I’m increasingly unconvinced by the “social enterprise” label as a distinct business model. Of the legal forms of incorporation only one has distinct “social features” (the CIC) but that’s not suitable for everyone. There are certainly many businesses trading for social improvement or with a strong social ethic running through them, just as there are… Continue reading What’s so Social about Social Enterprise?
Category: Entrepreneur
London Triiibes
What do you do for a living; do you set out to change everything? We may all be in sales & marketing now, but I still consider myself an engineer that does business development; so I felt a little out of place at first. I’m also still digesting much of the talk, so this may… Continue reading London Triiibes
Of gifts and giving
Name a bizarre gift you received. Who gave it to you? What was the occasion? Did you regift it? Blogging, twittering, and the immensely low barrier to communications that these technologies provide is the bizarre gift I’d like to mention in this Plinky prompt. They’ve revolutionised the world of business development. The photo on the… Continue reading Of gifts and giving
Serendipity engineering
How valuable is engineered serendipity to your business? On my way back from a meeting in the Watershed I thought I’d stick my head into UWE’s new business incubator facility in Bush House. Only opened just before Christmas they already have a good selection of tenants including the usual scattering of graduate start-ups (such as… Continue reading Serendipity engineering
Meet the Dragons
…after you’ve crossed my palm with silver. There’s always been a healthy market in one group of people selling access to a small second group of people that a third, larger group of people value. In many circumstances this is entirely right and proper. I was recently at the 31st International Conference on Small Business… Continue reading Meet the Dragons
How many? Part the First
Something that makes an appearance fairly early in a business plan is the addressable market size. This is usually the point where after some mumbo-jumbo you’d end up with something like “…and thus we only need 1% to secure $100m turnover.” Mark Davies has a good post on the subject from a VC perspective but… Continue reading How many? Part the First
Pleasure vs Pain
David Gilroy from Conscious Solutions nailed it at a Bristol Enterprise Network event last week when asked what changes he was making to his product to sell better in a recession. “Absolutely none”. The pitch to clients is changing, however, from how a great website can enhance your offering to one that points out how… Continue reading Pleasure vs Pain
Open Coffee 9 Sept
Another great Open Coffee despite the weather’s attempts to keep folk away. After gathering downstairs with our chosen caffeine drinks, a number of discussions quickly established. Nigel Legg came along and we discussed the analysis of those pesky free text boxes on customer surveys. The rest of the form is automated but the free text… Continue reading Open Coffee 9 Sept
Ideas, Innovation, Action
Uploaded on July 2, 2007 by pictoscribe I was just thinking I needed some inspiration to write a post and Rob Sheffield emailed to point me at WhyNot? an ideas exchange from Profs Ayres & Nalebuff of Yale. Rob and I had been chatting recently about creativity, entrepreneurship and intersections between ideas. I’ve not seen… Continue reading Ideas, Innovation, Action
OpenCoffee Club Bristol
Uploaded by Lutz-R. Frank on 02 Aug 07. The reason this post is a bit late is I spent most of yesterday evening setting up a Facebook group for OpenCoffee Club Bristol (and we already have 5 members, cheers), posting the next four dates (17 June, 1 & 15 & 29 July and 5 August),… Continue reading OpenCoffee Club Bristol