Expert Tips on Starting a Business

Below are some thoughts on starting a business from a group of experienced entrepreneurs and business people. Background on each of these people can be found at the end of the article.


Andy Richards

• The main thing when you are setting up a business is spending time with the people with whom you are setting up a business. You talk, you think, you find out what you are good at, find out what you are missing, find out what you want to do, don’t want to do, start exploring it.
• Have two business plans: one is the plan of what you are doing and have told the investors and the other is what you really want to do. It’s the ‘no one will back this because it’s too ambitious’ story. A business plan that is fundable has all the dots that will join up, so you can see exactly how you get from where you are today to every step in the plan without discontinuity. No decent company has ever developed without changing direction and going through discontinuity.
• Making your luck is about timing. Recognise that you may be too early or too late but actually if it is a good idea you don’t have to do it now. It might be the timing of the technology. It might be the timing on the market, or the timing on the finance in the environment. Don’t just ditch it, put it on ice. Industries are very fashion-orientated. Wait.
• People who have good ideas and build good businesses around their ideas realise they have to have the right team to make those ideas happen. At that stage you have either got to get the right people around or wait until the right people appear. The right people are not the people with the right cvs, they are the right people with the right mix of different skills and complementary characters and who get it.

David Gammon

• You have got to believe in the idea. If you don't believe in it, why should anyone else?

Charles Cotton

• Don't apply logic. Avoid producing a logically perfect solution which no one wants to buy, because it doesn't solve the problem, or it doesn't address the problem which people want to solve.

Doug Richard

• Figure out what the core thing somebody wants to do is, deliver that and nothing else. Tomorrow you can get a big customer buying it and using it and then you don't have to guess as to what they want. They will tell you.

Chris Smart

• If you can modify your perspective on those technological capabilities to make it fit with what people want, then you have created value. It is about the benefits. The benefit you bring to society is your knowledge. It's aligning yourself with what people want.

Andy Richards is a serial Biotechnology entrepreneur and business angel. David Gammon is an experienced angel investor and serves on the board of several startups. Charles Cotton has extensive experience running global private and public technology companies based in the US and Europe. Doug Richard is founder and executive Chairman of Library House and has more than 18 years experience in the development and leadership of technology and software ventures, both in the US and in the UK. Chris Smart is a managing partner at IDG Ventures Europe.