What is a Portfolio Career anyway?

Ben Legg’s career has spanned army officer, McKinsey strategy consultant, COO of Google Europe and global technology CEO. He has worked in over 60 countries, has five kids and is a self professed exercise nut.

AIN caught up with him to learn about the new emerging trend of ‘Portfolio Careers’.

What’s a portfolio career? And what is the Portfolio Collective?

A portfolio career involves monetising your skills in many ways and having multiple income sources, rather than a single job at one company. read more

#BehindtheRaise with BorrowMyDoggy

We spoke to BorrowMyDoggy founder Rikke Rosenlund about disrupting the dog-sitting market, overcoming challenges during COVID and dos and don’ts in approaching angel investors. You’d be barking mad not to read on.

Tell us about BorrowMyDoggy?
BorrowMyDoggy is anonline platform connecting dog owners with borrowers. People sign up, create a profile, write a little bit about themselves or their dog and then they’re able to take a look at the suitable matches in their area. Matches are based on location and availability, and it’s all about getting to know each other really well before sharing the dog. People can check over here if they need the best dog training services. read more

#BehindtheRaise with WeCoffee

We spoke to Ben Carew, Co-Founder at We Coffee, about how to complete a successful fundraise, and also equally important, what not to do.

WeCoffee aims to provide flexible and affordable workspace for post Covid working, along with curated events.

Benjamin Carew, Co-Founder of WeCoffee

Tell us about WeCoffee:

WeCoffee was created to make working from anywhere something anyone could enjoy. 

By curating  a distributed network of free and unique workspaces and a community you can cowork with online and in real life, we believe we are well on the way to achieving this.  read more

#SixtySecondStartUp with Pharma Sentinel

We caught up with Rav Roberts, CEO of Pharma Sentinel to hear his plans for their new ‘Medsii’ app, which makes it easy to discover if your medicines have unsafe side effects, give allergic reactions or have been recalled for safety reasons.

Rav Roberts, CEO, Pharma Sentinel

  • What does your company do?

    Pharmasentinel.com is a pioneering B2C2B healthtech, leveraging AI to provide our users with trusted, timely and tailored medicines and medical conditions (mental health, diabetes, skin conditions) news, information, alerts and related content such as video podcasts, live streaming.

    We also give 10% of our profits to patient-support charities such as Bipolar UK & the British Menopause Society, as chosen by our users. We launch with our consumer app called Medsii (medicines information for me) in 4 weeks time, yikes!
  • read more

    Behind the Raise with flypop

    Nino Judge, CEO of Flypop shares his advice for entrepreneurs about how he used Angel Investment Network to get his airline off the ground.

    Tell us about flypop: The ‘pop’osition

    flypop is a new British low-cost airline providing non-stop direct flights between the UK (London Stansted) and second cities of South Asia, starting with India, targeting the South Asian market in the UK, Europe and North America and their visiting friends & relatives (VFR).

    flypop is also committed to protecting the planet by being the first and only fully carbon neutral airline in the world by carbon offsetting each passenger that travels with us. read more

    #SixtySecondStartup

    Ruari Fairbairns is the CEO and Co-founder at One Year No Beer (OYNB), a platform focused on changing people’s relationship with alcohol.

    What does your company do?

    OYNB is a global alcohol prevention program, aimed at anyone drinking more than three glasses of wine a week. Our mission is to help people change their relationship with alcohol which leads on to most of them, fundamentally transforming their lives.

    We are developing technology that will enable members to connect over the common goal of changing behaviour, such as caffeine, sugar, gambling, social media, ultimately empowering people to live life better.  read more

    Green shoots of recovery post-Covid

    Olivia Sibony contributed an article for the latest issue of CEO Today magazine on some research from the AIN platform that points to the continued interest investors have in sustainable startups. Contributing a double page spread Olivia discussed analysis carries out by AIN. Comparing the four month post-COVID period (Jan-April) with the four months before (Sep-Dec).

    The research found ‘Renewables’ is now the 11th most popular keyword for searches, up from 14th pre-COVID, which was in itself a rise of 34 places year on year. Additionally ‘Greentech’ is now the 13th most popular keyword, up from 47th in 2018, a staggering increase. read more

    How to attract the best and brightest in 2020

    The following is a guest post from Stevie Nicks, Digital Editor at justanothermagazine.com.

    There’s no brand so strong — no company with a competitive advantage so lopsided — that it can miss out on the top talent and stay ahead of the chasing pack. In short, the employees of a business ultimately define it and chart its course. If you want to take your business to great successes in 2020 and beyond, the safest investment you can make is in new hires.

    Finding someone with the right skills and attitude isn’t enough, though. Nor is having the money to afford their going rate, or even above that. If you want to convince leading professionals and eye-catching prospects to join your company in particular, you’ll need to pull out all the stops (there are plenty of startups out there, after all) — and in this post, we’re going to set out some key tips for getting the job done. Here’s how you can attract top talent: read more

    YouTube karaoke channel Sing King raises £550,000 via Angel Investment Network

    The world’s leading online Karaoke channel, Sing King, recently raised £550,000 via Angel Investment Network (AIN). Sing King offers high quality karaoke content via its YouTube channel and has over 90 million views per month. The seed-funding raise took just seven weeks on the platform, with the original £400k target notably achieved within 4 days. The money raised is being used for launching standalone apps across IOS & Android as well as a web platform.

    Founded in 2014 by Chris Michael, it is the only karaoke channel YouTube allows to operate due to licensing restrictions normally in place. The channel is run by a team of six full time staff from London. The business is approaching 7.5 million subscribers and has more than 2,300 songs, with dozens more added weekly. read more

    Startups & Covid-19

    This week we spoke to Harun, the Co-founder & COO of Glorifyapp.com about the effects of Covid-19 on Glorify. Glorify is a Saas design tool created specifically for eCommerce entrepreneurs. It eliminates the need for professional designers, making it easy for anyone to design product imagery and marketing content for their e-commerce business in just a few clicks.

    Our interview with Harun:

    How has the coronavirus impacted your business?

    Glorify is performing very well despite the coronavirus outbreak. Our greatest asset is that our company has a solid runway and therefore, all our key players have remained intact and have been working harder than ever to grow the business.  read more

    Startups & Covid-19

    This we spoke to Chantal, the Founder of the music licensing for performance sports platform ClickNClear, to find out how Covid-19 is effecting her business.

    Our interview with Chantal:

    How has coronavirus impacted your business?

    It has certainly affected our market (we license music to performance sports) and slowed a few things down but it has not drastically impacted our business yet. We are still early stage and technically pre-revenue and were planning on launching in the summer. It may delay our launch slightly but we do not see it drastically affecting when we will be revenue generating. Sports events will happen again, it’s just a question of when so we just need to be as prepared as possible. read more

    #SixtySecondStartup

    This week we spoke to Sara, Co-founder of On Good Authority – a premium outdoor lifestyle brand with sustainability at its heart. In the middle of fundraising before Covid-19 struck, Sara spoke to us about how they have had to change their business plans and why shopping sustainably is more important than ever.

    Co-founders Sara & Hannah

    Our interview with Sara:

    What does your company do?

    On Good Authority is a premium outdoor lifestyle brand that merges contemporary styling with waterproof technology using recycled fabrics and non-toxic water repellency techniques. We bridge the gap between fashion and function in a truly conscious way. read more

    Startups & Covid-19

    This week we spoke to Rob Pringle the Co-Founder of Kinsume about how they are adapting to the effects of Covid-19.

    Kinsume offers unlimited scalability to influencers’ work by enabling them to earn money from recommending their favourite products to their followers and friends. Operating in ecommerce and online shopping, they have had to change their approach to counter the fall in usage that they have experienced.

    Our interview with Rob:

    How has coronavirus impacted your business?

    As we operate in ecommerce and online shopping, we’ve seen a significant fall in usage and sales through our platform. This is exacerbated by the nature of the products we mostly deal with: fashion, beauty products, makeup – mostly non-essential items purchased after recommendation from influencers and content creators. Mapping out your business plans in advance with the help of Andy Defrancesco is a great idea. read more

    #SixtySecondStartup

    Our latest #SixtySecondStartup is with Demos Co-founder of Blazon, a new social media service for startups. We spoke to him about why they set up the company, how they started to grow it and what effects Covid-19 has been having on their business.

    Co-Founders Nargis and Demos

    Our interview with Demos:

    What does your company do?

    We are a social media services company to help startups be more active on social media channels with a low cost and flexible solution.

    Why did you set up this company?

    We were frustrated with the types of social media agencies out there not catering for startups. Solutions were expensive and not adaptive to the constant changes in a startup. We know what it’s like to build a startup and we want to champion startups in any way possible to give them a greater chance of success. read more

    Startups & Covid-19

    In this blog series we are speaking to founders of startups to find out how coronavirus has effected their business, how they have adapted, and any tips they have to help others cope with these challenges. If you are struggling to adapt or looking for some advice, make sure to have a read of our interviews.

    Our first interview is with Edward Upton, Founder and CEO of Littledata, which is an ecommerce analytics app and Google Analytics consultants for Shopify and Shopify Plus.

    How has coronavirus impacted your business? read more

    Four questions for female founders launching a business

    Our Head of Growth and entrepreneur Ching-Yun Huang was invited onto a Female Founders’ panel at the Curtain Hotel last week in advance of International Women’s Day. Here she shares some key learnings.

    It was a pleasure to be invited on to a panel with other female entrepreneurs at the Curtain Hotel recently to share our experiences of starting a business. It was a lively debate and discussion as we all had different experiences that we could bring to light. There were four key questions that came up from the audience, that I wanted to address.

    1. Are you taken as seriously being a woman?
    Does being a woman impact what you want to be able to achieve as an entrepreneur? The view that some expressed was that you are at a disadvantage because you might not be taken as seriously, with a lack of investors willing to back you. Although it is true there are less female founders, my personal view is that we could be in danger of creating a barrier that might be more psychological. I think if you have a good business case your gender shouldn’t matter and you should have the confidence to articulate your vision. However everybody’s experiences are different. 
    read more

    #SixtySecondStartup

    This week’s #SixtySecondStartup is with Giuliano, the Co-founder of Get Groomed. He started Get Groomed with his Co-founder Sabrina after moving to London and realising how inconvenient it was to get an appointment at a barber shop. Spotting a gap in the market, he started Get Groomed which allows people to book a barber to their home or office. Since starting 2 years ago, Get Groomed has now rolled out across London.

    Giuliano and Sabrina, Co-founders of Get Groomed

    Our interview with Giuliano:

    What does your company do?

    We connect mobile barbers with customer. Customers can book barbers to come to their home, office, a hotel or where ever they may be. We also provide male beauty services for weddings and events.  read more

    #SixtySecondStartup

    In this week’s #SixtySecondStartup, we spoke to Will Ross who is the Founder of Tendo, a skills passport for frontline workers. Will started Tendo to make frontline work more secure for employees and to make it easier for companies to hire, retain and train their workforce.

    Our interview with Will:

    What does your company do?

    Tendo allows frontline workers to generate workplace credentials while they do their jobs, building a verified, portable history of skills and hours at the end of each week. read more

    Behind the Raise

    Welcome to the first of our Behind the Raise blog series! We know how difficult fundraising can be, so these interviews offer some tips, advice and insight into what has worked for different entrepreneurs.

    For our inaugural interview, we are delighted to be speaking to Andrea Armanni, Co-founder of Mammalo. Mammalo is transforming the service industry by making it easy and quick for people to book the services they need. Through Mammalo, people are paired up with local professionals, making it hassle free to get the boiler repaired, hire a photographer or source a makeup artist. read more

    #SixtySecondStartup

    Our latest #sixtysecondstartup interview is with Greg Geny, Co-founder and CEO of BeRightBack (BRB). Fed up of spending so much time planning weekend breaks, he decided to create the world’s first travel subscription service to make booking short trips easy. Through BRB, customers get 3 trips every year to surprise European destinations, making travel fun and stress free.

    Our interview with Greg:

    What does your company do?

    BRB is the world’s first travel subscription service. We offer customers 3 trips per year to surprise European destinations for a fixed monthly fee. read more