We were recently introduced, through one of our G100 members, to an incredibly kind, brave and courageous person called Laura Middleton-Hughes who is living with incurable breast cancer. Laura was first diagnosed in February 2014 at the age of 25 with stage 3 breast cancer after discovering a small lump in her left breast. Having […]

23 Years Ago The future co-founder of Universal Partners FX gallops to school with a rucksack crammed with Haribo. He’s ten years old, and Dhaval Patel’s classmates mob him in the playground and give him their pocket money for the sweets. Each Monday, Dhaval buys a bag of sweets with his allowance, sells it, then buys two bags on […]

Until last year, Wayne Starkey still filed his own VAT returns. Many co-founders of four-year-old companies do – old habits die hard and it saves a few quid in accountancy fees. What VAT-DIYers don’t do, however, is turn down £85m buy-out bids. Ever. Yet that’s the jaw-dropping offer Wayne and co-founder James Whiting rejected just a few months ago. Those facts indicate how far and how fast The Skinny Food Co has come since its 2018 launch. They also reveal how down-to-earth yet ambitious these two entrepreneurs are.

Care is not a traditional business value. Peruse the classics and you’ll see boldness, passion, honesty and perhaps integrity, but not the C-word.
Thankfully things are changing – as Bloom & Wild demonstrates. This flower retailer meets tech company is undoubtedly growing relentlessly. Yet its business values would disorient yesteryear’s ‘manly’ entrepreneurs. “We’re obsessed with care,” says founder Aron Gelbard. “It’s vital to me and it’s a key trait I look for when hiring.”

It’s not about having gleaming offices, hiring tons of staff and shouting about how successful you are. These can be the trappings of ego-trippers. Effective entrepreneurship is more often about coming up with an idea, proving the concept as cheaply as possible, and scaling it as quickly as possible.

FOUR FOUNDER LESSONS… When Dr Guy Braverman and Dr Allen Hanouka became businessmen, little did they know that they would build a multimillion-pound company that would save many, many lives. Their career paths seemed set when Dr Guy Braverman and Dr Allen Hanouka were working at North London’s Royal Free Hospital in the early 2000s. […]