by Steve Livingston on October 4, 2011
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
Do you want to take your business onto its next stage of growth? Do you need to find some senior talent to help you do this?
We are partnering with AngelNews for its latest Pitching for Management event in Manchester on 12th October. This will be the perfect event for exciting businesses to find senior people to help them build their teams at no cash cost and for executives to identify interesting early stage businesses that would value their expertise.
Pitching for Management is a live event series which runs in 18 cities across the UK. It will be held at Brown Shipley’s offices in Spinningfields from 4.00pm to 7.30pm. As well as the pitches there are plenty of networking opportunities at the event and canapés and drinks will be served during the evening.
The Pitching for Management concept is simple. Make a short pitch to an audience of senior executives who have come to see if they can offer their services to help you.
These executives are willing to work for sweat equity, bonuses, commissions and/or share options. So pitching companies do not need to pay high salaries until they are delivering the results you require.
You can read all about Pitching for Management at www.pitching4management.com.
We are expecting between 30 – 50 relevant senior executives will attend the event. Past events in the series have shown that pitching companies have a good chance of finding someone that suits.
AngelNews is holding a competition for the best pitch of this series of Pitching for Management. The winning pitch at the Manchester event will go through to the final in Bristol on 13th December. The winner of the final will receive a £2,000 cheque.
To find out more about this opportunity, please call Caroline Sage at AngelNews on 01761 452 248 or email her on caroline[at]angelnews.co[dot]uk or contact me.
You can find booking details here.
Hopefully see you there!
by Steve Livingston on March 28, 2011
Crowdcube presents an interesting angle on an idea I’ve been pondering for a while:
“How can we open the door for armchair investors to (partially) fill the funding gap suffered by UK startup businesses whilst providing a more interesting and varied investment opportunity compared to say traditional pension or ISA investment offerings?”
Business angel investor networks are well established, however, these are normally aimed at high net worth individuals (broadly those with income of £100,000+ and/or significant assets) who are willing to write cheques for more sizeable sums than those accepted by crowdcube – in fact crowdcube is willing to accept investment cheques from just £10.
Zopa already provides an innovative peer-to-peer banking exchange for individuals e.g. to pay off credit card debts, buy a new car etc from individual lenders who can lend in small parcels of cash (typically no more than £20 per borrower) to minimise the credit risk. By cutting out the middleman (aka banks), Zopa can pass on cheaper interest rates for borrowers and higher income for lenders – a win-win.
Can Crowdcube pass this on for small business?
The answer right now is I’m not sure. But I’ll be keeping a close eye on it and may well try the service to see how it works.
Here are some initial observations:
- The site clearly needs more investment opportunities but this should come over time.
- I like the idea of implementing video presentations etc in the future to give added depth to the pitches (more like the Dragons Den experience).
- I am unsure about the forthcoming trading exchange for exiting investments as its not really in keeping with the nature of private company investing – its a medium term play at best and short-term thinking is the sort of mentality that’s got us into the recent financial mess. Still, if it gets more individuals interested in supporting small, private companies then this can only be a good thing.
- I would like to see more on the tax benefits of EIS brought into the investment process – especially given the recent announcement in the Budget 2011 – although the mechanics of applying this in practice could give its own challenges given the low levels of some investments, tracking / admin plus education and support required.
Overall, I think that Crowdcube is a great and welcome addition to the funding network for start ups and fast growth UK companies. I look forward to seeing how this service unfolds over the coming months.
Do you want to take your business onto its next stage of growth? Do you need to find some senior talent to help you do this?
