"It remains a fact that over half of start-ups fail before their first birthday," wrote Stephen Maher last week in an article on new ad tech accelerator The Bakery. It makes for grim reading, but just goes to show the kind of conditions new entrepreneurs are having to work in just to get their idea off the ground, let alone discover success.
But no one ever said it was easy, right? Even despite threat of a triple-dip recession, countless innovators and entrepreneurs have conquered in the face of adversity – just look at Summly, Blippar, Crane.tv and Stylistpick. The list goes on.
While incubators and accelerators like The Bakery will help in turning the tide against failure, closures and even bankruptcy, behind every successful online start-up is a digital entrepreneur who can brave the elements and go that extra mile to make dreams a reality.
Entrepreneurs need to have creativity, courage, responsiveness and resilience, wrote AKQA's Ajaz Ahmed. "It's an entrepreneur's mission to make things happen – to make the worthy worthwhile; to make what could be bland irresistibly sexy; make what might be obscured impossible to ignore," he said. "These are the kinds of challenges that have inspired entrepreneurs to invent industries, transform economies, create careers (where others saw dead ends) and upturn archaic thinking."
So if you can tick-off all the above, what's stopping you from kicking things off, taking on online and becoming the next digital entrepreneur to make history? And what about businesses in their first year – how can you pivot and change to keep things on track? What problems might you face in 2013 and how can you overcome them?
Join us and a panel of experts from 12-2pm on Thursday 21 March to answer these questions and more. The next twelve months will be big for the British economy, but more so for our digital and tech start-up scene. Play things safe and we risk stifling innovation – it's time to survive and thrive.
Panel
Matt Connolly, founder, myLovelyParent
Matt set up his first company in his early 20s: a digital innovation agency that quickly grew to become the UK's No 1 digital agency. His latest venture is myLovelyParent – a site where adult children encourage their single mums and dads to meet new people online. @wearematt
Sara Kelly, executive director, Coadec
Sara is the director of Coadec – she works to provide a voice for tech start-ups from across the UK to the government on political issues including finance, skills, copyright, broadband and more. @MsSaraKelly
James York, publishing director, Blokely
James is founder of the cult men's blogazine Blokely.com – he's also founded two other start-ups, Insurance4everyone.co.uk and content atomising app, Knitd.com, which launches at the end of the month. @JamesJWYork
Nicola Herbertson, Founder & CEO, Hao2.eu
Hao2.eu helps organisations in the UK, EU and China use new technologies to improve inclusion, particularly in education, training and employment. Hao2.eu won the Nominet Trust / CBI 2012 Award for Most Innovative Internet Business in 2012. @Hao2eu
Becky Bradburn, brand manager, Nominet
Becky is brand manager for the .uk portfolio at Nominet – she has 10 years of experience in consumer sales and marketing and joined the world of domain names in October 2012. @Nominet
Ted Littledale, co-founder & product director, SecondSync
Ted has worked in digital media for the last 10 years, delivering large scale, complex projects to high profile clients. He has spent the last two years building SecondSync's analytics platform and establishing its data as the industry standard for measuring social TV engagement. @_superted
Dan Mortimer, CEO, Red Ant
Dan has been immersed in digital commerce from the start, setting up Red Ant back in 1999 when the internet was in its infancy – since then, Dan has grown the company into the international, award-winning business it is today. @Red_Ant
Tim Rowell, MD & co-founder, Dextrous Labs
Tim is the MD and co-founder of Dextrous Labs, a product development company specialising in the development of complex applications for smartphones and tablets. @timrowell
Brian Taylor, CEO, PixelPin Ltd
PixelPin replaces passwords with pictures. Easy to use high end security for all. @pixelpin
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