere in the face of obstacles.

Our Methodology:
The 3,000+ tested applicants come from 17 cities across four continents worldwide, and range in age from 17 to over 60. Applicants self-select as being interested in entrepreneurship by applying to the Institute in the first place. Two times per year, the Institute expands the breadth of the test with different batteries, lasting as long as three hours, providing a greater set of data to identify new traits of success. In addition, the Institute enrolls a number of semesters per year without using the test results so that we have a control group to measure the effectiveness of the test results in admissions.

Defining Success:
Since the Institute is only 25 months old and the oldest graduates are only 18 months out of the program, there are no M&A deals or public offerings among the graduates, yet. So, the Institute uses a careful performance evaluation of founders and their companies to identify their relative “success.” Each founder is rated weekly during the program by a subset of their closest peers in their program, rated twice throughout the program by seasoned CEO Mentors, and tracked quarterly after graduation through self-reporting on key metrics, such as revenue growth and market traction, with validation of this progress by the Founder Institute itself. All of this data is collected, processed and analyzed twice per year to check, validate and change our assumptions.

Only 39 percent of applicants are under 30, and of those who graduate, 36 percent are under 30.  The average age of all graduated founders is 34.4 years old, and the performance results of graduates speak for themselves:

The Testing Results:
The admissions test itself predicts success well by factoring in age and the other traits. 53% of the time the test will predict the assessment of a founder’s success by peers and mentors within 5%. The predictions of the test are off by 20% or more in only 14% of the cases.

Conclusion:
Age is only one factor among many to predict the success of entrepreneurs, and anybody at any age can break any molds put forward by “experts.” However, it’s clear that the stories of a few “college-dropout turned millionaire” (or billionaire) startup founders have clouded both the mass media and the tech industry from reality. We have romanticized the idea of a young founder because, well, it’s a great story, but these stories are not the norm. In the end, classic biases of gender, race, and age need to be discarded for a real science of success.

#015.1: Greylock Partners to Invest in European Startups
#015.2: Student Startup: Loveskiing
#015.3: Ten business tips for using Facebook Correctly
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#015.1: Greylock Partners to Invest in European Startups

Well known US VC house Greylock Partners is launching a brand new $160 million fund aimed at internet technology companies, with the fund being deployed between Europe and Israel. Greylock is best known for its stakes in Facebook, Groupon and LinkedIn and European investments including Wonga. Greylock’s move will be a shot in the arm for European tech companies looking for more options when raising financing.

We’ve confirmed that the fund will be run from London by Laurel Bowden, a Partner, and will cover investments from early stage and beyond.

Greylock is one of the world’s oldest venture capital funds, and has been operating in Israel since 2001. In the US Greylock invests in seed stage companies through its Greylock Discovery Fund, early stage companies through Greylock XIII and late stage companies through Greylock Growth. But this new fund will specifically target Europe and Israel.

[Update: We've now confirmed with Greylock that this is Fund II for Europe/Israel. Fund I started investing in Israel in 2006 and started investing in Europe in 2008.]

The news will be of interest to the latter, since VC fundraising has fallen off dramatically and in 2010 VCs in Israel raised no new capital. Greylock Israel has not had any large exits so far, and had to write off its investment in failed mobile company modu.

Bowden joined Greylock in 2008 and her investments at Greylock include Wonga, notonthehighstreet and Just Eat. She is also an angel investor in companies such as Hybris, Wix and Fizzback.

The future of the European startup scene looks bright!

#015.2: Student Startup: Loveskiing

Loveskiing is the brainchild of James Henderson and James Cox. Established in October 2010, Loveskiing aims to give web users ‘the place to go for all things snow!’

Loveskiing is a website based around giving snow sport enthusiasts in-depth, easy to read and interesting resort reviews, locating and reviewing the latest innovative products to hit the slopes, an interactive forum and a newly created online ski game section for all you gamers out there. Rather than having an intrinsic business plan, Loveskiing has a simple vision, to create an interactive community where users can share their love for skiing! This strategy has paid off, with Loveskiing attracting a monthly audience of 5,000 unique visitors.

Once Loveskiing had the user base we could start turning the website into a profitable business through the sale of advertising space. We allow companies to “sponsor a resort”, be a home page sponsor along with various other advertising spaces on Loveskiing. The beauty of Loveskiing is the low running costs… webhosting and our time!

The challenge

Luckily Loveskiing hasn’t faced too many challenges, this is possibly due to the website still being in its infancy. Perhaps the biggest challenge that we have faced was trying to get a high ranking on Google and have a reasonable number of views so that large transnational companies would want to work with us. Another challenge would be trying to do everything ‘by the book’, so setting up our business bank account, creating legal invoices and getting through the minefield of business jargon to register Loveskiing as a private limited company.

The solution

To use the old cliché, roll with the punches. Part of creating a new business is that it is a learning experience, there will be set backs and sometimes you will feel out of your depth but the key to success is to (sorry for the Finding Nemo quote) ‘just keep swimming’. One of the solutions we used was to surround ourselves with a wider network of contacts that we could rely on if we did need business advice. Also, it is imperative to never give up, if you don’t receive a reply at first email a different person within the organisation. If you can try to find a ‘named’ email addresses, so instead of emailing your request to info@example.com try to search for an address of someone working within the company such as s.timothy@example.com, you are much more likely to hear back and hopefully get the answer you are hoping for!

Key lesson

Perhaps the biggest lesson we have learnt is not to be afraid to go outside your comfort zone. Don’t be afraid to try things, the worst that people can say is no. Another lesson is to aim big! Don’t waste time hunting small fishes when you can land a giant one (excuse the cheesy lines!). The biggest tip we can give when contacting companies is finding a named email address.

Top tip

Persistence, persistence and more persistence. Setbacks within business are inevitable, the trick to success is to keep persisting. Perhaps the best tip we have learnt is to be wary of taking advice from people who haven’t actually done it themselves.

If you would like to write for Loveskiing contact james@loveskiing.co.uk

#015.3: Ten business tips for using Facebook Correctly

Facebook has become one of the most effective digital marketing tools for brands both big and small.

But most entrepreneurs just scratch the surface of what Facebook can offer them. Buddy Media have published an awesome guide to using Facebook correctly.

Here are their top ten tips for making sure your brand gets seen in people’s newsfeeds:

1. Ask questions
This is one of the easiest ways of engaging with people on Facebook: ask questions. People love to talk about themselves and offer their thoughts – and the more comments and “Likes” you get, the better your post will do.

Keywords such as “where”, “when”, “would and “should” see the highest number of engagement on Facebook. “Would”, in particular, drives spikes in “Likes” due to fans using “Like” as a way of voting “yes” on a question.

2. Post games and trivia
Incorporating games and trivia on Facebook also drives engagement. Facebook users like to show off their knowledge, and trivia is a great way to encourage engagement with your brand.

If you start posting trivia or games on a recurring schedule, your fans will know when to check their news feeds or your wall for the content they want to see.

3. Interact and engage
When people write comments on your posts or wall, you should contribute to the discussion to maintain user engagement. The longer a thread is, the higher it will rank in your fans’ Facebook news feeds.

But beware of engaging with so-called trolls – do you want to put out the fire, or fan the flames? People love to see how brands interact with consumers, so regardless of whether or not the content posted to the news feed is positive, basic curiosity will draw users to your posts.

4. Incorporate wall sapplets
Instead of just posting items with text, vary the material and incorporate interactive components (known as sapplets).

This could include polls or coupons, which will prompt your fans to engage with your status updates directly in the news feed, beyond standard “Likes” and comments.

5. Incorporate relevant photos
Rather than just telling your fans about your products and services, why not show them?

Relevant photos will attract people to your posts – people aren’t generally interested in reading through long text updates, but they love immediate content such as photos. Facebook has assigned a higher weight value to photos than to other types of content, so photos will keep you in people’s news feeds.

Why not post images to introduce fans to your company’s employees, or show them how things work behind the scenes? Photos are also a great way to get people excited about new products.

6. Relate to current events
We’re not suggesting you do a Kenneth Cole and offend your fans, but as a brand, it’s really important for you to relate your content to current events.

You can post questions or state your stance on pertinent issues (but again, be careful!), as this could encourage fans to engage with you and get a discussion going. Ask people what they think about breaking news, celebrity gossip, sports or other topics – this could lead to more traffic.

Research by Buddy Media shows that engagement rates peak for holiday posts, such as Valentine’s Day an St Patrick’s Day – so why not wish your fans well during the holidays?

7. Incorporate videos
Everyone loves interactive content – and video is one of the best strategies a brand can use to draw attention. Videos can be played within the news feed, so users aren’t redirected away when they start playing a clip.

Be sure to keep your videos short (to keep people’s attention) and set expectations within the text to tell your fans what the clip is all about.

For example, you could use videos to show people how to best use your products/services – why not offer them a tutorial?

8. Post content for time-sensitive campaigns
“Deal ends today!”, “Sale on now!”, “Don’t miss out!”.

Facebook is a great platform for publishing time-sensitive content. Timing and relevancy are important to get right if you want to drive traffic.

If you’re working on a long campaign, why not build anticipation for the promo in advance, counting down the days to go? This will encourage people to express their excitement within the news feed – and every time someone “Likes” or comments on a piece of content, it will boost your ranking on Facebook’s news feed.

9. Include links within posts
As a tool for sharing and spreading information, Facebook is an obvious place for you to post links.

Encourage people to interact with your brand by posting links that users will find valuable or interesting. This will encourage people to share the link with their friends, spreading your brand and driving engagement.

10. Be explicit in your posts
Not explicit as in XXX content or swearing, explicit by telling people exactly what you want them to do. In many cases, publishing content that you think might generate traffic isn’t always enough to get the results you want. Instead, be explicit and explain to your users exactly what action you want them to take.

SStartup Coda

#15 “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most importantly, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” – Steve Jobs

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About SStartup

SStartup is a business society focusing on university students and graduates. Our aim is to bring individuals with business ideas together and to provide a group working environment to build their individual businesses. We also aim to educate those who have yet to develop their business idea in tools that can help build a successful business.

http://www.sstartup.com

About the SStartup Newsletter

Our newsletter is compiled in a collaborative fashion by as many writers, researchers and industry pundits as we can get our hands on. Our conflicts are many, but our insights and facts are always well-researched, honest and to the point. We’re blunt to a fault–by design. If you would like to write for SStartup email oli@sstartup.com.

#013.1: Groupon Launches Instant Deal Service Groupon Now!
#013.2: Student Startup: Kindred Sole
#013.3: Our Top 5 Business Books
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#0013.1: Groupon Launches Instant Deal Service Groupon Now!

Groupon has just taken its deals service up a gear, launching instant service Groupon Now!. The benefits for small businesses are manifold. Got emply tables in your restaurant? Spare seats at your event? An empty class in your gym? Instant deals could land you fast footfall. But it’s early days yet: Groupon Now! is currently only trialing in Chicago. As with all things Groupon, however, an international roll-out is imminent.

Of course, Groupon is arriving to the party a little late. Facebook launched ‘Deals on Facebook’ last month. The beta service is still limited to US users at the moment: Atlanta, Austin, Dallas, San Diego and San Francisco are currently live.

Does it have the jump on Groupon? Possibly. Facebook makes it easy to invite all your friends along to your impulse meal or spontaneous night out – they’re all housed on the same platform, after all.

But Groupon’s mighty subscriber lists and established relationships with small businesses across the globe stand it in good stead. And we quite like this teaser advert too.

#013.2: Student Startup: Kindred Sole

This weeks student startup is Kindred Sole, an online footwear boutique specialising in established brands as well as up-and-coming footwear designers from around the world. Established by Lizze Leary and Beth Widdowson while at DeMontfort University the duo quickly learned to manage their time running their business and their degrees at the same time. I’ll let Lizzie and Beth tell you their story.

Beth and I met while we were studying a fashion retail buying degree at DeMontfort University in Leicester. During our three-year course we simultaneously studied and planned our business vision. We began Kindred Sole with a business plan and created in-depth customer profiles – understanding who our customers would be gave us the foundation for our business’ identity.

The challenge

Managing our intensive university degree while preparing for our business future at the same time.

The solution

We found the solution to studying and working on Kindred Sole was just down to good time-management skills and strong organisational attributes. Beth and I were not only studying and developing Kindred Sole, but also maintaining part-time jobs to assist us financially. We had to work in the evenings and weekends – it was crucial to the development of Kindred Sole.

Key lesson

Having a strict routine and to-do list were crucial in allowing us to multi-task and spread the responsibilities of university, part-time working and Kindred Sole. Without these organisational skills, we would have struggled significantly to make progress with Kindred Sole and finish uni.

Top tip

We found it was extremely important to create a flexible business model and plan to ensure success in multiple areas. For instance, without our flexible attitude to Kindred Sole’s business plan we would have been unable to secure a financial loan from the bank.

#013.3: Our Top 5 Business Books

Rework

Simply a radical new business book that offers a reappraisal of business best practice and will completely change your approach to work. The guys at 37 Signals have broken all the rules and won. Again and again they’ve demonstrated that the regular way isn’t necessarily the right way. They just don’t say it, they do it. And they do it better than just about anyone has any right to expect.

This book is short, fast, sharp and ready to make a difference. It takes no prisoners, spares no quarter, and gives you no place to hide, all at the same time.

Business Stripped Bare

In Business Stripped Bare, Sir Richard Branson shares the inside track on his life in business and reveals the incredible truth about his most risky, brilliant and audacious deals. Discover why Virgin tried to take on one of the world’s biggest superbrands, how Virgin Mobile USA holds the record as the fastest company in history to generate revenues of over one billion dollars (faster than Microsoft, Google and Amazon) and how Richard is the only person in the world to have built eight billion-dollar companies from scratch in eight different sectors.

Combining invaluable advice with the remarkable and candid inside stories of Virgin’s greatest achievements, as well as some of its setbacks, Business Stripped Bare is a dynamic, inspirational and truly original guide to success in business and in life. Whether you are an executive, an entrepreneur or are just starting out, Richard strips business down to show how you can succeed and make a difference.

The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing

Al Ries and Jack Trout, two of the world’s most successful marketing strategists, call upon over 40 years of marketing experise to identify the definitive rules that govern the world of marketing. Combining a wide-ranging historical overview with a keen eye for the future, the authors bring to light 22 superlative tools and innovative techniques for the international marketplace. The authors examine marketing campaigns that have succeeded and others that have failed, why good ideas didn’t live up to expectations, and offer their own ideas on what would have worked better. The real-life examples, commonsense suggestions and killer instincts contained are nothing less than rules by which companies will flourish or fail.

The Tipping Point

The Tipping Point is the biography of an idea, and the idea is quite simple. It is that many of the problems we face – from crime to teenage delinquency to traffic jams – behave like epidemics. They aren’t linear phenomena in the sense that they steadily and predictably change according to the level of effort brought to bear against them. They are capable of sudden and dramatic changes in direction. Years of well-intentioned intervention may have no impact at all, yet the right intervention – at just the right time – can start a cascade of change.

Many of the social ills that face us today, in other words, are as inherently volatile as the epidemics that periodically sweep through the human population: little things can cause them to ‘tip’ at any time and if we want to understand how to confront and solve them we have to understand what those ‘Tipping Points’ are. In this revolutionary new study, Malcolm Gladwell explores the ramifications of this. Not simply for politicians and policy-makers, his method provides a new way of viewing everyday experience and enables us to develop strategies for everything from raising a child to running a company.

Boo Hoo: A Dot-Com Story

Not a business book like the other four on the list but a book that we loved. Boo was the biggest dot com failure of the first boom and a huge amount can be learnt by watching the mistakes made in the building of this company. Fantastically written and hard to put down. One critic said this book is like watching a car crash in slow motion. You know what is going to happen but the people involved are oblivious and you will them to realise before the inevitable crash.

SStartup Coda

#13 “Soyez realists demandez l’impossible” Be Realistic, Demand the Impossible

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About SStartup

SStartup is a business society focusing on university students and graduates. Our aim is to bring individuals with business ideas together and to provide a group working environment to build their individual businesses. We also aim to educate those who have yet to develop their business idea in tools that can help build a successful business.

http://www.sstartup.com

About the SStartup Newsletter

Our newsletter is compiled in a collaborative fashion by as many writers, researchers and industry pundits as we can get our hands on. Our conflicts are many, but our insights and facts are always well-researched, honest and to the point. We’re blunt to a fault–by design. If you would like to write for SStartup email oli@sstartup.com.

This weeks newsletter is all about starting up from home. More people do it then you might imagine and you could do it too. Enjoy.

Oli x

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This weeks newsletter is all about starting up from home. More people do it then you might imagine and you could do it too. Enjoy.

“All I had was a phone, a laptop and my determination.” Sound familiar? For most start-ups, the kitchen table is the jumping off point, the first step on the road to serviced office, multiple staff and glass-fronted boardroom. But how many entrepreneurs grow their businesses to any real scale from home? How many become homemade millionaires?

Far more than you would think, actually. Some entrepreneurs hit the headlines with their money-making home ventures. Remember Alex Tew, who founded his Million Dollar Homepage in 2005 at the tender age of 21? Launched from his kitchen table in Cricklade, Wiltshire, this venture chalked up a massive $1,037,100 gross revenue in one year. Others, however, stay firmly below the radar.

Barry Garner is a serial entrepreneur and innovator. In 1996, before most brand owners had realised the power of the internet, he had a brainwave. “I realised that loads of companies didn’t have the domains for their company name or products,” he says. “So I started buying them up: everything from Channel 4 to Alliance & Leicester, then I would sell them back to the corporations.”

Business was lucrative but the real money-spinner was Garner’s home-run domain parking venture, Traffic Parking International. “I developed a parking platform for all of my domains,” explains Garner. “I could create an instant website in five seconds. It plugged into the web and created categories and sub-categories with advertising links, without the need for unique content.” The platform was based on an early version of the pay-per-click model, with domain owners earning 50 per cent of all advertising revenue. This kind of holding page is now the industry standard for unused domains.

“The service went live in 2003,” says Garner. “At one point, we were generating £250,000 profit a month”. In 2008, Garner sold 80 per cent of the business to Webfusion, one of the UK’s largest domain companies, for “a multimillion pound sum.”

But the story does not end there. Garner still owns an enviable roster of just under 10,000 domain names. “I scour the internet, reading news, tech blogs and industry tweets looking for good business opportunities,” he says. “If I spot a good lead, I register the domain name.”

The jewel in his crown is gold.co.uk. “I saw all the ‘Cash for gold’ adverts earlier in the year, so I decide to acquire the domain,” he says. “I ended up snagging it for £42,000. Three days later, I got an offer for £250,000. But I’m not ready to sell at that price – I’d be happy for a round million”

It’s not just the domain entrepreneurs and affiliate marketing gurus making money from home. Wendy Shand, founder of Tots To Travel, founded her home business in 2006. Her travel company scouts out child-friendly holiday destinations and matches them to families in need of a well deserved break.

Shand keeps overheads down by using a supplier model for her business. “I used to check out every single destination myself,” explains Shand. “But now I have 15-20 people trained in child accident prevention that act on my behalf. These agents work on a freelancer basis. They are based all over Europe and beyond and are all managed via the web, through teleconferencing, online training tools and mentoring.”

Shand always intended for her business to be portable. Her husband is in the RAF and the family has moved three times in as many years. Nevertheless, Tots To Travel has sold over £1.6 million in holidays to date – the business currently operates out of the garden shed!

Doug Richard is a self-confessed ‘disciple of the ultra-light start-up’. The Dragons’ Den star and founder of social enterprise School for Startups says: “If you don’t need offices, don’t have offices. If you don’t need another employee, don’t hire them. You can run a business on very few pounds and do so effectively with less and less compromise.”

Broadband and mobile internet has been a real life-saver for small businesses. Entrepreneurs can respond to queries, update their websites and process orders from just about anywhere. Lindsay Drabwell, founder of kids clothing e-tailer DaisyChainBaby, manages her business from home. “Because we’re an online retailer, we don’t have to invest in premises,” she says.

Home working can lead to unorthodox working patterns. “I start work at 9am, then I stop at 3pm to be with my children,” says Tots To Travel’s Shand. “I usually start again at around seven and I try to stop around 9pm. It’s amazing how productive you can be with a flexible work day.”

Tots to Travel grew a whopping 97 per cent last year. The firm is on course for a £600,000 turnover this year, and will hit the million-pound mark in 2011. By 2015, this home-run travel firm is expected to have a turnover exceeding £6 million and over 650 properties on its books.

However, Shand admits that homeworking can have its downsides. “It is a bit frustrating when I’m playing with my children in the garden and I get interrupted,” she says. “But then, I also get some of my best ideas in those kinds of moments. It’s just important to draw boundaries: personal rules about when you work and when you don’t.”

David Brackin founded eBay business Stuff U Sell with Fraser Pearce in 2004. The business proposition is simple: if you have any unwanted stuff, you can give it to these guys and they’ll photograph it, create the Bay listing and sell it for you. Simple, but incredibly effective: StuffUSell has doubled in size every year since inception and is now selling as much in one month as they did in their whole first year in business.

Brackin started out operating from home, but when his firm began processing £1,000,000 worth of goods per year, he was forced to relocate to a warehouse facility. “Ultimately, when it’s a home, you want it to be your home,” he says. “Not to be full of bubble wrap and boxes. We worked from the spare bedroom for a little under two years. Who wants a windsurfer sat in their hallway waiting for the auction to end?”

But Brackin does miss the homeworking lifestyle. “Time,” he sighs. “You don’t commute and you start working as soon as you’ve made your morning coffee. You can take an hour off to do some gardening mid-morning, but you’re still going at 6pm. Your time is yours to dedicate to what you need: you are no longer constrained by a traditional view of working solidly between 9 and 5.”

The low capital requirement was also a big incentive when Brackin first launched his business from home. “Homes are spectacularly cheap compared with offices,” he says wistfully. “Commercial rent, business rates, business prices on insurance, phone rental, etcetera etcetera,” he says. “These are all expenses which you don’t need to incur when you are piggy-backing off your home expenditure. Using the internet, and eBay in particular, means that you don’t need the expense of a retail outlet any more.”

And here’s a handy hint: having a home or garden office can actually make you richer. Latest stats show that homeworkers actually increase the value of their homes by around £25,000.

Brackin does believe that working from a home address can carry a stigma in some sectors, however. “There’s a real benefit to being able to tell customers your warehouse address and hours of opening: it projects an image of stability, and I think customers do like knowing there’s a place they can go to,” he says.

There are currently 2.8 million home businesses in the UK, contributing a combined £284bn to the economy. Some 60% of small businesses started in the UK are started at home – there is no doubt that homeworked businesses are here to stay.

But beyond the facts and figures, the entrepreneurs who build their businesses at home are unanimously positive, almost evangelical, about the benefits to business, lifestyle and quality of life. Barry Garner laughs off any suggestion he would relocate to an office. “My business feels more like my hobby,” he says. “And my business partner works from a penthouse suite in a hotel in Argentina! We’re living the good life.”

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About SStartup

SStartup is a business society focusing on university students and graduates. Our aim is to bring individuals with business ideas together and to provide a group working environment to build their individual businesses. We also aim to educate those who have yet to develop their business idea in tools that can help build a successful business.

http://www.sstartup.com

About the SStartup Newsletter

Our newsletter is compiled in a collaborative fashion by as many writers, researchers and industry pundits as we can get our hands on. Our conflicts are many, but our insights and facts are always well-researched, honest and to the point. We’re blunt to a fault–by design. If you would like to write for SStartup email oli@sstartup.com.

#011.1: All Saints Seeks Intervention to Save Brand
#011.2: Student Startup: The Founder
#011.3: 30 Business You Can Start on a Shoe String
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Hey Guys,

Apologies to start with for not getting a newsletter out last week but I think this weeks really makes up for it! I’d also like to welcome all the new members of SStartup who are receiving this email for the first time. Thanks so much for supporting us and welcome to the most exciting new society at Reading University, trust me we have a lot in store.

Oli x

#011.1: All Saints Seeks Intervention to Save Brand

High street fashion brand All Saints has been issued an ultimatum by Lloyds Banking Group, which controls the firm’s £28.5m working capital facility: All Saints must complete a rescue buy-out deal by Tuesday evening or face administration.

Lloyds Banking Group has turned up the heat on All Saints to find buyers for stakes owned by Kaupthing and Glitnir, the failed Icelandic banks.

The search for fresh investment has been ongoing, but Lloyds cracked down on the fashion brand last week after US billionaire Michael Dell’s investment firm, MSD, pulled out of a consortium led by US private equity firm Goode Partners. M1, a group co-founded by the former Lebanese prime minister, also left the table.

The deadline has been set for Tuesday, April 27. KPMG is already on standby to initiate administration proceedings as early as Wednesday morning.

Stephen Craig, All Saints’ chief executive, has been working on a deal over the Easter weekend. He’s courting two investors: the names being bandied around are Sun Capital and Lion Capital.

All Saints employs about 2,000 staff and has 63 stores and 47 concessions in the UK, Europe, US and Russia.

IF the Goode Partners deal is successful, Goode will share control of All Saints with Kevin Stanford, the retail magnate who co-founded the Karen Millen chain with his ex-wife of the same name.

The partnership is expected to ease some of the financial pressure on the business by paying off some of its £53 million debt pile.

#011.2: Student Startup: The Founder

This weeks student startup is The Founder, the independent student newspaper of Royal Holloway, University of London. It was established by Jack Lenox as an uncensored voice on campus to provide students with news relating to Royal Holloway, hold the powers that be to account and allow the free exchange of ideas and opinions. I’ll hand you over to Jack.

When I arrived at Royal Holloway I wanted to get involved in the Students’ Union magazine but was very disappointed with what was being produced. Having suggested a number of changes and improvements, I proposed that the Students’ Union set up a newspaper. This proposal was rejected and so I went about setting up my own independent student newspaper. Three months later, 4,000 copies of The Founder arrived at Royal Holloway and it was warmly welcomed by the vast majority of students and staff at the College.

The challenge

In a word, sustaining the effort. Setting up the newspaper wasn’t as difficult as some people might think. Having spent some time Googling and calling round printers, I got some good quotes and worked out what I needed financially. Accompanied by a couple of friends from my halls, I headed into Egham to scope out the advertising potential of a newspaper at Royal Holloway. This went very well and we found a key ally in a local estate agent. Having secured almost £1,000 of advertising, I booked in the first printing slot, got all of my friends in my halls to write articles and started laying out the first edition.

The first edition arrived and it was wonderful – we had the Christmas break to recover but having planned to be a weekly newspaper, returning to Royal Holloway in January was incredibly stressful and intense. We essentially we had to repeat the start-up process every week. Fortunately I secured a small loan from a family friend to act as a float for the paper and this greatly helped but it was still a very stressful time getting everything done on such a tight schedule. I was missing most of my lectures and simply didn’t have enough hours in the week.

The solution

Going fortnightly and establishing package deals with advertisers. The paper was so frequent that people often didn’t realise that the new one was out so soon after the previous edition. I also realised that the vast majority of student newspapers are fortnightly.

This halved our outgoings while keeping income more or less the same. A year’s worth of advertising only actually amounts to 11 or 12 editions of the newspaper. Five or six in the first term, five or six in the second and then one or two in the third term either side of the exam period. This also allowed me to scrape through and pass my first year!

Now The Founder, which in many ways is more of a social enterprise, makes a small profit each year which is reinvested into equipment for the following year’s board, and a party for the outgoing board!

Key lesson

Allowing plans to change and not being too stubborn about trying to do exactly what you set out to do. Be realistic and if the circumstances don’t pan out quite as you expect them, adapt to fit the circumstances. They’ll never adapt to fit you!

Top tip

Persist, persist, persist. The Students’ Union thought it was a bad idea, many advertisers said it wouldn’t be sustainable and Theo Paphitis himself told me that he couldn’t see how it makes any money. I took this as a compliment as, unlike many freesheets, The Founder is not the wall of adverts people have come to expect. We charge a premium for advertising as we have a very targeted and very captive audience. The newspaper is self-sustaining and I’ve seen it make its way onto hundreds of the CVs of my peers so I can’t help but think that it’s a very good thing!

#011.3: 30 Business You Can Start on a Shoe String

Most students need to make some extra cash at times so why not start your own business to make ends meet. Here are our top 30 businesses you can start for almost no investment.

1. Trade on eBay

Use eBay pulse to see what’s hot in the marketplace. Then invest in setting up a professional-looking eBay shop, from £14.99 a month. Read our blog on tips on the design of your shop.

2. Sell stock photography

Sell good quality digital photos to sites like istock.com, shutterpoint.com and fotolia.com. But be warned: this is quite the slow-burner. Lots of advice here.

3. Personal chef

Invest in a good cookery course (like the ones listed here), then start offering your services to friends of friends in need of dinner party assistance.

4. Become a cookery writer

As above – then publish your own cookery book through blurb.com. Sales will come in from the site, and you can sell yourself to new prospective clients by saying you’re also a cookery author.

5. Antiques trader

Do some serious homework on cheaper pieces – invest in an encyclopaedia and read mags like this one. Buy a few items to hedge your bets, then sell to antiques dealers and shops.

6. Virtual assistant

Sign up to a site like virtualassistants.co.uk (£2.95 to post a listing for 12 months). Invest in a secretarial or touch typing course to give you an edge over other candidates. More advice here.

7. Personal trainer

Proper training courses are several hundred pounds at least (recommended ones here), but if you’re a marathon old-hand or a gym-bod you could entice some clients without. Pick up part-time work in a gym to find clients.

8. Snack stall

You can buy a stall for around £100 – £150 (from somewhere like this). Make sure you comply with all health and safety regulations and get a license from your local council if you’re selling alcohol, hot food between 11pm and 5am or food from a stall or van on the street.

9. Late-night alcohol delivery

Supply the midnight masses and charge a premium on booze and snacks delivered after pub closing time. You’ll need a personal license to sell alcohol, which costs £37 – get it online from your local council.

10. Cleaning company

Start this business with no overheads by using clients’ cleaning products. Pay for criminal record checks (CRB checks, £26 each) for yourself and any other members of staff to reassure new customers once you get some money coming in.

11. Focus group organiser

Target small businesses at networking events and with flyers to user-test their new products or websites. Then place free ads on Gumtree to find participants and skim a fee off their hourly pay. More info here on conducting focus groups.

12. Flyering agency

Call around all local business and clubs and say you’ll find them someone to hand out flyers for a £3 charge (on top of their hourly rate). Then find students in need of work on Gumtree.

13. Pop-up restaurant

Decorate your living room, stick some posters in your front window and start a restaurant in your house. Technically you’re meant to get a load of health and safety checks done for this, but there’s a whole crop of people doing it on the sly. Check out our guest blog from Horton Jupiter to find out how it’s done.

14. Treasure hunt business

You can start this business for next to nothing. Do some research on your local area and plant clues for family fun days and cheap office outings. Take a look at how Hunt Fun and Treasure Days are doing it.

15. Sell pot plants, herbs and home-grown veg

The whole of the middle class is into organic and home-grown veg these days, and with packets of hundreds of seeds coming in at around 60p, you can sell your own produce for a whopping profit. Or just take clippings of plants and herbs you already have, grow out into separate pots and sell to neighbours and friends.

16. Gardening and landscaping assistant

Got green fingers? Put them to use by offering your services to people in your area. Show them sketches of how you think the garden could be improved and you become a landscape gardener to boot (though you’ll need to do careful research on what grows well in which places and at what times of year).

17. Meal delivery service

Capitalise on people too busy or too lazy to cook by offering to deliver delicious dishes of their liking, home-cooked by you. Check out our interview with the founder of The Pure Package for inspiration.

18. Walking and bike tours

Armed with nothing more than a map and a book on local history, you can guide tours around your local commons, hills or towns and share insight into the history of your area for a small charge.

19. Clothes repairs

Basic needlework is astonishingly straightforward. Offer to darn friends of friends’ clothes for a nominal fee and take in too-big shirts and skirts.

20. Gift baskets

Knocking up ribbon-adorned wicker baskets brimming with Bon Maman jams, freshly-baked muffins and fruit is relatively cheap, but you can charge a premium.

21. Dog training

Easy if you know how. Getting a formal qualification will improve your chances of doing business with people you don’t know. Check out the Association of Pet Dog Trainers for more info.

22. Pet sitting and walking

Most pet owners prefer one-on-one TLC for their animals than putting them into kennels. Keep your rates competitive and incentivise clients to refer a friend.

23. Event and party planning

Perfect if you’ve got a natural knack for organisation. Establishing cut-price deals with catering companies, florists, wine suppliers and the like will ensure you offer a competitive service.

24. Car boot sales

Have a proper clear-out of your junk to get started, then reinvest profits into buying stuff from any charity shop you have time to scour. Offer to take friends’ junk off their hands to cut overheads.

25. Social media assistant

More and more small businesses are latching onto the fact social media can help them, so offer to maintain accounts for them for a small fee – you can keep business ticking over while still doing your day job. Tools like Tweetdeck will help hugely. More advice here.

26. Handyman

There are gutters to clean, tiles to be scrubbed, lawns to be raked and paths to be laid all around the country. Post friendly notes through letterboxes advertising a cheap hourly rate.

27. Home tutor

If you’ve got a degree, or good A-level results, you can offer to help out schoolkids with their homework and exams. Get a certification to make it more official if you struggle to find work. The BBC has some good info on that.

28. Computer skills mentor

There are still millions of people out there who feel utterly confounded by computers and the internet. If you’re a spreadsheet whiz or an Outlook old-hand, you can charge them for lessons.

29. CV consultant

If you’ve made it through the rat race and come out the other side older and wiser, you can help newbies tidy up their CV’s. Advertise on Gumtree and ask friends, and keep fees low.

30. Second-hand clothes stall

Get yourself down to a retro clothes market in a university town, armed with piles of 70s, 80s and 90s clothes from charity shops, and you’ll find you can charge anything from £5 to £50 an item. Ask the local council about renting a stall.

SStartup Coda

#11 “Never give in! Never give in! Never, never, never, never – in nothing great or small, large or petty. Never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense.” – Winston Churchill
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About SStartup
SStartup is a business society focusing on university students and graduates. Our aim is to bring individuals with business ideas together and to provide a group working environment to build their individual businesses. We also aim to educate those who have yet to develop their business idea in tools that can help build a successful business.

http://www.sstartup.com

About the SStartup Newsletter
Our newsletter is compiled in a collaborative fashion by as many writers, researchers and industry pundits as we can get our hands on. Our conflicts are many, but our insights and facts are always well-researched, honest and to the point. We’re blunt to a fault–by design. If you would like to write for SStartup email oli@sstartup.com.