There is something in the water - the story of V-Water
The market space for enhanced water is getting crowded! Sales of ‘smoothies’ are down by more than fifty per cent this year but the volume of enhanced water bottles being bought is proving more resilient to the recession. And the growing amount of shelf space in the supermarket aisles given over to the likes of Firefly, Vitamin-Water, Just-Juice, Vitsmart and V-Water is testimony to the high margins these products generate. Chris Coleridge, co-Founder of V-Water gave a relaxed, entertaining and thoughtful presentation on the growth of his business to the Eton College Entrepreneurship Society on Thursday night. A large audience - fortified by a generous sample of the six flavoured drinks on offer - grilled Mr Coleridge on his business after he had taken time out to explode five myths about start-ups.
read more...»The Times interviews Google’s Eric Schmidt
This is a hugely interesting interview with the CEO of Google Eric Schmidt. The questions and issues covered range from the future of cloud computing, the decline of traditional print media through to the challenge of maintaining an innovative momentum in an organisation that now employs over 20,000 people.
“So we have 20 per cent time for example, which means that engineers can spend roughly one day a week working on things they find interesting. We let people create start-ups within Google—Wave, Android and Chrome are some examples of the company within a company model.
This link takes you to the rest of the interview
Luke Johnson on real wealth creation
Luke Johnson is on fine form in his FT column
“Genuine wealth creation does not derive from speculating in real estate – it comes from advances in technology and production.....Pension funds, insurance companies, banks and other institutions should be rewarded for backing companies that create jobs and penalised for investing in inanimate assets such as property, commodities and suchlike.”
The rest of his article is here
I agree and if there are to be tax cuts to stimulate the economy why not cut national insurance contributions by employers smaller businesses and new business start-ups? When unemployment is rising as quickly as it is the key is to prevent hugely damaging ‘slash and burn’ labour shedding by businesses who have become heavily risk averse.
Hamish McRae on the return of credit rationing
One of our most gifted business and financial communicators peers beyond the murky uncertainty of recent days to consider a world where those banks who survive the crisis are much more circumspect about how much they are prepared to lend.
“So people who are deemed bad risks, such as the self-employed and people in flashy professions, will find it harder to get a mortgage. Have a bad credit record and that will be a shut-out. First-time buyers will have to have saved for a 10 per cent deposit, or more. Small companies will find it more difficult to raise capital. Start-ups will find it harder to get going. Big companies, even profitable ones, will have to pare back their investment plans and cut their staff levels. Everything will slow down as a result.”
This is not a return to the dark ages although the prospects of a wholesale nationalisation of the bad debts of the banking system cannot totally be ruled out. But a world where credit is both harder to obtain and more expensive will come as a shock to the millions of consumers weaned on easy lending with minimum checks and balances applied. The danger is not that consumers have to become more prudent in their spending and borrowing habits, rather that small and medium sized businesses will have their ambitions curtailed by a new credit squeeze. There are already signs of a sharp downturn in planned investment spending.
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