Make Your Mark Blog

Check out the latest BBC online blog http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7315598.stm

from entrepreneur and Make Your Mark ambassador Kulveer - who has just sold his company which he runs with his cousin for ‘millions of dollars’.

His move to Sillicon Valley in the States has undoubtedly played a part and I wonder whether we can ever hope to reproduce this fostering environment for tech companies in the UK. It’s a point which Kulveer raises within a view point he wrote for us last year.

http://www.makeyourmark.org.uk/policy/future_face_of_enterprise/who_else/viewpoints/stoz/

Let us know what you think…

Kirill Makharinsky, 21, and Bob Goodson, 27 have just launched a new website for start-ups. It is called YouNoodle and is a place to discover and support the hottest early-stage companies.

You can browse innovative startups and follow their progress. You can also register your own startup and use YouNoodle to build up a following as well as develop a team of specific supporters.

It over turns one of the biggest fears that many people have - that if they share their idea in public, someone will steal it. It’s refreshing to see a tool that highlights the importance of collaboration. By sharing your idea you are more likely to attract the right people to support your business, find deals, find opportunities and ultimately succeed.

The founders of YouNoodle are also developing a model which will predict the future success of a start-up. This will use rigorous mathematical analysis to track how social networks and business contacts impact the company’s performance. Definitely one to watch…

We’re on a team away day today and tomorrow. guess thats an away two-days then really. We all boarded the train bright and early in a bit of a daze. it’s funny to see which of your colleagues are really not morning people…

Our first stop is at Bradford FC to check out the LEGI-funded Bradford Grid project. Slightly hidden away after a walk through the Bradford FC football shop (where they wouldn’t let you play with the footballs..very disappointing) . The Grid itself is a cool place and we all heard from Faisal Kahn and Arooj Hussain - a guy starting up a Bollywood dance project with kids in Bradford and a wonderful lady breaking the mould of the typical Bradford photographer.

Its always great to see people challenging the stereotypes of what it is to be enterprising. Faisal says that he has met unexpected demand from young girls and Arooj described the stares she gets from girls at weddings “are you a real photographer?” they ask. Arooj left us with a message that rings true with the campaign - “if there’s something you want to do - just do it - don’t let anyone tell you you can’t”

On that note, time for some food now - so don’t try telling me i can’t…

Here at MYM we are lucky enough to have a massive database of Women’s Enterprise Ambassadors (young women who have successfully set up their own businesses) from all over the country who are ready and willing to volunteer to come along to your school/youth club/event and help inspire young women into becoming more enterprising. They do this through running assemblies, talking to 6th form classes, speaking about their business experiences and lots more…

It’s all great! There’s just one hitch - they are all really keen to get involved and we don’t have enough opportunities to offer them at the moment - especially in the North… just today I received an email from one of our fantastic Northen ambassadors feeling very sad because we didn’t have anything for her to get involved in! The ambassadors are amazing and busy people but they want to do more!

So, if you know of a group of young people (and especially if they are a group of young women) who could benefit from a talk or from networking and interaction with one of our ambassadors, let me know! It’s a free service, all you need to do is email me at girlsmakeyourmark@makeyourmark.org.uk and let me know what you’re looking for!

Sounds a great scheme to me.

The Currys and PC World retail group has begun an experiment to give homeless people the chance to become entrepreneurs. DSGI has teamed up with Foyer Federation, the homeless young people charity, to launch the Big Enterprise Challenge. Fifty young people from around the country were invited to take part in the first trial which took place in north London. They were given coaching and practical lessons in selling and then pitched their ideas to the retailer’s senior buyers. All those taking part won a year’s worth of mentoring to help get their idea off the ground. Sir John Collins, DSGI’s chairman, said businesses were not doing enough to harness entrepreneurship to inspire people from disadvantaged backgrounds to have the confidence to act on their ideas. “We want to give them access to business people by helping them understand what business and enterprise is about,” said Sir John. “The best of them could become entrepreneurs themselves” For the majority, getting employment in an enterprising venture could be where they get too.” He added that while groups such as DSGI could fund initiatives like this as part of their community programmes they had to concentrate on their core businesses and leave the delivery and follow through to specialists such as Foyer. “This is something of an experiment. We want to see how well Foyer follows it up and how helpful it is.”

At the age of 5 Jeff Roche wanted to be a farmer and a train driver, at 10 a computer programmer and at 16 a PE teacher. But his lifelong love of Lego Technic some inspirational Design & Technology teachers and chance has led him to Loughborough University to study Innovative Manufacturing and Technology.

Jeff told his story to a host of business people and policy makers at the annual Owers lecture organised by Core Education and hosted by Oracle at their London offices last week. As well as highlighting the things and people that had inspired him, Jeff was very frank about the things that had not - teaching from the book, almost non-existent careers advice, too few opportunities to relate theory to practice.

This laid the foundations for some really lively discussion with everyone agreeing that while government has got real responsibilities for teaching quality and careers advice, industry itself had to work much harder and smarter at engaging actively with schools to provide those practical experiences and show the innovation, creativity and enterprise within them. And getting Design & Technology properly back on the curriculum. (www.core-ed.org.uk)

Some interesting videos about Enterprise Week on the FT website, featuring young entrepreneurs, the Future Face of Enterprise and lastminute.com legend Martha Lane Fox on tech start-ups: http://www.ft.com/cms/defcad00-8ee6-11dc-87ee-0000779fd2ac.html

 Happy Social Enterprise Day, folks.

Went to the launch of Make Your Mark in 60 seconds this morning. It’s always great fun to see real enterprise week events with young kids. They’re always so lively and daft. Some great ideas coming through - a car door handle that takes photos of thieves, a recycling scheme that raises money to make diabetic armbands to wake you up, you know that sort of thing…

Is social enterprise becoming mainstream now then? Went onto a BERR staff event where staff were learning about this and sustainable development.   We heard some great examples of social enterprise in action - the Sherwood Energy Village in particular is amazing - check it out http://www.sev.org.uk/.  But the points that stuck in my mind where from Tom Savage, formerly known as Swampy of Mercer Street, who described how he resisted the path of social enterprise in setting up his new green recruitment business http://www.brightgreentalent.com/our-team/ because he felt that he could have more of an impact on society and the environment through mainstream business. The challenge seems to remain about scaling up social entrepreneurship - any ideas how this could be done? Should it be done? Ideas on a postcard please to our future face of enterprise work http://www.makeyourmark.org.uk/policy/future_face_of_enterprise

Future Face of Enterprise

What do you think the future face of enterprise will look like? What are the possiblities, opportunities and trends that will shape enterprise? Please join the debate and let us know what you think in 300 words and email them to policy@makeyourmark.org.uk along with your name, job title, organisation, and picture.

Popping into the start of the future face of enterprise conference, you could be forgiven for thinking that the future face of enterprise is a forty-year old Caucasian. Commentators on business are usually very well-educated and insightful, but do conform to stereotype. The first panel (Jonathan Guthrie – Enterprise Editor, Financial Times, Ben Verwaayen and Rt Hon John Hutton MP, Secretary of State for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform) pleased the audience with their witty panel discussion and answered questions well, from an audience with much more variation in appearance.

However, the panel of entrepreneurs soon put a stop to a complaint about lack of diversity. Dominated by women, with only two male ministers present, the image of the future face of enterprise was young, vibrant and an ethnic mixture. The second panel (Lucy Neville-Rolfe - Tesco plc, Joanna Shields - Bebo, Phil Hope - MP, Stephen Timms - MP, Maive Rute - European Commission, Julie Meyer - Ariadne capital, Farzana Baduel - TaxClaim) held a show-stopping discussion with the audience, and all gave their views on a variety of questions from recommendations for enterprise education to a discussion on why British women don’t set up businesses at the same rate as British men.

‘Mindset’ is the most important driver for successful enterprise. This is what Ben Verwaayen, BT CEO, said at an event about the ‘future face of enterprise’ in London this morning.

Now I know everyone will say that’s common sense but the logic behind it did strike a few chords with me. Verwaayen was speaking about globalisation and innovation in the context of enterprise.

On innovation, he said technology was only the first phase of a successful venture. A good business model to implement innovative ideas was far more important. But even more critical was finding the right talent for your business. This could be anywhere in the world. “Talent has no passport, no gender, no age”, Verwaayen said. Spot on.

Verwaayen went on to say that he was looking for the best talent, not necessarily the brightest. The best talent had the desire to go the extra mile. This brought him onto ‘mindset’. The capacity to do something different, to get into a market early and to continually learn new things was critical to success. I thought this was absolutely right too. The future face of enterprise in a nutshell.

For background, I went to the ‘Future Face of Enterprise’ conference at the British Library this morning. Hosted by make Your Mark www.makeyourmark.org.uk , the event kicked off the 4th Enterprise Week www.enterpriseweek.org. It was a great, inspiring session with talks by Ben Verwaayen (CEO BT www.bt.com) Joanna Shields (President of Bebo www.bebo.com ) and others.

Dirk