Innovation is the lifeblood of the Cambridge economy, but starting and growing innovation-based businesses can be a minefield, with many failing unnecessarily at very early stages. To help such companies succeed and to develop a culture and environment that encourages and inspires more startups, the Startup Masterclass programme has been created and is now in it’s 3rd year.

This year we are particularly proud to announce that 2 new organisations have joined as programme partners. Cambridge Clean Tech has joined as a programme partner, thus expanding the reach of the programme to entrepreneurs working in the Clean Tech sector. CUTEC has also joined, as part of it’s aim of encouraging and fostering young entrepreneurs. In addition, ideaSpace Enterprise Accelerator, Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning and CamTechNet have renewed their support as programme partners. You can find out more about these organisations on our Partner page.

In addition, the programme will this year also be supporting Global Entrepreneurship Week. This global event is from 12-18 November year and will be asking the question ‘Are you ready to pass it on?’

The focus of the Week – which last year involved over 900 partner organisations in the UK, reaching over 213,000 people – will be on ‘passing on’ the practical help and support needed by early start-ups and individuals who are considering taking the plunge. The aim is to create a collaborative, local and practical week, which enables people to learn more about the wealth of support available to entrepreneurs in the East of England and across the UK – vital in a time of continuing economic uncertainty.

“The Startup Masterclass programme has brought real benefit to over 200 early-stage entrepreneurs in it’s first 2 years,” said Mauro Ciaccio, organiser of the Startup Masterclass programme. “We want to continue to build on that success and the partnership with Cambridge CleanTech will allow us to support an even broader range of entrepreneurs. What we aim to do with this programme is provide a combination of inspiration and practical advice to nurture businesses and help them thrive and grow. The Cambridge launch event is sure to feature a lively and informative discussion and I urge anyone in an existing business – or contemplating taking the plunge with a startup – to come along and learn from our panel about the rewards and potential pitfalls.”

The programme’s launch event, How to Survive in the Startup Jungle, will take place on 12th November 2012, featuring a panel of successful entrepreneurs and investors from the technology sector, who will share the highs and lows of their business experience to date.

Confirmed panellists are:

-       Andrey Kessel: Entrepreneur & Investor

-       Steward McTavish: ideaSpace Entreprise Accelerator

-       Joe Parry: Cambridge Intelligence

The launch event will be held between 6.30 and 9.00pm on Monday 12 November 2012 at ideaSpace, Hauser Forum, 3 Charles Babbage Road, CB3 0GT. Tickets cost just £5, with early bird discounts available. Places are strictly limited and tickets can be purchased from http://groupspaces.com/StartupMasterclass.

About Startup Masterclass

Innovation, ideas and technology now have the ability to make a difference, delivering real, long-term change across the globe. Cambridge-based Startup Masterclass has been created to support aspiring and new entrepreneurs driving this change through seminars, mentoring and online resources. Backed by the University of Cambridge’s Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning (CfEL), ideaSpace, Cambridge Clean Tech, CUTEC and CamTechNet it aims to reach out and support early-stage entrepreneurs.

The Startup Masterclass programme will cover the whole startup and early stage company lifecycle, including developing and protecting your idea, building a company, attracting investment, identifying target markets, marketing and positioning and generating sales.

Visit our website, follow us on Twitter, connect via email info@startupmasterclass.co.uk or view our video channel.

During my stint at the Startup Masterclass open mentoring day in Cambridge this week I had a few fascinating discussions about issues facing the Startup founders attending.

One that stood out was a conversation on the pros and cons of adopting a Freemium business model for a software business.

No way can you hear an introduction to a new business and immediately pontificate if Freemium would be of benefit or not, but I did recall an article I’d read recently that tried to come up with a “test” for when Freemium might be the right way to go.

The original blog article by Peter Levine is here: http://pandodaily.com/2012/04/09/what-now-freemium-or-paid/

Let me present the four factors in the test and elaborate a little on what I think is meant by them. According to the article, the Freemium model must offer:

(1)“Phenomenal quality, value, and usefulness”

This is a composite of things really, but the way of testing this for me is the probability by which recommendations of your software product are likely to be spread through the target customer base. I imagine a scene where I meet up with peers and they tell me about the latest CRM tool they are trying out, for example. Or, it might be an entire set of tools such as the Lean Startup Toolkit http://www.cognidox.com/toolkit (sorry, shameless plug), many of which are Free or Freemium.

It’s also crucial that the user experience of using the tool is immediately gratifying. By that I mean that someone broadly familiar with the domain (editing a diagram, managing a project, running a sales pipeline, etc.) can achieve something non-trivial with your software in 15 minutes or so. And that they will be impressed and left feeling more capable by the process. If you have to provide a training course first, it may that Freemium isn’t the right model for your product.

(2) “Access to a very large user base (millions of users)”

Freemium is a marketing tool that enables you to reach a far wider audience than you could otherwise afford with a media advertising budget or an outbound Sales force. However, if your software enables a better or more efficient usage of a specific component in the design of luxury yachts, and is used by a very specialised few, it’s a reasonable conclusion that Freemium isn’t the right answer. It may well be that you offer Free Trials for a period, but that isn’t Freemium in my book.

There’s a time element in this too. Your software product addresses a need now, and in a year’s time that need might be obscured by something Google Drive or Apple iCloud has added to their product (for example). It’s really important therefore that you accelerate the customer acquisition process, even if you have to work out later how to monetise it. There’s a flaw in that logic that should be very apparent to you, but I’ll leave it as-is just to make the simple point about timing.

(3) “A logical way to make money from the free base”

For me, the cardinal error of badly-implemented Freemium models is misplacing the break-point between free and paid-for. There are too many products out there that take an easy option such as the amount of storage offered. You use the free version for say 6 months and love it, but then you realise you are still only using 5% of the storage budget allocated. Only a sense of loyalty or regard for the product would make you upgrade, and I’d rather not have to depend on that in my business plan if I were the company involved.

The better ones allow you to use and benefit from the product, but leave in some annoying characteristic that you’d pay to remove. It could be as simple as watermarking the files created. It might be the awkward way you have to login. If the pivot point between free and paid-for versions falls close to the point between commercial and non-commercial usage, you’re in the right zone for B2B software. For B2C software, it’s far less easy to decide.

(4) “Simple, understandable pricing and experience”

The value of simplicity should be obvious, but there are also discussions among the Freemium community on whether the highest priced version of the product should be on the left or the right hand side of the Pricing web page; and the relative merits of marking one option as “Preferred” or “Most Popular”.

Should you list the pricing at all? I’ve noticed a tendency in the past year that Freemium and Commercial Open Source products are coyer about publishing their prices. This is a backwards trend. Part of me gives them the benefit of the doubt: something in their market or business space has informed them it isn’t a good idea to be so open. But most of me dislikes and regrets it. I liked the way that software product web marketing had moved away from the “Contact Us” style of pricing to a more transparent model. For me, the decision whether to even try a software product is a function of what it does to address my need *and* what it is likely to cost. To do that when software vendors hide their pricing seems impossible. If I have to talk to a Sales person or attend a webinar, I assume the vendor is covering up a high price tag and won’t bother proceeding.

*****

To return to the original question: should I adopt Freemium or not in my Startup software business? This article has at least two points that are crucial: your software must have a large potential user base and be immediately compelling to download and use. A follow-on characteristic is that it must be intuitive to use and leave the evaluator feeling more empowered. Beyond that, I think the other two factors (#3 and #4) are things to consider after you decide to use Freemium, in order to maximise the value you get from doing so.

At a recent event in Norwich, our speaker Stephen Clulow, kicked off the discussion (See photos) with a brief introduction about the meaning and importance of innovation. Innovation is the commercial application and successful exploitation of an idea. Innovation means introducing something new into your business. This could be a single major breakthrough – eg a totally new product or service – or it can be a series of small, incremental changes.

The outcomes of successful innovation can be measured by an increase in profit margin and more shareholder value. As a general observation, having a significant spend in R&D doesn’t automatically mean that a business is innovating or that the innovation will be successfull. In addition, companies need to embrace two key concepts. The first is that not all the smart people in the world work for you and the second is that breakthroughs will only happen by collaboration. As proof of the importance of the above, research has shown that the 20% of companies that belive they already have all the ideas (and people) they need, are actually ranked in the bottom 20% for profits.

To succeed with an Open Innovation approach, the best innovators need to have 3 key capabilities:

• Idea management
• Involvement of staff & collaborators
• Create innovative climate

IS OI FOR STARTUPS?

OI is essential to start-ups and start-ups are essential to OI. That’s because the OI is the smartest way for SMEs to provide innovative products to larger companies. Open innovation is being open: it’s not only about improving your technology but also “using other people’s wheels”. There are a lot of buzzwords that we can use to explain what OI means but the most effective is: collaboration. By explaining the famous Chesbrough Funnel (see below), Stephen showed us that collaborating, and then being open to innovation with third parties, creates more value than trying to innovate on your own.

Source: http://sociedadinformacion.fundacion.telefonica.com/DYC/SHI/seccion=1188&idioma=es_ES&id=2009100116310225&activo=4.do?elem=8221

SO WHAT?
It’s proven that big companies running open innovation challenges improve significantly their profits generating up to $1bn/year of added value or savings. Such challenges are probably the simplest way for early-stage companies to engage in the OI process.

Today everyone can innovate, even starting from free and already existing data such as GPS, mobile device, etc. Increasingly, the whole Open Data movement is also creating new opportunities for Open Innovation (eg. Rewired State). Alternatively, organisations are using data from user searches to predict world-wide phenomena, such as the prediction of world-wide flu trends by Google.org.

If you want to fund your initiative, don’t forget the Crowdfunding options. By pooling  financial resources you can obtain funding for your project from the wider community, where a common desire and trust are the most important driving force for participation.

CONCLUSIONS
Participating in OI initiatives can provide valuable business intelligence and very quick feedback loops to early-stage companies whose strength is their ability to be agile and create disruptive innovations. But OI can also have negative repercussion on your business. Partecipating in OI means taking risks and working with limited resources. OI can open a lot of doors, but never forget the aims, strategy and goals from which you started.

In the first part of the seminar, we learned what to take into consideration when deciding the legal form to adopt: companies, LLTs, sole proprietorship, partnerships or charities. Many factors come into play when choosing a legal structure.

First of all, the structure that the business adopts will have a big impact on how profit is taxed. Basically, each form is taxed somewhat differently, and the structure of your business can have significant personal tax consequences. Since it looks like we will remain in a relatively high tax economy over the next few years, it is more important than ever to manage your tax affairs effectively.

Also, depending on the nature of your business, you should adopt the form that grants you the flexibility you need.

If the business is set up as a sole trade/partnership then the owners will become self employed and will need to complete self assessment tax returns each year. The owners will be taxed on their share of the profit from the business each year, with tax payment normally due in January and July.

If the new business is a limited company then the taxation of profits is somewhat different. Limited companies are separate entities for both taxation and legal purposes. If the company makes a profit then this will be subject to corporation tax.

In a limited company if you are a shareholder you may only withdraw funds through dividends. If you are also a company director or employee you may in addition receive compensation through salary or director’s loans. In all cases, the income will be subject to personal taxation. In general, it is best to have a mix of salary and dividends if possible. This is because dividends are not subject to PAYE deductions.

It should be pointed out that most choices are not irrevocable. It’s possible to migrate from one legal form to another as needs change.

Going forwards in the key decisions for HMRC & businesses, if a new business is to take on employees then they need to start dealing with payroll and PAYE on a monthly basis. New companies will need to set up a PAYE scheme and obtain the appropriate PAYE references.

Moreover, if your business will be making sales of more than £77,000 in a year then you will need to register your business for VAT, and then add VAT to your invoices. But whether this means that your prices will go up will depend on whether your customers are VAT registered or not.

Small businesses should consider the flat rate VAT scheme which simplifies the process of completing a VAT return by applying a flat rate to your gross sales and paying this amount to HMRC rather than calculating the VAT at 20% on all your sales invoices and deducting the VAT on any purchase invoices.

Registering for VAT will mean that you will need to complete and submit quarterly VAT returns and pay any VAT due to HMRC. VAT returns are now required to be filed online.

Next step is finding a way to finance your business. the Key points you should keep in mind are:

• Consider different sources of funding
• Understand your business financing needs and always factor in a contingency
• Be clear on the way you will execute your Business Plan
• Understand the meaning of your financial projections and make sure they are realistic

Based on the above you can choose the funding options which best fit your business, with a fair balance of risk and reward:

• Personal cash / Bootstrapping
• Bank financing/lending
• External investors /angel funding
• Joint Ventures
• Partnership with suppliers
• Grant funding

In the second session, the discussion covered the following topics:

• Different ways to lend funds to the business, depending on the structure chosen.
• Managing cashflow in the business on the various sides (production, Bank, customers, suppliers and HMRC).
• Models of funding, exploring advantages and difficulties for two main categories of funding, Equity and Debt.
• Enterprise Investment Scheme, to encourage inward investment into SME’s from business angels, reducing exposure risk to an investor, and providing 30% income tax relief to individuals investing (providing shares held for 3 years).
• R&D Tax Credits, to provide Corporation Tax relief which may reduce the tax owed.

The last topic introduced is not usually considered when starting a business on your own: exiting the business. It is important to plan for the sale, making your business as attractive and valuable as possible, even though it may take many years to get your business ready.

Starting a business is a huge step, and being aware of the key legal and financial options/constraints from the beginning is essential. As we learned, these decisions can have significant consequences on your business.

Eric Swain opened the discussion telling us why social media will be more and more present in our lives and consequently why the companies cannot ignore this important communication channel. He showed us that social media creates communities of like-minded people who become the most important stakeholders for any business.

• has launched a startup, and is looking for injection of talent & ideas
• has an idea for a startup and is looking to validate it
• is looking for a startup team to collaborate with
• is interested in having an intensive weekend of full-on startup experience

Like other events fo its’ kind (Launch 48, Startup Weekend) the objective is to bring many different teams of people together – entrepreneurs, creative, techies, business dev and others – to try and build a prototype of their project. Starting from Friday,  until Sunday night, when they will present to a judging panel that will choose the winners.

DATE: Friday 20th – Sunday 22nd April
LOCATION: Judge Business School, Cambridge
BOOKING: LIMITED EARLY BIRD TICKETS AVAILABLE
WEB: www.ideatransform.org

Below is the blurb provided by IdeaTransform.

A major new initiative launched today will support entrepreneurs looking to develop technology projects that will make a positive difference to people and society. Created in partnership with the University of Cambridge’s Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning (CfEL), Idea Transform will help those developing innovative ideas turn them into sustainable businesses through a programme that combines events, mentoring and targeted support. It will support ideas in areas as diverse as education, health, finance, community and the environment.

The first event in the Idea Transform programme will take place between 20-22 April 2012 at the Cambridge Judge Business School. It aims to team up people with ideas and those with business, marketing and technical skills to work together intensely over the weekend in order to develop meaningful and innovative projects. Attendees will benefit from a combination of hands-on, experienced mentors and inspiring keynote speakers to provide the perfect environment to learn, advance their ideas and network with like-minded individuals. At the end of the weekend an international judging panel will select those projects that show the most promise and Idea Transform will then work closely with them to provide ongoing mentoring and support.

“From the internet to mobile phones, technology now has the potential to fundamentally benefit billions of people across the world,” said Shailendra Vyakarnam, Director of the Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning (CfEL), Cambridge Judge Business School, University of Cambridge. “Harnessing this wave of innovation can deliver a meaningful impact in so many areas – but too many great ideas are simply falling by the wayside due to a lack of early stage support. That’s why CfEL is backing Idea Transform, as it promises to empower exciting projects that will make a real difference to people and society.”

Idea Transform has been created by Mauro Ciaccio, Chris Measures and Jeremy Parsons, who between them have over 50 years of experience in supporting startup and early stage projects through events, business development and marketing knowledge. It is backed by a high profile advisory board, which numbers investor Peter Cowley, entrepreneur Allan MacLean and business adviser Chris Lamaison amongst its members.

“Creating any startup is an arduous and difficult process that needs a huge amount of support if it is to succeed,” said Chris Measures, co-founder, Idea Transform. “We can see the potential innovative new ideas have to benefit us all, so we wanted to provide the support entrepreneurs need to develop and grow, across the entire early stage lifecycle, through both intensive events and ongoing mentoring.”

This is an aspect that has a huge impact on early-stage companies, but also on established businesses. The former because having a compact, motivated and focussed team is critical to success. The latter because having a (less compact), motivated and focussed teams is…….well even more critical to continued success.

Simon Jones speaking at Cambridge event. Photo Credit - Jennifer Coker

The 2 events in Cambridge and Norwich covered various topics, and generated lots of discussion with the speakers. So we thought it would be good to summarise their advice.

(We’d like to thank our speakers for giving excellent presentations talking about their experience: Tom Wood – Foolproof, Dan Simpson – Proteo, Simon Jones – Studio24, Benjamin Wirtz – HandyElephant)

Vision, Goals and Relationships

• A key principle at the base of growing a team is “Know Thyself” – If you (founders) don’t understand your own aspirations, limitations, motivation you will not be able to build a team that complements you
• Clearly define your Vision + Mission + Goals and then review them regularly. It is important to articulate this & NOT JUST to create “mgmt yack”. Especially at the beginning, you want people to join you that share the vision.
• Relationship with co-founders – It’s important to set frequent break points in early years to verify progress (and relationship) with co-founders. Don’t forget to agree early how to resolve disagreements (whether on legal or informal basis). For the latter, you can even agree on someone external who will mediate if you reach a stalemate.
• The team is NOT a family. Team members rely on discipline for success. Family members push boundaries to assert themselves!
• Discipline does not exclude providing personal support to your team in times of difficulty. At the beginning, going to the pub once a week is easiest way to keep in touch with your team.

How to hire…. and who?%

Aimed at early stage businesses and those looking to launch into startup life the session aims is to give an introduction to what you need to think about and the options out there.

One of the biggest issues that startups face is coping with the legal aspects of setting up and running a business. From the outside this can look pretty arcane and frankly a bit dull but it needs to be handled correctly or you risk facing major problems as your company develops. Whether it is protecting your idea or structuring your business to minimise risk, these are all decisions that need to be researched and thought through when you begin.

The law is also one of the areas where businesses often struggle most to find impartial, non-technical advice that sets out the options tailored to their own needs. And while the web can provide background information, nothing beats a face-to-face conversation that allows you to ask (and get answers to) your individual questions. Every business is different.

With BusinessLink moving solely online, there’s even less free advice available, hence this month’s Norfolk Startup Masterclass session focusing on How to avoid awful muddles and other legal nasties. In the talk, I’ll go into more detail on the legal decisions you need to take at all stages of the startup lifecycle.

Without giving too much away it comes down to what I call the 5 Rs – questions you need to ask yourself when setting up:

• Risk – how much am I happy with?
• Responsibilities – who am I responsible for? What are my obligations?
• Rights – What are my rights?
• Rewards/Return on exit or otherwise – What am I looking for?
• Relationship with others, particularly stakeholders and employees – How will these be managed?

Overall I’m going to take a ‘cradle to grave’ approach to running a business, so the interactive session will deal with the following aspects:

• How do I setup?
• How do we manage equity?
• Do I need a shareholders agreement?
• I am the company (NOT!)
• What basic contracts do I need?
• How do I keep things legal?
• How do founders avoid legal dead-ends when things go wrong?
• Key aspects regarding IP protection
• Key aspects regarding collaborations & employees

I’ll include a checklist of the sort of areas you need to look at – from creating a business plan to insurance, health and safety and IP and trademarks. There will be ample time for questions, and like all the Startup Masterclass events, time at the beginning and end for networking with the vibrant Norfolk startup community.

Andrew Wood, Consultant Solicitor, Birketts LLP

Andrew has extensive experience of acting on corporate and commercial matters including advising on the reorganisation of company structures, mergers and acquisitions, the incorporation of joint venture companies, advising on distribution and agency agreement terms and conditions, partnerships and LLPs,technology transfer agreements, competition law and company secretarial services.

When I was asked to teach a Cambridge Startup Masterclass the first obstacle was to choose a topic. In the end I chose to talk about the Lean Startup and the tools that would help a Startup stay lean.

That’s the first challenge: What is a Lean Startup? During the class I’ll summarise the work done so far (mostly by Eric Ries in his book “The Lean Startup”).

Everyone tends to think of “Lean” in this context as being short on money and having to make do on free or cheap tools. That can well be true, but it’s really more about cutting out the waste of time and/or money. Even if you have just closed a funding round, calling in the SAP or Oracle consultants to implement a million-dollar system is usually just about as dumb as lining the staff car park with new, expensive sports cars.

It’s certainly true these days that excellent software tools are available for little or nothing. People have grown to hate “company systems” and are unimpressed when it takes only seconds to upload and tag personal photos yet days to find a company document.

But, even if you had the money to spare, there’s no assurance most software tools will move your company forward, let alone accelerate growth. Many of them seem to be carriages that have lost their wheels – usually around the time the designers were acquired by the BigCo now selling it.

When you offer to talk about tools, there’s a huge risk it will turn into a “My Favourite Bookmarks” session. I may be thrilled with some tool I use, but I can’t expect you to feel equally excited until I show that it meets a need. If that need was to find new songs that are just like the songs that you already like then maybe that part is easy. But we’re talking obtuse Startups: a word that has Alice in Wonderland abilities to mean just what you choose it to mean – neither more nor less.

So I can’t (and won’t) just sit there opening boxes containing one glittery tool after another.

The other way to segment it might be to try sorting the tools by job title – you know, CEO tools, Tools for Finance, Tools for Legal, etc. Two problems with that: job titles are not well-defined either, and anyway a Startup will probably not be able to fill all these roles.

So I want to sweep away the job titles and find the tasks underneath. There are things a Startup needs, and you set tasks to do / get / achieve them; and it helps big-time if the people doing the task are good at it. Well-executed tasks need great skills or abilities.

My best shot at this is there are 6 core Abilities. I label them as:

• Forming
• Transforming
• Projecting
• Persuading
• Collecting
• Protecting

There are 6 ability types, but it doesn’t at all follow that the ideal Startup is 6 persons. Knowing what you should be doing is the first step towards covering for what you are missing.

It turns out that the Lean Startup model offers a framework to manage these 6 abilities, and helps you understand which ability is optimal at different stages of the product cycle.

The mantra of the Lean Startup is to keep the product cycles short and focussed. Each cycle is like a quest to discover something new, or earn some new level. The abilities of your team shape the success of the quest. Your best plans will be challenged by unforeseen circumstances. It all soon threatens to become a bit “World of Warcraft: The Startup”, with Quests, Guilds and Mages over-running the place.

Luckily we can stick to reality by talking about the best tools to strengthen each of the abilities when used in the Lean Startup model. So when you are forming new ideas, what are the best tools to capture the thought flow? When you want to test something you have built (transformed) what are the best tools to do user testing? As you persuade a customer to sign-up, what are the best tools to help you keep track of the relationship? And so on.

Anyway, that’s the small quest I have set for myself next week in a session entitled “Stay Lean: Your Startup Toolkit”. It’s one of the Cambridge Startup Masterclass talks that take place at ideaSpace, and this time it’s my turn. My aim is that each person there will discover at least one tool that’s new to them and that they’ll use regularly from the next day onwards.

Paul Walsh

Paul Walsh is CEO at CogniDox, web-based software used by high-tech companies for safe and secure control of their design knowledge assets. He has had software management and CEO roles in a number of start-up companies of varying sizes and outcomes (but all great experiences).You can read his full profile here.

On the morning of The Accidental Entrepreneur: Different Pathways To Success, I was reading the Guardian article Tech City: The magic roundabout and was struck by the fact that none of the Silicon Roundabout start-up founders in the piece were female. At the masterclass that evening I was also struck by Dr Shima Barakat’s comment that women don’t like to refer to themselves as entrepreneurs. They’re ‘just running a business’. Why is this? What is it that’s putting women off declaring themselves part of the entrepreneurial world and enjoying the challenges, support and potential triumphs on offer?

Is it because the term itself is shifting in meaning? It seems to have gone from simply someone who is setting up a new enterprise to this caricature of the Silicon Valley start-up founder – the chest-beating caffeine junkie with a ‘Stay hungry, stay foolish’ tattoo who boasts on Twitter about his lack of sleep due to running four separate start-ups.

The perception is being created that to become an entrepreneur means being part of this macho, aggressive culture where sleep is for losers and people battle it out like gladiators, as TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington would have it in his post The Man In The Arena. Or even better, play at being pirates!

But what if you don’t identify with all this? What if you’ve become an entrepreneur without realising it? What if you feel you just don’t fit?

These questions were addressed throughout the Accidental Entrepreneur event. The idea behind it was to focus on the motivations and realities for women starting businesses. Then organisers realised that ‘accidental entrepreneurs’ aren’t limited to women. Maybe men have this feeling of not fitting the mould too. A mixed panel, chaired by Claire Ruskin (CEO, Cambridge Network) shared their different stories about how they came to set up a business and the forces that drove them.

A key factor was control, which Julie Barnes from Abcodia felt was drifting away in her previous role. This was in part due to raising a family. Founding a company herself meant she was more able to balance the demands of work and family life.

Freedom was also important, with members of the panel feeling that they were shaping their own destiny rather than having to follow the path dictated to them when part of a large, established company. A driving force for Madhuri Warren from Pathology Diagnostics and for Ann Clarke with her charity Frozen Ark, which preserves the genetic resources of endangered species, was the belief that you can do something better. And the best way to do this is to get on and do it yourself.

A very common theme was redundancy. To decide to jump ship from a stable job so you can set up a new enterprise at your own personal risk takes a lot of confidence, not to mention solid financial backing. But with redundancy you are forced into the situation where you don’t have any choice but to pick yourself up and find a way of paying the mortgage.

Andrew Hatcher commented that redundancy was the best thing that ever happened to him. While it may not feel like it at the time, it can be the push you need. I couldn’t help but think of the day I was issued with redundancy from ITV – only to discover five days later that I was pregnant. Which is what you can call a tricky situation.

As job losses in the public sector and elsewhere hit and women’s unemployment reaches a record high, we will see a fresh stream of entrepreneurs from both genders and all ages and backgrounds. It’s important to recognise the different pathways people are taking and find ways of supporting them in their new enterprises, from the ones who will always stay at 0 to 5 employees to those with high-growth ventures who seek millions in VC funding and plan to sell the whole thing off in five years.

As a world-class tech hub, Cambridge has a lot to offer people thinking about starting a business. Initiatives like the workshops offered through Startup Masterclass or the business support on offer at St John’s Innovation Centre and the Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning (CfEL) are so useful, along with Pitch and Mix meetups and groups offering networking and support such as Cambridge AWiSE, Cambridge Network, and CamCreative. There are also a number of mentoring schemes offered through both universities.

Not everyone has the same notion of success. So if you feel you don’t conform to the stereotypical image of an entrepreneur, it’s OK. Just sharpen your elbows, don’t be afraid to reach out for support, and get on with it. And certainly don’t bother with that Steve Jobs tattoo.

Sue Keogh

Sue’s company Sookio offers editorial support such as website copywriting, ongoing updates and social media campaigns to small businesses and household names including AOL, Yahoo!, the BBC, ITV and Toshiba. She is also part of CamCreative, TEDxGranta and the campaign for The Cambridge Phenomenon: 50 Years of Innovation and Enterprise. Sue is also working with Cambridge angel investor Philip Baddeley to produce a graphic novel about entrepreneurs, to be published in the coming months.