The Internet. Made for talking cats and skateboarding dogs. Oh, and innovative startups. So as we’re at that silly time of the year when people are trawling around Youtube looking for more cuddly things on video, we thought we’d show you 6 ways your startup is rather similar to your miaowing pal. 1. You own [...]

Networking is one of the best ways of making sure that you’re successful in business, although it’s something that many people who work for themselves often forget when they’re based at home all the time. The same can also be said for businesses with employees, who can often stagnate pretty rapidly in an office environment [...]

Joining innovatrs has some great advantages for startups, entrepreneurs and innovative souls. Not least of these is the 7-stage, 49-phase, innovate framework which takes our extensive experience and knowledge to create one of the most practical startup frameworks you can imagine. So today I thought I’d give a little sneak preview into one of the [...]

It’s been a busy week here at Innovatrs, but we’ve managed to lift the lid and delve into the world of startup competitions. With Monday’s post focussing on European startup contests, Tuesday’s looked at one of the winners from LeWeb 2010. But Wednesday’s post helped to show that it isn’t all about winning, whilst yesterday [...]

We don’t like spouting well-worn clichés here at Innovatrs. But sometimes, it’s just so difficult to avoid, especially if they’re fundamentally true to a point you’re trying to make. What we’re talking about here is winning. If you listened to your adult mentors as you were growing up, you probably heard that winning wasn’t the [...]

We’ve previously written about how innovators and entrepreneurs often build their ventures based on proven models and existing ideas. The ‘innovation’ part is how the existing pool of knowledge is used to progress an idea and create something unique. Innovation is about being smart and savvy, but that’s only one of the prerequisites. A successful [...]

Starting out alone in business can be scary. Exciting, but scary. Entrepreneurs are free from the constraints of the corporate lifestyle but the pressures are replaced by new and equally taxing challenges. And you’re on your own this time round. 

Yesterday we posted a video speech by Richard Branson on how entrepreneurs can be successful in a recession. He summarized the last 2 years economic carnage pretty well – you know, bank implosions, Detroit blues, credit calamity – ya de ya da. Then explained how in fact its a good time to build a new [...]

Richard Branson talks out on how entrepreneurs should build a start-up through the recession. Are you?

A host of famous, successful entrepreneurs dropped out of academia (check Steve Jobs), proving a university degree might not seem to be on the critical path when developing innovative, ground-breaking ideas. Yet a new survey by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) underpinned by experts from 31 countries claims otherwise! Apparently education is a key factor [...]

The 3 P’s of Starting up are: Positioning, People and Priorities. 1. Positioning. The bridge to taking you from idea to starting up a venture is built around the term positioning. Daily ‘keep asking yourself what your business is about and reply in one sentence’ until your answer is spot on. I.e. regularly wins you customers. [...]

Every entrepreneur needs a backpack. Success comes from knowing what to put in it. Here’s a starter for 12. 1. An Apple MacBook 2. An iPhone 3. Google Wave, Gmail and Google Apps 4. A kick ass idea and approach 5. A network of early adopters to bounce your idea off (on Facebook or Twitter) 6. [...]

There is one question every first time or wanna be entrepreneur asks me; ‘what trick do I most need to learn before becoming an entrepreneur?’ Is it general business skills, marketing skills, management techniques, Web design skills, software development skills, presentation skills – WHAT? The dumb and irritating answer is all of the above. Nice [...]

We regularly get asked by entrepreneurs and wanna be entrepreneurs what they need to do to become better entrepreneurs. We have 2 answers: ‘launch a blog’ (and read Innovate). Mostly – launch a blog! Find a topic that you can be master of – make sure it’s a tight niche and build a blog around [...]

Are you really suited to work at a startup? This post holds a health warning – ‘startups are insanely bad for your health’. And it applies to the first 50 employees in any startup on the planet whether they are its founder, leader, developer, sales person, intern, cleaner or coffee maker. You see a startup [...]

We often get asked by our community of entrepreneurs which are the best Web based productivity tools for startups and their founders. You know the kind of tools that really make a kick ass difference to team work and are easy and cheap to use. A startups info system in a box. We advise a hub [...]

Where do you really start with your startup? Photo by mag3737 via Flickr We got some inspiration here. If you lack the business skills you may want to look at this as well, quite cool!