Online businesses often handle a significant amount of personal data. There is a significant amount of legislation around handling personal data and as a Director of your business you are responsible for handling this data correctly. This article is not legal advice. Here I simply highlight some key issues that…
150 years ago, British Mountaineer Edward Whymper led a party of 6 climbers to the summit of the Matterhorn in Switzerland. At 4,478m, the Matterhorn is not the highest mountain in the Alps, or indeed in Switzerland, but it's distinctive shape (found on Toblerone chocolate bars and Caran d'Ache…
When I say phone hacking I don't mean the scandal that's hit the UK tabloid press in the last few years, tapping celebrity phones. Although there's probably a great startup opportunity for someone who can stop phone spam. So what has the telephone got to do with online marketplaces? At…
I consider myself lucky. I went to a decent school and had a good education. As I look now at how I see the world versus how it was explained to me - there's a big difference. In a secondary comprehensive school in Sheffield in the 1980's, I was ignorant…
How a job role is defined The job description: what the hiring manager thinks they want. The candidate sees it, says, "I could do that". The candidate manages to get an interview. The interviews go well. The hiring manager says, "I want to hire this person (even…
Any new investment that we make at Forward Partners needs to go through an approval process. No matter who first met the entrepreneur or who did the subsequent analysis and due diligence, any investment decision requires the consideration of our Investment Committee. Investing at Forward Partners is team work. Before…
It all changes when you get to 50 people said Alicia Navarro, CEO of Skimlinks at the #FPlive event that we held last week. She's right - what you do to manage a team of 30 people is very different to what you do when you manage a team of…
(The importance of entrepreneurs understanding the problem before defining the solution). If I had only one hour to save the world, I would spend fifty-five minutes defining the problem, and only five minutes finding the solution. Albert Einstein (allegedly) Advice to entrepreneurs when pitching investors: In meetings where an entrepreneur…
Unlike most VC firms, we invest in companies at the idea stage. One of the first things we encourage idea stage entrepreneurs to do is to talk with customers to explore the assumptions around their business model. This process of customer discovery can yield great insights and provide a strong…
At a traffic junction, traffic rules give one vehicle priority over the other. It's black and white. You either have priority or you don't. If you have priority, it's your turn to go first. Priority, not priorities When people talk about their "priorities" my brain waves a red…