IT mentors offer best practice for budding entrepreneurs

Successful web firms have been advising startups on their first steps

The UK was home to a flood of events last week aimed at helping startups and entrepreneurs to realise their dreams.

These included discussions on the importance of investment in getting a business going, how products should be tested, when products should be launched and how and when startups should think about the hiring process.

A programme running all week called Seedcamp hosted panel discussions for the startup community, and put Europe's top young companies in touch with a variety of networking opportunities.

Other startups met on Thursday afternoon at a TechCrunch talk to debate the key trends in the startup scene, while yesterday Microsoft ran its BizSpark Summit, a similar type of networking day.

A lot of the discussion at the events centred on how startups should engage with big businesses, but an interesting panel discussion started the UK agenda during Seedcamp Founders Day to debate what startups should consider in their first 100 days.

Sitting on the panel was Lastminute.com founder Brent Hoberman, Wonga founder Errol Damelin, Songkick founder Ian Hogarth, Demotix founder Turi Munthe, and Spreadshirt and Studio VZ founder Lukasz Gadowski.

Munthe broached the question of how important investment is to success. "I realise now that the people behind the investment are usually more important than the cash they give," he said.

"They gave me the confidence that it was a good idea and worth spending night and day running it. And, because I only had a small round of investment, it was actually good because it taught me to be very, very lean. Now that has become the ethos of my company."

Meanwhile, Damelin suggested that the key to starting out is establishing control. "It's all about validation and establishing the gates of your business by stating what you are trying to achieve and working back from that," he said. "It's about being willing to ask the hard questions."

However, Damelin also argued that it is sometimes about deciding "what not to do".

He applied his 'need-to-remain-in-control' philosophy to testing products. " It is important to test the product before you try to build your brand," he said. "You need to validate the critical components before you go out and get capital because you really need the capital to make changes to the base of the business."

This methodical approach differed to the views expressed by the others on the panel, and Munthe recommended a more open approach to testing.

"You can let the community validate your product and take things back after the launch if they don't work," he explained. "We use everything as a marketing opportunity, as taking things back after a launch can show that you are engaged with the community."