How to better spend your startup cash
Oh, startups. We love working with you. But we’re worried. We’re worried about the way you’ve been spending your money. Here at Studio Graphene, we’ve been helping companies produce digital platforms for the past four years. In that time, we’ve seen significant changes in the attitudes of clients moving through the processes of product delivery. Startups […]
An introduction to equity crowdfunding
The roots of equity crowdfunding date back to 2011, during the height of the financial crisis. It was initially used as a mechanism for early-stage businesses to access equity finance and was a necessity at the time due to high-street banks’ reluctance to lend to small businesses. In its short lifespan, it has already become the […]
How to prepare for raising investment
Whether you chose to crowdfund or take the VC or angel route, you need to think ahead about how best to prepare for taking on equity finance investment. Raising investment doesn’t have to be difficult and once you know how much you want to raise and how you want people to invest in your business, […]
Five tactics to help beat the startup slump
When you first set out on the startup path it can look like paradise – the pace is fast, you control your own destiny and there are endless new avenues to explore. Unfortunately, no honeymoon can last forever. The reality for many startups is that a slump will set in when the long nights, stressful […]
The struggle startups face getting listings with supermarkets
Gaining a national supermarket listing signifies a major milestone for any food and drink brand. As much as I’d like to reveal some industry secrets to gaining a national listing for your product, I’m afraid that’s not the case. At Rejuvenation Water we compete in one of the most fiercely competitive segments in the world; the drinks […]
An introduction to cash flow forecasting
Cash flow forecasting is the lifeblood of early stage and high-growth companies. Typically, the profile of these businesses will mean that they are not yet profit-generating, and in some instances may be pursuing a strategy of growing their top line revenues in place of being focused on their profitability. As such, they will live or […]
Getting investor ready: what to include in your pitch deck
When it comes to putting together an investment deck for an early stage company, the proverb ‘less is more’ applies. Angel investors and early-stage venture capital funds receive scores of decks per week. It is important to just present succinct and relevant information. If you don’t grab their attention within the first couple of slides, […]
The community marketing that got Loot Crate 650k subscribers
Loot Crate started out with a simple offering in mid-2012; a mystery box subscription service of epic games and gear – aka ‘Comic-Con in a Box’. And it worked, 15m crates later, more than 650,000 subscribers in 34 different countries and we’re shedding our youthful startup bravado and adopting a more mature and measured approach to marketing. But […]
There’s no shame in second-time entrepreneurship
If at first you don’t succeed, try and try again. Well, sort of. Most startups – and by most I mean 55% – fail in their first few years. And not many more live long enough to actually turn a profit; it’s a teeny tiny portion of the half-million enterprises that are founded each year. Unfortunately, […]
Three tactics we’ve used to reduce long B2B sales cycles
When you are a small startup it’s easy to become fearful of long sales cycles. You need that traction now, not in 12 months’ time when you don’t even know if you’ll still be doing what. We’ve had sales meeting after sales meeting to answer the question of; ‘how do we get our clients to […]
