Navigating the Jungle: A Survival Guide for Student Entrepreneurs

So you’ve got a business idea, you want to get your first company off the ground and you need to balance this with getting the degree you want. It’s a tough position to be in – particularly if you don’t have much business experience. The good news is that there are a wealth of easily accessible people, resources and organisations which can help you out!

I was in exactly this position a few years ago. I had a business idea during my second year at university and started with the student society for entrepreneurship (Oxford Entrepreneurs). I also found great value in the resources below and these helped me develop my company GroupSpaces to where it is today.

Entrepreneurship Societies

I strongly advocate these – the entrepreneurship society at your university is a fantastic resource. The speaker events it holds can inspire you, the other members of the society can be your co-founders and the more experienced entrepreneurs in the society can offer you guidance and direction. If you’re not already a member, you can find out how to join the entrepreneurship society at your university at www.groupspaces.com.

Online Resources and Books

There are a plethora of online resources that will help you with ‘starting a business’ ranging from the embarrassing to the enlightening. Here are my top three that will provide you with genuine value:

1. Paul Graham’s essays at www.paulgraham.com – over 100 thought-provoking essays with a focus on entrepreneurship and technology by one of the global thought leaders on entrepreneurship. If you haven’t come across these before I’d recommend starting with “A Student’s Guide to Startups” and “Why to Not Not Start a Startup”. Paul sold his own startup Viaweb to Yahoo! in 1999 for $49.6M.
2. Stanford University’s Entrepreneurship Corner at ecorner.stanford.edu – over 1,200 educational speaker videos about all aspects of entrepreneurship, featuring the world’s top venture capitalists and the entrepreneurs behind Facebook, Google and dozens of other extremely successful companies.
3. Business Link at www.businesslink.gov.uk – guides to the majority of paperwork-related issues you will face starting a business, ranging from incorporating your company to payroll, taxation and selling your business (hopefully you’ll get that far!).

There are also a huge number of books about starting a business. Here are my top three:

1. Founders at Work by Jessica Livingston – a collection of short, candid interviews with founders of over 30 of the most successful technology companies from the last few decades such as Apple, PayPal and Dell. This brings the notion of starting a great company down to earth – you’ll be surprised by how clueless some of these entrepreneurs were at the beginning!
2. The Art of the Start by Guy Kawasaki – a how-to guide to making ideas happen by the venture capitalist and former Chief Evangelist at Apple.
3. The Four Steps to the Epiphany by Steve Blank – a guide to launching a company using the “Customer Development” methodology, something which I believe will become the de facto approach to starting a business in years to come. Steve founded or worked in 8 startup companies in California’s Silicon Valley.

Support Organisations and Schemes

There are several national and international supporting services, campaigns and initiatives which offer mentoring, advice, guidance and funding to students wishing to start companies. Here are 5 which you might find useful:

NCGE (National Council of Graduate Entrepreneurship) works to reshape and improve the environment for enterprise and entrepreneurship in higher education. It also works directly with students and recent graduates to support those who want to start a business through its FlyingStart initiative which provides training, mentoring and expert advice. You can build an online support team, find out about FlyingStart events and read success stories of entrepreneurs who have benefited from working with NCGE at www.flyingstartonline.com.

Shell LiveWIRE combines an online support service and awards programme for young entrepreneurs in the UK. It is one of the longest running youth enterprise schemes in the UK, promoting enterprise as a real career option since 1982. You can ask questions and receive expert video answers, discuss business issues with other young entrepreneurs and access an online business library at www.shell-livewire.org.

NACUE (National Advisory Consortium of University Entrepreneurs) is new to the scene. It is a national organisation that supports and represents university enterprise societies across the UK. NACUE provides budding entrepreneurs with a national, diverse and dynamic network to support them in their start up process. From providing students with the latest news on training, business support services, enterprise conferences, competitions and funding and incubation opportunities to enabling them to connect locally, regionally and nationally with like-minded young entrepreneurs across the country, over the next few months NACUE will become a central reference point for student entrepreneurs across the UK. For more information on NACUE and to sign up for its weekly e-newsletter, visit www.nacue.com

Seedcamp is Europe’s leading micro-seed fund and each year it provides 20 select, very early-stage software companies with a week of workshops and networking in London with Europe’s top investors, product experts and marketing gurus. At the end of this week, all 20 teams will have developed a network that would otherwise have taken years to build and 5-7 teams receive a small investment of up to €50k. Recent student success stories include Kyko and Zoombu, both of whom received Seedcamp investment in September 2008 and were founded by Oxford University students. To find out more and apply for Seedcamp Week 2009, visit www.seedcamp.com.

Y Combinator is a Silicon Valley-based micro-seed fund (founded in part by Paul Graham and Jessica Livingston – both mentioned above) which runs a bi-annual 3-month scheme for 10-20 teams at a time and offers investments of $5k + $5k per founder. The 3-month period runs from January to March and July to September each year and leads up to an “Investor Day” where each team gets to pitch their idea to a room full of Silicon Valley’s top angel investors and venture capitalists. Y Combinator has made in excess of 100 investments to date, 10 of which have been in British teams. The most notable being Songkick which was founded by Cambridge graduates and has raised in excess of $5M venture capital investment to date; and Auctomatic which was founded by Oxford graduates and sold to publicly-traded Canadian company Live Current for $5M in March last year. To find out more and apply for the next batch, visit www.ycombinator.com.

The last resource I’ll leave you with is myself – if you have any questions, feel free to email me on david [@] davidlanger.co.uk or tweet me on @langer

You can read the print version of this article in Issue #19 of The Gateway newspaper

The Year That Made Me: Nick House

Nick House

Nick House is the fourth and final interviewee for The Year That Made Me series. He follows other successful entrepreneurs Michael Smith, Jamie Murray Wells and Kulveer Taggar.

After organising parties and events while studying at Leeds University, Nick started working at Citibank upon graduation. However, this new life was neither as much fun nor as satisfying as the old, and in 1999, shortly after starting at Citibank, he left to establish Nick House Entertainment (NHE group), which would offer consultancy on all areas within the bar, restaurant and nightclub industry.

Since then, the company has expanded from consulting and promotions to also owning and operating some of the top venues in London, such as Mahiki, Whisky Mist, Tini and The Punch Bowl.

Mahiki, arguably the most well-known of these is now frequented by celebrity clientele such as Paris Hilton, Girls Aloud and Princes William and Harry.

Which was the year that made you?

No year has actually made me but in terms of stepping stones 2001 was when I made my commitment to working in the bar and club business and that commitment meant a night and day, 7 days a week focus.

What were the main challenges you were facing at this time?

Opening two new premium venues in the darkest depths of the recession, raising finance from financial institutions during a credit freeze and attempting to maintain growth on our existing bars and clubs during turbulent trading times.

You ran events and parties while you were studying at Leeds. What did you learn that helped you when you started NHE?

I learnt that it was an incredibly fun way to make money and meet exciting people. I also learnt there was a direct correlation between what you got out and what you put in.

After graduating from Leeds University you moved to London to start working at Citibank. How did you find it and why did you decide to leave it behind soon after starting?

I joined Citibank because I suffered a momentary lapse of focus and followed rest of the pack into the City. Looking at my watch all day helped me make the decision to leave soon after starting.

What advice would you give to current students thinking about starting their own business after graduating?

The fortune always favours the bold and there is no such thing as a wrong decision simply a right decision next time.  Never be afraid to make mistakes as they are far cheaper at an early age.

Which people inspired you early on in your career?

I learnt from many entrepreneurs, in particular from Piers Adam and Eric Yu. They taught me a lot about the social dynamics of people and what communities gel with other communities.  Understanding how people work is the first step in driving them into a party.

More recently you moved from club promotion to club ownership with Mahiki and Whisky Mist. What new challenges came with this move?

New challenges included the operations side of the business, cost control, gross profit margin, licensing and ultimately the game of politics with local MPs and the police force – regrettably!  Other than that, running clubs is no different to running parties, except that the stakes are a little higher.

Last question, what’s next?

A few more clubs are opening this year but I have got my sights set on opening a 3000 plus capacity club in the heart of London.

You can read the print version of this article in issue #19 of The Gateway newspaper

The Year That Made Me: Michael Smith

Michael Smith

Michael Smith is the third interviewee in this 4-part series which explores the pivotal year in some successful entrepreneurs’ careers. In 1998, less than a year after graduating from the University of Birmingham, Michael launched Hotbox.co.uk (now Firebox.com), an Internet retailer which now turns over tens of millions of dollars each year and is responsible for inventing the Shot Glass Chess set and selling many other games and gadgets. Then in 2004 Michael launched Mind Candy, which after raising $10M+ venture capital is now one of the world’s leading developers of social multi-player games, helping kids around the world play and connect.

Which was the year that made you?

1998, the year I launched Hotbox.co.uk, invented the Shot Glass Chess set and subsequently realised that my first business was going to work.

What was your situation at the start of 1998?

After graduating in the June of 1997, I went travelling for a few months before taking a job with Goldman Sachs. However, it wasn’t what I really wanted to be doing and my good friend from university Tom Boardman was in a similar position. Then in February 1998, we read a book called “Business on the Internet”, made lots of notes and thought setting up an Internet business would be a cool thing to do.

What happened next?

We were both fans of men’s and gadget magazines and noticed that while they regularly reviewed gadgets, they never promoted an online retailer that sold them. After doing some research and finding out that there actually weren’t any, we wanted to capitalise on this opportunity. So we quit our respective jobs, and started Hotbox.co.uk.

We started off working from Tom’s attic and both did some clinical drugs trials in order to earn a few hundred pounds to cover our living expenses. After my Mum heard about the trials, she gave us £1,000 to help keep us going without having to risk our health doing more trials!

By the summer, we had some friends buying gadgets from the website, but turnover was tiny. Then one night in a pub in Cardiff we came up with the idea for the Shot Glass Chess set. It’s essentially a chess board but all the pieces are replaced with shot glasses. We described it as the Thinking Man’s Drinking Game. Our friends all liked the idea when we explained it to them but to our surprise, we couldn’t find anywhere that sold or manufactured it. So the next day we went into WHSmith, scribbled down the physical addresses of several magazine editors and journalists and sent them a press release we put together. Almost immediately we had a lot of interest in the concept – from BBC Wales to magazines such as Loaded and FHM.

So everyone liked your idea but you had no Shot Glass Chess sets to sell yet, no suppliers to buy some from and hardly any money. How did you overcome this situation?

We knew that we were going to receive a flurry of press in the lead up to Christmas so we spoke to some manufacturers, explained our predicament and ask if they would produce 100 sets on credit. To our delight, one agreed. Then in the lead up to Christmas we started receiving orders, the whole initial batch of sets were shipped and at this point we knew the business was going to work.

How did you proceed after gaining this early traction with the Shot Glass Chess sets?

By early 1999, we had already made tens of thousands of pounds and hired two more people into our team which allowed us to scale up our operation using this money

A few months later we were at a networking event called First Tuesday and we spoke to a Venture Capitalist (VC) about our ideas and early success. The VC was interested in finding out more and we needed to write a business plan. However, at 23 years old and with no knowledge of how to do this, it was far from straightforward. Anyway, we read as much as we could on the subject, made up some financial models that added up and put a plan down on paper. By the end of the year we had secured £500,000 from the venture capital firm New Media Spark.

What advice would you give to recent graduates raising money for their first business?

If you’re trying to raise money for your first business today, I’d say the most important thing is to get out in front of as many investors as possible. Go to networking events, have coffee with angels, present at ‘angel networks’ and take advantage of any other ways you can get time with potential investors.

Given the current global economic climate, do you think now is a good time for new graduates to start a company?

I think it’s always a good time to start a company – recession or not. We are in an economic downturn but bear in mind that Apple, Microsoft and many other hugely successful companies were founded in recessions. It’s also tougher to get into traditional work, so starting a company might be a more appealing option for some people upon graduation.

How much help was it having a co-founder when starting up?

It is really tough to set up a business. Working with Tom made a huge difference – startups invariably have high highs and low lows and having a co-founder helps to keep the morale up during the difficult periods.

University is a great environment in which to find a co-founder because you get to work with people, get to know them as friends and therefore get to know their strengths, weaknesses and potential fit with you.

You’ve now started angel investing yourself. What do you look for from potential investments?

I’ve made about 6-8 investments and I like to invest in companies started up by friends, or friends of friends. The character and attitude of the person you’re investing in is more important than the actual idea so it’s a huge advantage to know a little about that individual before you invest.

I like consumer facing businesses, particularly ideas that I would use myself. The industries I tend to go for are online gaming and social networks.

Which entrepreneurs still inspire you?

Steve Jobs is my favourite entrepreneur. He made computers sexy. He’s revolutionised four major industries in his career: personal computers, animation, music, and mobile.

One problem with the UK is that there are not as many role models as there are in the US. There are a few greats such as Richard Branson but we need more in the next generation.

Last question, what’s next?

I’m currently spending 99% of my time on Mind Candy. We’ve just started generating revenue from our second product, Moshi Monsters, a social multi-player game aimed at kids of all ages. Over the next year we’ll be looking to develop this aggressively – a similar game called Club Penguin was acquired by Disney for $700M in August 2007 which is evidence of the opportunity in this rapidly growing sector.

With Firebox.com, we’ve had a couple of conversations with potential acquirers but we haven’t come to any agreements yet. We’re a Venture Capital backed business so it’s important that we are planning for an exit at some point.

While most of my time is spent developing Moshi Monsters, I have a few other projects on the go such as organising entrepreneur meet-ups, a music festival, and a possible book.

The life of entrepreneur is hectic, but the decision to launch my own business a decade ago remains the best thing I’ve ever down. I’d encourage anyone reading this to shake off the fear and give it a go.  Life’s too short to stand on the sidelines watching.

You can read the print version of this article in issue #17 of The Gateway newspaper and follow Michael on Twitter at @acton

The Year That Made Me: Jamie Murray Wells

Jamie Murray Wells

Jamie Murray Wells is the second interviewee in this 4-part series exploring the pivotal year in some successful entrepreneurs’ careers. He follows on from Kulveer Taggar – an Oxford graduate who quit his Investment Banking job at Deutsche Bank in London and ended up moving to Silicon Valley and selling his company Auctomatic for $5M less than a year later.

While studying for his finals in English at the University of the West of England, Jamie discovered that he needed to start wearing spectacles. When he also discovered that the cost of a pair from his optician was £150 even though they would only cost £7 to make, he smelt a big opportunity. This inspired him to use the rest of his student loan to set up Glasses Direct, a business which would sell spectacles directly to the public, over the Internet. In the first year of business, Glasses Direct sold 22,000 pairs, and had an annual turnover of £1M, the company now sells a pair every few minutes over the web, with annual turnover of around £4m, and estimates that it has saved the British public over £40m on their prescription eyewear.

Which was the year that changed your life?

2007, the year Glasses Direct came of age. The company stopped feeling like a bootstrapped startup and this was the first year where our mission to become a global household brand became a real possibility.

What was your situation at the start of 2007?

We were a team of 16 students and recent graduates based in a barn in Wiltshire. Over the Christmas break I was running the numbers out to see how I expected the business to grow. However, despite our growth rate of 50-100% annually, we were going to take many years to reach the market share I wanted. Following this startling realisation, I knew that we needed a financial injection in order to hire a senior management team and grow the business even more aggressively.

How did you proceed?

I worked out that we needed £3M in order to achieve my objectives and I knew that Venture Capital was the only sensible route to taking on that level of financing. My first task was to persuade the existing board that this was the right move for the business.

One thing to realise when you set out to raise Venture Capital, is that it’s a long process and if you don’t end up securing a deal, you may find it very tough to continue running your business as you are likely to have taken a lot of time out of day-to-day operations and you might be running out of money.

Despite the obvious risks associated with this route, I did manage to convince my board that this was the correct choice.

What happened during your fundraising process?

For the first few months I spent a lot of time getting the train to and from London, building up my network and learning more about the VC community. I knew that I only wanted to work with the best VCs and this meant I needed to get good at pitching. Fast. Entering my first VC meetings, I felt like I had just entered a boxing ring with someone several weight categories above me. They had spent years negotiating with entrepreneurs like me and I was little more than a student.

Nevertheless, I did get the hang of it and after 7 months we were ready to close a deal with two top-tier VCs – Index Ventures and Highland Capital Partners. On July 18th 2007 – the day on which the deal was meant to close, we were close to running out of money and then a legal complication came up. I was worried that the deal was not going to close, pacing up and down the corridor of my lawyer’s office in London’s Gherkin building. Luckily, we found a solution and at 4pm that day, £3M arrived in the Glasses Direct bank account. Soon afterwards I was in the bar on the roof of the Gherkin where we drank some champagne to celebrate. It was incredible going from potentially nothing, to everything – a real make or break day.

What advice would you give to other young entrepreneurs looking to raise Venture Capital investment?

Give a great pitch. Illustrate what your product/service looks like now and in the future. Use all available technology (video etc.) to build an interactive and experiential presentation to get your investor to emotionally buy in.

Approach a wide range of investors in order to make your deal competitive. Too many entrepreneurs only approach the same 7-8 VCs who all talk to each other. Seek out family funds, angel investors and any other source you can access.

Build a great team. Even if you can’t hire top people at an executive level initially, try to get one or two on board as Non-Executive Directors or NEDs before your fundraise. For example, I saw David Magliano (Director of Marketing at Easyjet) speak at a Marketing Society event at Claridges a few years ago and went up to him straight after his speech explaining why he needed to get involved with Glasses Direct. It worked and soon afterwards he came on board as an NED – this turned out to be very useful when we came round to fundraising and developing the business.

If and when you do complete an investment round, hit the ground running straightaway. You only get one chance to spend the money and make the business work.

Make sure the people who you appoint to your board you a) like and b) trust. You’re ‘getting into bed’ with these people. Spend time with them. Speak to their other investee companies and take references on them. Take references on their references.

I would also advocate keeping the board as small as possible. If you want to have more people in closely involved in a non-executive capacity, create an informal “Advisory Board” for these people.

So, in July 2007 £3M had just landed in the Glasses Direct bank account. Did that change the way you ran the business subsequently?

After closing, everyone previously on our board left, except for myself and David Magliano. Saul Klein from Index Ventures and Fergal Mullen from Highland Capital Partners came on from the VCs, and I brought on Michael Ross (Founder, Figleaves.com) as an independent 5th Board Member for his experience in e-commerce. With such an elite board appointed, I needed to step up my game more than ever.

By the end of 2007, we had set up a fulfilment office in Wiltshire, an office in London, hired a COO from Betfair and we had grown the team to 40 people in total. As the business has grown, my role has become less hands-on and more managerial. I had hired in a senior management team and I needed to set targets, measure them carefully and take action where there was underperformance. As CEO, I needed to remain objective, keep my cool, think everything through, be flexible and be sure to take other people’s views into account.

I notice that you have advised several politicians about policy on entrepreneurship. How did you first get involved with Politics?

Entrepreneurs like to take on great challenges and I believe that the political system contains many great problems and challenges. I wanted to inject some entrepreneurial thinking into it. My first opportunity to get seriously involved came about after I won the 2006 Enterprising Young Brits award, which was presented by Gordon Brown (at that time, Chancellor of the Exchequer). He invited me to join a round table of entrepreneurs who would offer him and his team advice.

Following this, I was then asked to join George Osborne’s New Enterprise Council. My main motivation with it all is to ensure that young entrepreneurs have the best chance of succeeding with their businesses.

Which entrepreneurs do you still find inspiring?

Steve Jobs (Apple), Jeff Bezos (Amazon), Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook) and Warren Buffett (Berkshire Hathaway) all come to mind. Steve has had a phenomenal career – he has brought into existence many of the devices we rely upon today. He is also a great salesman, something which is important for entrepreneurs. Check out some of his presentations on YouTube, he’s like a magician. Jeff for his consumer-focused approach: every penny spent by the company is on something customer-facing. Initially employees at Amazon had to build their own desks as desks weren’t things that directly benefited their customers in any way. Mark, as despite being young, appears to have the longevity as CEO which is both impressive and interesting to watch. Finally, Warren for always taking a long-term approach – short-termist approaches don’t often work in business.

Last question, what’s next?

I’m still fully focused (excuse the pun) on Glasses Direct. We’re in the process of setting up our US office in Salt Lake City and we’re about to release some new virtual mirror technology which will allow people to try on their glasses online!

And like every other true entrepreneur, I never stop looking for the next big thing.

You can read the print version of this article in issue #16 of The Gateway newspaper

The Year That Made Me: Kulveer Taggar

Kulveer Taggar

Following last term’s Tycooons of Tomorrow series, this term I’m going to be interviewing four successful entrepreneurs (arguably, tycoons already!) on the pivotal year in their respective careers. The idea for the series came from a conversation with Paul Carr – we thought “A day in the life of” was going to need to be romanticised too much to get anywhere, but most people who have ‘made it’ can attribute a significant amount to one particular year.

In the first interview of “The Year That Made Me” series, I spoke to Kulveer Taggar where he shared his journey of studying at Oxford, to Investment Banking in London, to dot-com millions in Silicon Valley – all in just over a year!

Which was the year that changed your life?

2006, the year after I finished my PPE degree at Oxford. It was when I left my graduate job at Deutsche Bank to work on my start-up full-time and moved from London to Silicon Valley.

What was your situation at the start of 2006?

I graduated from Oxford in June 2005 and started at Deutsche Bank that August, a couple of months later. My final year at university was tough as I was the President of Oxford Entrepreneurs Society, doing my finals and had started up Boso.com (a marketplace for students) with my cousin Harjeet Taggar.

What were the main challenges you were facing at this time?

The real challenge was to maintain the business and try to take it forward whilst working full-time in the City. Access to outside email was blocked and it was tough to manage everything using only my BlackBerry (as well as doing my job there properly!). We had no income from the website at that point and had to raise some investment as well.

What were the key events that took place over the next 12 months?

I’d come to the end of my six months mandatory period in February, and then decided that if I was serious about becoming an entrepreneur, I should take the plunge before getting too deeply submerged in the world of banking.

Luckily, I had a really supportive boss and he gave me his blessing to leave (and a cheque for £16,000 to get started!).

I flew out to the US to meet Evan Williams (founder, Blogger.com and Twitter.com) and Max Levchin (Paypal) in May to ask for investment advice and general strategy, and returned with Evan becoming an advisor to the company, which at that time was really useful as we didn’t have a great network in London and not as many people were doing start-ups as there are today.

In August that year we ended up raising almost £180,000 in angel investment, and in November we took investment from Y Combinator, an investment firm based in Silicon Valley. That was significant because it helped us relocate to San Francisco, and exposed us to a great network of developers, investors and entrepreneurs.

You left your investment banking job in February, 2006. What finally made you take this decision?

Despite being really determined to make something of the start-up and work on it full-time, it was still very tough to leave the bank. My boss had just sent me to New York for the month in January to learn about the oil business (I worked in Commodities) and I was starting to like earning a healthy income. I remember drafting my resignation letter and failing at my first two or three attempts to bring it up with him.

One thing that gave me a push was the Silicon Valley Comes to Oxford conference I attended the previous November. I ended up going for drinks with the panelists after the event (some who I knew from the same event a year before) and they commented on my appearance and general lack of enthusiasm for my new job as a banker. Mike Malone, a journalist from Silicon Valley, in particular was pretty forthcoming that I should do the right thing and follow my dreams. His words stayed with me.

Soon after getting funded by YCombinator, you decided to divert your attention to a new idea – Auctomatic. Was this a difficult decision?

It was a difficult decision because it meant acknowledging that the first idea was wrong. We’d been working on Boso.com, a marketplace for students, for almost two years at this point, and had raised money for the idea as well. Being an entrepreneur is tough as you have to really believe in what you’re doing, almost to the point where it’s blind faith, but at the same time be critical about what you’re doing and keep an open mind about any changes you have to make.

What we realised was there was demand out there for a simpler way to sell things online than eBay, which is why people used boso.com in the first place. So we decided to tackle this problem in eBay itself. Auctomatic was a website that simplified the process of selling things on eBay.

What happened next?

We went through some significant changes. First we met 19-year old student Patrick Collison through Y Combinator and he became our third co-founder & CTO and dropped out of his degree at MIT. We then raised some investment from Paul Buchheit, the creator of Gmail, and Chris Sacca, Google’s former Head of Special Initiatives, and ended up launching the site in late 2007.

Very soon after launching, you received acquisition offers from some big West Coast companies. How did these come so quickly?

There was a lot of good fortune involved. The Live Current CEO had been reading my BBC Viewpoint pieces and met up with Patrick by chance in Vancouver and floated the idea of us joining them. Live Current was growing quickly and they saw value in the software we had developed for their e-commerce properties.

There were other companies that were very interested in working with us, and once word got out that an offer had been made for us they also jumped in.

You decided to take Live Current’s offer of $5M. What made you choose that over the other companies?

Live Current was most start-up like out of the offers we’d received. It was definitely a very tough decision to make, but in the end we trusted our gut instincts that this was the correct next step for us.

To trust your inner instinct was advice given to me by Evan Williams. Ultimately if you have a lot of good options you can go crazy trying to analyse them and so sometimes it can be better to just do what feels right.

Prior to the acquisition, I understand that you were running out of the angel investment you had received. How did you deal with this?

Even though we were incredibly cost-conscious, our expenses had increased once we had expanded to five full-time people. We needed to raise some more money but at the same time that wouldn’t have made sense if we were going to sell the company. So we were in tricky situation. There was one period where we had only $50 in the bank. We’d buy really cheap food to cook at home, and cut costs wherever we could. The extreme of this was 5 of us all living together in a two-bed apartment to save on rent!

This period must have been a real emotional rollercoaster ride. What difference did having your co-founder (and cousin) Harjeet go through it with you make?

The entire startup process is an emotional rollercoaster. Having Harjeet made a huge difference. We would typically experience our highs and lows at opposite times and balance each other out. It must be really tough to do it on your own.

Which entrepreneurs do you still find inspiring?

Several, but most of all Max Levchin for his energy and continued ambition to create another billion dollar company with Slide after selling PayPal.

Last question, what’s next?

I’m now a Director at Live Current and have ended up focused on Cricket.com, where we are building a fantasy cricket game. We also bought the digital rights to the Indian Premier League in a $50M deal over 10 years, so it’s a very exciting opportunity. I live in Vancouver now, which is where our office is but may relocate to Mumbai depending on how things go.

You can read the print version of this article in issue #15 of The Gateway newspaper

Tycoons of Tomorrow #4: Kieran O’Neill

Kieran O'Neill

Kieran is the final Tycoon of Tomorrow in this 4-part series – and the biggest hitting yet. He was born in Bermuda and moved to England at the age of 14. A year later he started HolyLemon.com, a video sharing website focused on funny videos and at the age of 19 sold this to NASDAQ-listed tech company HandHeld Entertainment for $1.25M. Last year, at the age of 20, he left his Management degree at Bath University to found his third company, Playfire.com, for which he has already raised $1M in venture capital investment.

 

What was it like to sell a company for over a million dollars at the age of 19? What did you do with the money?

It was very surreal! After the exit became public, I did 10 different radio interviews, was on the front-page of the local paper, on the BBC website and the ITV evening news. It’s odd seeing and hearing yourself in that way! My life didn’t change very much after the sale. I went on holiday with my girlfriend, and bought a MacBook Pro, but that was about it! The best thing is that I have capital to self-fund future ventures in the early days, and it’s a credibility stamp when meeting more experienced successful entrepreneurs.

What is Playfire? Why did you choose this idea for your third venture?

Playfire is a social web application for gamers. You can build a cool profile to show off your games & stats, connect with similar gamers and chat about titles with other fans.

I chose this as my third venture as I love gaming, I love social apps, and there were tens of millions of gamers who wanted a better way to connect and share their gaming experiences.

You chose to base Playfire in London. Why did you opt for here over Silicon Valley?

I spent a lot of time in Silicon Valley last year, and got to understand first hand the many benefits of being located there – easy access to capital, lots of young founders and skilled employees, and nearby acquirers. However, London has a great collection of investors, many talented developers (without hiring competition from the likes of Google and Facebook), and is generally a fun, thriving place to live. 

It is definitely rarer to start a successful tech company in London than in the Valley, however I think that is mostly down to much fewer people doing it! All the resources a budding entrepreneur needs are here, and the community is evolving a rapid pace. The founding team all lived here, so with no solid reason to be anywhere else, it was a no-brainer.

You’ve assembled a world-class group of investors for Playfire. Are there any tips you can give our readers on raising investment for their business?

1. Be passionate & obsessive; know everything there is to know about your business, your customers, competition, the industry and the unique quirks that make it run. Investors are going to want to see someone who has spent a lot of time learning the opportunity inside out. 
    
2. Team up with great tech people as opposed to outsourcing a web development company. Dev shops cost lots of money, force you to be rigid and inflexible, and despite what the sales guys say, the people making your site won’t give a **** about you.
    
3. Network like crazy. Meet tons of funded entrepreneurs, and then ask ones that you get on well with for an introduction or two to an investor. Then ask these investors, in the course of putting a round together, if there’s anyone they’d like to bring in. Make it easy for the entrepreneurs to make the introduction by being friendly, having a good idea, a concise URL, and a 5 page PowerPoint presentation that they can forward on.

How many people now work for you? What challenges have you faced while managing them?

Playfire is 7 people. The most important thing we’ve had to learn is how to co-ordinate development, design and product management to move at the fastest pace. This is not something you can really work on until you’re there doing it, and it changes every time you add someone new, as the balance of speed shifts again.

What do you know now that you wish you had known when you started your first business?

Find a super smart technical co-founder. Keep costs ultra lean, and hack away at solving a huge problem.

Where do you see yourself in 5 years time? What about 15 years time?

Very tough questions, as things change so much year to year. If I had to guess, I’d say 5 years time: continuing to grow and develop Playfire, changing the face of the video games industry by connecting gamers from all around the world in one central place. In 15 years time the world will be a very different place, but however it changes, I hope to be at the forefront of it.

What motivates you?

The desire to achieve ridiculously outrageous things. I’m highly competitive, and by spending time with other driven people, it pushes me to set my goals higher and higher. 

The phrase ‘life goals’ gets thrown around many personal development books and workshops today. Do you have any ‘life goals’?

They change all the time, and are not set in stone. I want to build a billion-dollar company, mentor young entrepreneurs, and stay healthy. If it had to come down to one thing, it would be to always be happy. The prior mentioned goals are how I currently think I can achieve that.

If you could be the CEO of any company in the world, which would it be and why?

I’d much rather be the founder than the CEO! And if it was the founder, I’d say Google or Apple. 

Do you have any favourite books or blogs?

I’m currently reading Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. I had two people worth $500M+ independently recommend me that book last week, so you can be sure I bought it pretty quickly! All-time favourites include How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie, and Purple Cow by Seth Godin.

For blogs, I read TechCrunch and news.ycombinator.com. 

Which social networking sites can I find you on?

Facebook, LinkedIn, and Playfire (of course!). 

What do you do to keep fit?

Type really fast on my keyboard, and go to the gym 4 times a week.

Finally, a question I’m going to ask every entrepreneur in this interview series. If you could give one fortune cookie to every budding student entrepreneur in the country, what would it say?

“You learn far more running a business than in a graduate scheme” or “Pick a more ambitious idea”. Students always pick really small-scale ideas, myself included. While you’re young you should take the biggest swings.

 

Kieran finally signed up for Twitter last week, after much persuasion from myself and Alex Tew, amongst others! You can follow him at twitter.com/KieranO

Tycoons of Tomorrow #3: James Eder

 

James Eder

James co-founded studentbeans.com in June 2005, with the vision of the website becoming as much of a staple to university life as baked beans. Today, with over 100,000 new students registering for the site each year, that vision is becoming a reality.

Have you always known you wanted to be an entrepreneur?

Some people are born to be athletes and some people are just born to be in business and I am one of those. At the age of 14 I took, developed and sold black and white photos of dogs to their owners. At 17 I did young enterprise and developed a local directory service online for shops and services in North West London. During my gap year I did an internship in San Francisco, a ski season in France and travelled the globe. In between that all I honed my sales skills doing telesales for a bingo company. Combine these experiences with a business degree from The University of Birmingham, running events and gaining sponsorship from over 30 companies whilst studying and being involved with AIESEC – the largest student run organisation in the world, where I went on placements to The Philippines & Colombia, by the time it came to graduation I knew I didn’t want to be cocooned by the normalities of daily life in the corporate world. There was only one option and that was to be an entrepreneur. 

Why did you start Studentbeans.com?

Today studentbeans.com is the UK’s leading student offers website. Having grown up in the age of the Internet, we knew that when students arrived in a new city, they would turn to the web for help. Being in an unfamiliar city and living on a limited budget is tough. But we knew that the Internet and a little entrepreneurialism on our part could solve these problems.

I wanted to create something for real value that people wanted to use. We’ve created the ultimate win-win environment where companies get increased awareness and students save money!

How many people now work for you? What challenges have you faced while managing them?

We’ve currently got a team of 6 of us based in London although we’re currently expanding and always looking for top talent to join the team. The challenges we face aren’t to do with management as we believe it is all about getting the right people in the first place – with the right people on board they manage themselves. What is important is keeping focused and driven at the task at hand it is all too easy to get distracted.

What do you know now that you wish you had known when you started Studentbeans.com?

There is a lot of emphasis on making the right decisions as oppose to making a decision.  It is better to make a decision so you are moving forward and work through it as opposed to procrastinate. Not making a decision is often more dangerous.

You are developing a reputation for being a bit of a student marketing guru. What advice would you give to students who are planning to market their business ideas to other students?

It is important to do you market research and find out what people really want. If you do that, your product or service will then sell itself.  Really get under the skin of whoever is going to buy what you are selling it is also important to understand the benefits of your product or service to your target market. Sometimes what you think is a benefit is lost on the user / buyer.

Was choosing to work full-time on Studentbeans.com a difficult decision when you graduated? Why did you choose this over the safer option of a graduate job?

It is interesting you use the words ‘safer option of a graduate job’ – with what appears to be the world falling apart at the seams it is ever more apparent that the real risk is going to work for someone else. Where else can you turn up to work and be told you are no longer needed? Being an entrepreneur isn’t for the fainthearted. After 3 years of running studentbeans.com it doesn’t get easier – it never stops there is always something to do and I am never satisfied. Just one more email or one more deal. 

When I graduated a lot of people said to me to go and get a job and some experience. Setting up in the student market however I thought what more experience do I need, where could I learn more about what I needed to do than actually just getting on and doing it?

So either I could have gone to work for someone for a few years get comfortable in a good salary job, get a mortgage, get married having kids and then with all the risk and financial insecurity decide I wanted to start a business? Or I could start the day I graduate with nothing to lose.

With the economic climate the way it is 3 years on as some of my closest friends are made redundant I know I made the right decision and if it ever ends I know it was my choice and that I am not a number in a human resources system that had to be removed. 

Do you have any role models?

Sergey Brin and Larry Page, the Google guys. It is amazing what they and those at Google have done, grown and developed over the last few years and how out of nothing they have grown a multi-billion $ business and place where people love to work. 

What motivates you?

I am motivated when I have the ability to make things happen when I have an idea. To see a result of all the hard work that goes into running studentbeans.com. When we hear feedback and students views of the site when three years ago studentbeans.com was just an idea and today we are rapidly approaching over 200,000 members. To see and hear other people succeed when they put their mind to it is also really inspiring.

Do you have any favourite books?

These are my current top 3: Founders at Work by Jessica Livingstone; The Naked Leader by David Taylor and Purple Cow by Seth Godin.

Which social networks can I find you on?

Facebook and LinkedIn are the two main ones I use.

What do you do to relax?

I spend my time when I can travelling, seeing friends out at the cinema, theatre and eating out. London is an amazing place and there is always so much to do. 

Finally, a question I’m going to ask every entrepreneur in this interview series. If you could give one fortune cookie to every budding student entrepreneur in the country, what would it say?

If it was easy, everyone would be doing it.

You can find out more about James Eder’s background on his LinkedIn profile.

Our next and final Tycoon of Tomorrow will be Kieran O’Neill, a former Bath University student who sold his first business for over a million dollars aged 19.

Tycoons of Tomorrow #2: Hermione Way

Hermione Way

Hermione is the founder of new media social enterprise Newspepper.com and this year she graduated with a degree in Journalism from London Metropolitan University as well as an NCTJ (National Council for the Training of Journalists) qualification which is usually taken as a post-graduate course. She is the younger sister of 28-year old dot-com millionaire Ben Way, a man who was reportedly worth £18.3 million in the 2001 Sunday Times Rich List, aged 20, only to later have a dispute with his investors, losing everything. He went on to advise the UK and US governments on technology, and he is currently the Chief Innovations Officer for London-based Venture Capital firm Brightstation Ventures.

Having known she wanted to go into the media industry before her degree even started, Hermione got involved in a plethora of related activities while studying. These ranged from working as a runner for various TV shows and at local newspapers to a broadcasting internship at CNBC Europe.

You managed to squeeze an awful lot of media-related activities in alongside your degree. How do you divide your time up while you were studying?

It wasn’t so much a case of dividing my time up, but more a case of trying to cram as many experiences and opportunities into my week as possible whilst not sacrificing good results for my degree. I work very well under pressure so much of the studying part was done at the last minute, which worked well for me.

What does Newspepper do?

Newspepper is a new media social enterprise, offering student reporters, editors and camera operators the opportunity to build their portfolio at high-profile events. Clients receive quality media services at cut-prices whilst also helping Newspepper’s fleet of student apprentices to get a paid, on-the-job experience. The website www.newspepper.com then functions as a hub of online portfolios for students in media.

Why did you start Newspepper?

Excited by the impact the Internet has made on journalism and how it has phenomenally changed the media industry, I wanted to create a social enterprise which offered media services at affordable prices whilst also being a training hub for students to get paid on-the-job experience.

You have some rather impressive advisors working with you on Newspepper. Who are they and how have they helped you so far?

Newspepper currently has 4 advisors/mentors: Michael Smith, Paul Walsh, Ben Way and Jim Lawn, with Michael and Paul giving the most input.

Michael is the Founder/CEO of Mind Candy and former Founder/CEO of Firebox.com. When I first met him, I pitched Newspepper, asking for a small amount of Angel investment in return for some equity in the company. He accepted a deal and is now a great source of advice and support – he helps me envisage what Newspepper will be like in the years to come and he takes me to meet other new media companies that are more developed; this helps me work out what we should be aiming for.

Paul is a fantastic mentor – he is Chairman of the British Interactive Media Association (BIMA) and also Founder/CEO of Internet business Segala. He helps me to aim global with the brand and exploit my brand online.

What has been your biggest challenge to so far with Newspepper? How did you overcome it?

The biggest challenge is right now: how to grow the business in the right way. I have done a lot with not very much; now I’m thinking about how to expand the model, create more revenue, build the brand, employ more staff and build more marketable services.

The majority of young technology entrepreneurs are male. Has being female been a help or a hindrance for you starting your business?

It can be a hindrance because being young as well as female means some people don’t take you seriously. However, you can use being female to your advantage in some situations.

I think the New Media industry is such an exciting place to be in right now, and one great thing about this industry is that it’s in no way gender-specific. It’s not like being a banker with extreme pressure and long office hours, or like being a fireman where physical strength is a must.

What advice or encouragement would you give to other young women who are thinking about starting a business?

Don’t constantly say “I’m going to start a business”. Just be proactive and do it. The hardest part is getting started and now, with the advent of the Internet, it’s never been easier because most of the tools needed for selling and marketing a product are free.

Was choosing to work full-time on Newspepper a difficult decision when you graduated? Why did you choose this over the safer option of a graduate job?

I started the company at the end of my second year at university using the money from my student loan to buy the first camera. From filming with the camera, the company was making enough revenue for me to live off by the time I finished university. Working on Newspepper full-time was a natural progression and the business model had already proved itself.

Where do you see yourself in 5 years time?

5 years time: the model has expanded to all the major technology cities such as San Francisco, New York, Berlin and Paris. The Newspepper empire will still be growing and we will be considered a major player in the New Media industry.

Do you have any role models? Why are those people your role models?

I am extremely lucky to have the best role model in the world, entrepreneur Ben Way who is also my older brother – I have observed how he does business very closely and he has shown me you can be brilliant in business and still be a nice person. He has also taught me to make up my own rules in business as it does not have to be done in any particular way.

What motivates you?

Building a successful social enterprise. I want to help people and create revenue at the same time and also to utilise the Internet to help people live their lives better.

Do you have any favourite books or blogs?

I love iJustine’s blog as she reports on tech news in a really quirky way.

Which social networking sites can I find you on?

Many but I mainly use Facebook and Twitter.

What do you do to keep fit?

Dancing in my sitting room and I also do yoga once a week.

What do you do to relax?

Facebook, Facebook, Facebook- I’m addicted!

Finally, a question I’m going to ask every entrepreneur in this interview series. If you could give one fortune cookie to every budding student entrepreneur in the country, what would it say?

Always look at the bigger picture – think global.

The next Tycoon of Tomorrow will be Birmingham University graduate James Eder, founder of Studentbeans.com – stay tuned to find out how he built a business which attracts over 100,000 new students every year.

[The Gateway IV — extended version] Decision Time

On many, many occasions during a degree, you contemplate what will come next. Some people are completely set on moving on to get a PhD in Theoretical Physics, while others have decided that McKinsey is by far and away the best place they could start their career in business.

However, most people aren’t fortunate enough to have this level of certainty. For an intelligent, talented student like you, furnished with a diverse range of skills and experiences, about to receive a good degree, how on earth do you choose from the thousands of career options available?

First up, let’s simplify the problem. Let’s assume you are ambitious and you want to enter the business world in some capacity. Also, let’s assume you don’t want to work in a medium-sized, mediocre, low-growth company. You want a little bit more. You want to make money or you want to make meaning or both.

We can now divide the available options into 4 categories:

1. Join a Large Corporate (Investment Bank, Consultancy, Law Firm, Professional Services etc.)

2. Go into Investment Management (Private Equity, Venture Capital, Hedge Funds, Pension Funds etc.)

3. Start your own Company (or continue with your existing company if you recently started one)

4. Join a Start-up Company

The first thing to say is that there is no right answer. Each person has slightly different needs, priorities and values. To help understand what might be the best option for you, let’s weigh up the pros and cons:

1. Join a Large Corporate
This is the easiest option to take.

Pros: You get a good name on your CV, good training, your friends and family will be immediately proud of your new job, you get a good work-life balance (except in IBD!), you have relatively good job security and you receive a high starting salary.

Cons: It’s unlikely you’ll get public credit for your work, your personal development is likely to be quite niche and narrow (management consultancy is broadest), long-term financial upside is often low (relative to starting and selling your own successful company), your role often has little or no impact on the wider world, you’ll have to deal with internal politics, established organisational structure, and your department is always likely to get bent out of shape a little.

2. Go into Investment Management
This one is tough to do straight out of university. Elite Investment Managers may only recruit 2-3 new analysts each year and they often prefer applicants with 2+ years relevant experience.

Pros: High kudos – there’s no doubt these places are hot, you get a very good work-life balance (normally < 60hrs/week work), direct exposure to top people (both within the company and meeting clients), a relatively high starting salary, reasonable job security and high long-term financial upside (if you reach fund manager).

Cons: Training is on-the-job (albeit with some useful professional qualifications), your impact on investee companies can be significant although your pre-occupation with leverage and a target IRR (internal rate of return or “yield”) can conflict uncomfortably with their non-financial objectives, and personal development is again relatively niche and narrow.

3. Start your own Company
The scariest option – not for the faint-hearted.

Pros: Incredibly steep personal development – you have to learn and adopt new roles very fast, you can personally have direct impact on the world, it’s definitely best for getting public credit, it’s your idea so you’ll be super-passionate about coming into work every day, you have no boss, there’s no politics as everyone is equal to start with, you only have to work with people you like and there is huge financial upside if you nail it – you could become rich and famous.

Cons: no brand name for the CV, no training or guidance – you have to work out everything yourself from first principles, terrible work-life balance – the start-up will be your life, you risk public humiliation if it fails and you have no initial salary.

4. Join a Start-up Company
In contrast to jumping into starting a company yourself, this can act as an intermediary bridge.

Pros: Good for personal development – you’re likely to get stuck into lots of different areas, little politics (if it’s still a small team), salary is stable (especially if the company is VC funded), long-term financial upside is potentially high if you joined early enough to receive a significant (1%+) equity share.

Cons: Unlikely to be a brand name for your CV, no formal training, work-life balance isn’t great – there’s a lot of work still to do, less public credit than if you were a founder and long-term financial upside is still much lower than the founders.

Many of these pros sound great. How do I choose?

Do internships. Internships not only provide you with an education and insight into a prospective industry, but during one, you also get paid well and have a lot of fun (particularly in London).

Internships also help you work out what you don’t like. This helps you home in on what you actually do want to do.

For example, I interned in Investment Management with Lehman Brothers in the summer of my first year, did the Discover course with McKinsey in the easter of my second year, and then interned in Exotic Derivatives Trading with JPMorgan in the summer of my second year.

I had a lot of fun with each company and ended up realising that what I really wanted to do with my career choice was optimise for maximum impact, responsibility and personal development. This led me to entrepreneurship, and continuing establishing my business, GroupSpaces, as the obvious path to choose.

Kulveer Taggar, ex-President of Oxford Entrepreneurs society and Co-founder of Boso.com and Auctomatic.com took a slightly different path having spent 6 months at an Investment Bank after graduating:

“I actually did both, the graduate job before leaving to do entrepreneurship. In my case, I quickly realised I’d have more immediate control over my future by doing my own thing rather than working in an Investment Bank. I valued working with dynamic people and in situations where I was out of my comfort zone. Also, I very practically believed that entrepreneurship would get me to financial independence quicker than a graduate job.”

Now you could probably work out most of the pros and cons mentioned above for yourself – they’re freely available from many books, websites or people who’ve formerly walked down those paths. In fact, most people will have all of this information at their disposal by the time they make their initial career choice.

Why, therefore, is everyone not happy with their job? Why do some people regret their chosen career paths?

It’s because they didn’t think things through enough, they didn’t play the tape forward, they bought into some of the popular misconceptions people have today:

“But I thought…

• …starting a company is too risky.”
  Is it? How much risk are you actually taking? When you graduate from fresh out of university, you’re young and broke. So you try starting a company for a couple of years and it doesn’t work out. You’re still young and broke. What are you actually risking? It’s only the opportunity cost of not getting a job.And anyway, having interviewed with many employers and worked as a professional Careers Coach myself, I know that experience of starting and running a business is valued highly by employers. The amount a candidate will have learned is now well understood – irrespective of success or failure.

  Not only this, but if your start-up fails, you’ll have learned many lessons from the mistakes you made first time round and you’re more likely to succeed if you try to start another company.

  Lastly, it’s important to understand the relationship between risk and opportunity. Mark Andreesen (Founder, Netscape, Opsware and Ning) puts it well in his “Guide to Career Planning”:

  “Without taking risk, you can’t exploit any opportunities. You can live a quiet and reasonably happy life, but you are unlikely to create something new, and you are unlikely to make your mark on the world.”

• …I need to get some experience before starting a company.”Charlie Osmond, Co-Founder & MD, FreshMinds very nearly bought into this misconception:
  

  “During my final year at University, I happened to notice Richard Branson having dinner in a restaurant. I had just been offered a consultancy job and was trying to decide between starting my own business and becoming a consult. Who better to ask for advice than Sir Richard.

  I ventured up to his table and he asked me to sit down. Having explained my dilemma he said “you should definitely take the consulting role. It’s a great way to learn”. I was rather surprised that he advocated the corporate route considering that he’d gone straight into entrepreneurship himself. In the end I chose to ignore his advice and start my own business on graduation rather than go into consulting.

  It’s turned out to be a great decision and one that I have never regretted. However, eight years on, with a better perspective on my choice, when I am asked what I’d recommend, I often repeat the advice I was given despite having gone against it myself.”

  It’s important to bear in mind your risk appetite as you get older – taking the leap of faith doesn’t get any easier. A certain level of ignorance, naivity and blind optimism can actually be a good thing for start-up founders. It can keep you going in the face of the inevitable doubt you will face from people.

  Along with FreshMinds – Google, Microsoft, Facebook and Yahoo! countless other successful companies were set up by first time entrepreneurs with no serious work experience.

• …a big company will pay me more money.”
  Yes – it will in the short term. You get a nice, large salary. However, you don’t get equity beyond a few token employee stock options. You don’t get access to a potentially massive financial upside in the future.

  How much money do you need straight out of university? Many people care much more about the money they’ll have to support their family and live when they have the time to enjoy the money. If this is the case, then surely long-term financial upside should be what you are looking for?

  What is more, money is just one currency. What about learning skills and developing a network? Do they have value? Did you think about them? What would you learn in that job you are considering? Who will you build relationships with? Even if you do ultimately want money, is it therefore better to choose the option which will give you more money now, or the option which furnishes you with the tools required to make a lot more money? For example, starting up a company will require you to learn financial, legal, sales, marketing, strategic, management and many other skills. Surely learning all these has serious value?

  In his “Guide to Career Planning”, Andreesen went on to say:

  “After graduating is when you should optimize for the rate at which you can develop skills and acquire experiences that will serve you well later. You should specifically take income risk in order to do that. Always take the job that will best develop your skills and give you valuable experiences, regardless of its salary.”

I’ll leave this debate with a closing quote from Charlie:

“Overall, there is no right route, whatever decision you make, the key is to learn from it and reassess your options. Don’t get stuck in a job and find you never take the risk of starting up. Equally, if you start something that’s going nowhere, make sure you fail fast and move on.”

You can view the original version of this article on page 8 of the most recent edition of The Gateway.

[The Gateway III — extended version] Tricky Business

So you’re running a business; or at least working seriously on an idea you’ve had. It has the potential to change the world, render you free of financial worries forevermore, and you want to spend as much time as possible developing it. However, this annoying six-letter word called “degree” is still lurking over your head.

It’s a situation I was in during the 2nd and 3rd year of my degree and one which any budding student entrepreneur has to face. This week we’ll look at some techniques you can employ to make your seemingly unmanageable life not only manageable, but successful and fulfilling as well.

The first thing to establish is that you’ll need to be productive. In 2002, David Allen published a book entitled Getting Things Done (GTD) which has since sold over 500,000 copies and been published in 23 languages. Attracting a huge following in the blogosphere, many would name the book as the authority on the subject of productivity. At the core of Allen’s methodology is a 5-phase workflow process:

1. Collect
This involves capturing all existing data which needs to be processed – this might be in a physical inbox (your desk or bedroom floor), an e-mail inbox, a notebook, a mobile phone, or any other place you store information. The idea here is to get everything out of your head and into a collection device ready for processing, and Allen stipulates that all data stores need to be processed at least once per week.

2. Process
Here, the emphasis is on being structured. For example, in an inbox, one should start at the top, deal with one item at a time and never put anything back into ‘in’. If an item requires action, then:

• do it, or
• delegate it, or
• defer it.

And if an item does not require action, then:

• file it for reference, or
• throw it away, or
• incubate it for possible action later.

3. Organise
Organising involves keeping your to-do lists and calendar up-to-date – although Allen specifically recommends that the calendar be reserved for the hard landscape: things which absolutely have to be done by a particular deadline, or meetings and appointments which are fixed in time and place. To-do items should be reserved for their own separate list.

4. Review
To-do lists of action items and reminders will be of little use if not reviewed at least daily. Given the time, energy and resources available at that particular moment, decide what is the most important thing to be doing right now, and…

5. Do it

Here are some handy tips that will both make you more productive and enrich your life:

Tip #1: Use to-do lists and a calendar to GTD.

Following the success of Allen’s book, millions of people around the world are now applying his principles through to-do list and other online productivity applications. I personally favour Google Calendar and Remember The Milk (www.rememberthemilk.com) integrated with my Gmail account for my to-do lists.

Tip #2: Manage expectations of others and learn to say “no”.

The second key to achieving success in multiple areas of your life lies in appropriately managing the expectations of people. Your tutor wants this, your co-founder wants that, your customers are e-mailing you for something else, your investors are bugging you about this other thing and you still want to maintain healthy relationships with your friends and family. Managing expectations of others is something Rob Eyre (a 33-year old Software Developer & MBA and our first employee at GroupSpaces) often reminds me of when discussing strategic issues for my business.

Most people instinctively think about these issues – but seldom in a structured manner. One technique I find useful is illustrating all your important relationships in a mind-map. A little bit like what Facebook describe as the “social graph”, where each person is a node and each relationship is an edge; except with this mind-map, you only draw lines which have one end attached to yourself. Having done this, you should be able to work out where people have expectations of you and also where you feel it is important you meet these expectations. However, since you don’t have enough time to ‘do everything’, it makes sense to spend the time you do have focused on the people and activities you care about most.

You’ve probably heard the old adage “you’ve got to be cruel to be kind” and I believe that this is particularly appropriate here. You have to learn to say “no” sometimes and not take on certain commitments, else you’ll end up letting people down, damaging their trust in you and as a result damaging your relationships. If you’ve worked out which people you really value and ensure you meet your commitments to them, not only are you likely to be more successful, but you are also likely to feel more fulfilled in your relationships.

Tip #3: Don’t procrastinate; prioritise, break down tasks and delegate.

Thirdly, you can’t expect to run a business and obtain a good degree by spending time procrastinating. Whether it’s browsing Facebook, reading blogs or watching television we all procrastinate. Jan Sramek, a 2nd year student at LSE who got 10 A’s at A-level, currently runs two businesses, recently secured seed funding for a third and also works part-time in a hedge fund has a firm view on the topic:

“Never read something just for the sake of reading it, let alone ‘because everyone else is reading it’ – if you can’t see the payoff, trash it.”

There are many underlying causes people attribute to procrastination, but the bottom-line is that we are avoiding dealing with the emotions we are experiencing. It’s an escape.

2006 UK Graduate of the Year Kirill Makharinsky is one of the most productive people I know. Having presided at Oxford Entrepreneurs, founded Enternships.com and AmIWorthIt.com, played 3 university-level sports and still achieved a double first in Mathematics, he certainly isn’t one to procrastinate, and when you hear his strategy for meeting his commitments, you begin to understand why:

“Decide on the time you’ll need for each to achieve an outcome you’ll be happy with, plan your schedule out, and go for it. If the balance doesn’t work, change it up after a few weeks, and so on, until it does work. Prioritise like crazy. Get into a strict routine. Be smart in getting the help of others with your degree and your business. Get into a situation where people that you respect rely on you to make that balance work. Get regular advice from people who’ve done it before to make sure you’re doing it right.”

Also worth emphasising here is the importance of delegation. Use interns, colleagues, friends and family to help spread your workload. Just because you’re struggling to get to a task shouldn’t mean that it doesn’t get done. Break the task down into smaller components and delegate.

Tip #4: Utilise life hacks

You might have heard of the term “life hack”. The original definition of this term referred to computer programming tricks that filtered and processed data streams like e-mail and RSS feeds. Today, anything that solves an everyday problem in a clever and non-obvious way might be called a life hack. Here are some particularly powerful ones which I’ve come across in recent years:

• The 2-minute rule.
Also advocated by David Allen, this rule says that any task which needs performing and will take less than 2 minutes should be performed immediately.

• Carry an idea book.
I recently heard that one of Richard Branson’s secrets of success is a little black book which he carries around in his back pocket. Each time he comes up with an idea, he records it in the book, and he reviews his list a couple of times each day, crossing out the ideas that aren’t actually so good, and keeping the ones he really likes. At number 11 on The Times Rich List in 2007 with a personal fortune of £3.1 billion, there’s some evidence that this technique can pay off.

• Find a place for everything.
Whether it’s bills, receipts, loose change, laundry or random pieces of paper, if you have a place for it, the physical and mental clutter these things can create is removed.

• All nighters.
I’m a strong advocate of the power these can have, but also share Sramek’s firm opinion on where they fit:

”If you are tired at 10pm, don’t try to get over it – just get some sleep and get up early. Pulling all-nighters can be very productive, but equally a complete waste of time with productivity close to zero.”

Tip #5: Know when to quit.

Finally, it’s important to know when to quit; and there are two sides to this. If you’re business is flying, then you might need to drop out or at least defer finishing your degree. I’m sure Microsoft and Facebook wouldn’t be where they are today if Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerburg hadn’t dropped out of Harvard. On the other hand, if you’re business hasn’t quite had the success you were hoping and you’re degree is in serious need of a makeover then maybe it’s time to cut your losses and focus back on academic work.

Coming up next week: How do I choose between entrepreneurship and a graduate job?

You can view the original version of this article on page 10 of this week’s edition of The Gateway.