Isaac Lewis, EF cohort 2012, talks about why he chose to join Entrepreneur First.

Why start a startup straight out of university? Wouldn't it be more prudent, as many (especially family members) asked me, to wait a few years first?

Most of the EF cohort are graduating this summer; the rest graduated less than two years ago. I know some of us turned down highly-paid opportunities at investment banks or hedge funds. I had a job offer from a venture-backed startup in London, so my decision was maybe even harder. Work at a startup or found my own?

So how did I decide? I tried working out the expected financial gain of both options, though I realised that there was too much uncertainty in either case, and more importantly, making money wasn't my main motivator.

A more important factor was knowing people who'd made the same decision. Joel Gasgoine (founder of Buffer) was probably my main inspiration, since we did the same course at the same university, and he'd also decided to found a startup straight after graduating. I knew that he'd struggled for a few years while trying to get his first venture off the ground, but that fact that he'd eventually suceeded led me to believe that I could do it too.

The thing that really swung it for me, though, was this quote by Fred Wilson: “The three most harmful addictions are heroin, carbohydrates, and a monthly salary.” Other friends told me that it's difficult to quit a regular income, especially once your spending (and debt) increases to match. I figured it wouldn't be easy to start a startup straight out of university, but it wouldn't get any easier if I waited, and that was what eventually swung my decision in favour of doing Entrepreneur First.

@isaac_lewis

Yesterday we went along to the 15th annual FastTrack 100 awards ceremony, hosted at Richard Branson's house in Oxford. FastTrack ranks Britain's 100 private companies with the fastest-growing sales over their latest three years. It was a diverse bunch of companies; from online retailers such as notonthehighstreet.com, to restaurant chains such as Cote and clothing brands such as Jack Wills. It was a fantastic evening, with one of the highlights being talks and a panel discussion by three of the UK's top entrepreneurs; Nick Robertson from ASOS, Michael Acton Smith from Mind Candy and Richard Reed from Innocent.

Although they run three very different businesses, there were a couple of common themes from their advice to the group of entrepreneurs.

"Better to have a hole than an asshole" Again and again, the speakers came back to the same point, hiring the right people is vital to your startup's success. Richard quoted the infamous Google line of "A grade people hire A grade people, whereas B grade people hire C grade people". Michael agreed, saying that good leaders not only need to know to hire good people, but to know when to step back and let them take the reins. Interestingly, all three had had negative experiences hiring senior 'grey beards' and that if they couldn't absorb the entrepreneurial culture it often didn't work; much better to hire or promote ambitious young talent. Michael mentioned the great example of Zappos, which offers employees cash to leave 3 months after joining which gives disinterested new employees a reason to leave.

"Put your pound on your product, not on marketing" There was consensus across the group that your efforts and cash should be invested in product development and not expensive marketing campaign. Marketing a product that isn't naturally gaining traction is putting a plaster over the real issue of why customers aren't interested in what you are offering. 

"Your heartbeat and DNA keeps the thing alive" Don't underestimate the impact you can have as the founder and leader of an organisation. All three companies have a distinct culture which has been cultivated and developed by the founders. From Innocent's Monday morning team conga dance to Nick commenting "you don't realise how important your [the founder's] personality is"

While the cohort has been focusing on completing their university finals, the EF team have been busy planning the next steps for the programme, oh and getting married (congratulations Matt!). 

 To help the EF cohort get plugged into the London startup community we are holding a series of small dinners. The first was a great success, hosted by Sherry Coutu and attended by Tom Hulme, Will Reeve and 10 of the cohort. Held at the marvelous Google Campus, Central Working produced an amazing spread. A huge thank you to Steve Pette and his team for their hard work.

As EF focuses on selecting individuals we now have the tricky task of helping them form teams. Over June and July we will be holding a series of team formation days to ensure the cohort make informed decisions, by giving them the opportunity to work together in semi-pressured environments.  We have some really exciting things planned and look forward to sharing these with you in the next couple of weeks! In the meantime here is a pic from the first team formation day, including the now 'lucky' inflatable banana....

Today we're delighted to announce the members of the inaugural Entrepreneur First cohort. We received 425 applications, subjected the candidates to rounds of interviews and had them grilled by top entrepreneurs and investors. The 30 people we have selected represent some of the most talented and ambitious young people in the country. They come from 15 different universities, all over the country, and have entrepreneurial interests ranging from 3D printing to online gaming through unmanned aerial vehicles. Over the next few months we'll be telling you more about them and what they build - but in the meantime, we've included brief profiles of each of them below.

Robert, University of Cambridge: Robert has created and sold software online for several years, including Second Life products that earned him £20,000 as a teenager. Robert’s recent work involves 3D scanner technology, which he has ambitions to use to create the next generation of analytics.

Rashid, University of Sussex: Currently studying for a PhD in Complexity, Rashid has ambitious plans to change the way we connect to each other. He brings a deep background in algorithms, having studied for undergraduate degrees in Computing and Electrical & Electronics Engineering simultaneously.

George, Imperial College London: Top of his year in Information Systems Engineering at Imperial, George wants to change the way we gather data and news from social media.

Alex, UCL: One summer during his undergraduate degree, Alex built and designed a multi-screen production planning system for a small manufacturer, despite having no previous programming experience. The feat inspired him to do a Masters in Computer Science at UCL, which he’ll complete this summer.

Emily, University of Brighton: Emily switched from her Physics degree at Oxford to graduate top of her year in Product Design at Brighton. Emily wants to develop her portfolio of bicycle safety inventions, including ‘BLAZE!’, an innovative LED technology aimed at solving the problem of urban cycling fatalities.

Felix, Imperial College London: Felix wants to transform the way that students and other groups rent property. A first-class information systems engineering graduate of Imperial, he also brings deep technical expertise and a passion for new technology.

Vivian, University of Cambridge: Following a PhD in Biochemistry and experience as President of Cambridge University Technology Enterprise Club, Vivian wants to revolutionise the female footwear market.

Alexis, London School of Economics: Alex created a system for a hospital in Cyprus that manages patient data and then visualises patterns found in the data. He now wants to focus on the 3D printing market.

Isaac, University of Warwick: After making a poker-playing robot at university, Isaac wants to use his Computer Science degree to explore the smart TV market.

Niluka, University of Oxford: Niluka created Course Horse, one of the national winning apps of the Silicon Valley Comes 2 UK Appathon Competition. He has a broad range of technical experience and a passion for artificial intelligence and data mining.

James, University College London: With a MSc in Computer Science and a BA in New Media, James wants to use technology to transform the way we shop through a personalised fashion service which centralises the user’s online shopping experience.

Elia, University of Warwick: An accomplished computer scientist, Elia wants to use his skills to create a peer-to-peer proxy network that allows an end-user to browse the web as if they were in another geographic location.

Leo, University of St Andrews: While at university Leo created and built DealSnake, a website that finds and sells on undervalued items on EBay. Leo now plans to disrupt the outdoor advertising industry.

Zefi, UCL: Zefi led a prize-winnging team of 13 at StartUp Weekend in New York and was immediately offered seed funding. He now wants to focus on generating new revenue streams for the live music market.

Zahid, University of Nottingham: Zahid wants to combine his deep knowledge of online auctions with his passion for online retail to transform the transparency of online peer-to-peer commerce.

Bryan and Leo, University of Oxford: After raising hundreds of thousands of pounds for charitable causes at university, Bryan and Leo have founded Let’s Go Public, an online charity raffle platform for once-in-a-lifetime prizes. The business already has the support of many superstar prize donors, including Stephen Fry.

Humphrey, University of Sheffield: Humphrey wants to bring together the world’s best boutiques excess inventory into one website offering flash/social sales to members. He describes it as “Gilt meets Farfetch but with the social shopping elements of Fab or Pinterest”. He brings experience from working at Groupon, as well as multiple entrepreneurial projects of his own.

Kit, KCL: After running a student travel business at university, Kit now wants to use his technical skills to create a platform that allows students and teachers to share and create learning resources.

Sebastian and Ruben, University of Bath: Sebastian and Ruben have co-founded Flavrbox.com. Flavrbox facilitates the direct trade between independent food producers and consumers by slashing the classic distribution chain.

Matthew and Aditya, University of Oxford: Matt and Adi want to reinvent the way people perceive the guitar by developing a next generation instrument, which would bridge the gap between analogue and digital. Keen musicians as well as first-class engineers, their idea would transform the performance of bands everywhere

Henry, University of Cambridge: Henry innovates in the area of robotics, particularly autonomous flight, and has been building and developing his products while at university. He runs a small UAV company, Universal Air Ltd.

David, University of Oxford: David founded the Oxford European Forum and cofounded HigherClick, an SEO company, while at university. He combines a degree in Economics & Management with strong web development skills.

Vyacheslav, LSE: After winning multiple awards with his startup RoboPitch, which created a guitar tuning device, and setting up the the world’s largest student-conference on strategy, Slav became one of the first employees at startup HelloFresh, which provides a new approach to home cooking

Laura, University of Oxford: Laura is a master fundraiser, having raised £250k for charitable causes at university. Laura now wants to change the way we shop through creating new and exciting products for the online retail market.

Nat and Erwin, University of Oxford:Nat and Erwin want to transform the way insurance is provided to vulnerable people in developing countries based around a peer-to-peer online platform. Nat is a Rhodes Scholar and the founder of 180 Degrees Consulting. Erwin is the inventor of an innovative micro-greenhouse, as well as the founder of a grassroots education NGO in Kenya.

Andrew, University of Manchester: Andrew’s university clothing startup won contracts with 3 of the UK’s largest universities and created a viral video marketing campaign that reached thousands of students in a matter of days.

Yesterday the Entrepreneur First cohort of 2012 was officially welcomed at No.10 Downing Street.

A reception was held in the state dining room and was attended by Rohan Silva, Senior Policy Adviser No.10, Phil Cox, Head of UK, Europe and Israel at Silicon Valley Bank, Stephen Uden, Senior Corporate affairs at Microsoft, Tamara Rajah and Chris Wigley, Associate Principals at McKinsey & Co. and the 2012 EF cohort. 

Rohan opened the event with a brief address to the cohort, outlining the government's support for the initative. This was followed by welcomes from the core sponsors and EF team. 

In the evening Stuart Fraser, Chairman of the Policy & Resources Committee for the City of London Corporation, hosted  a drinks reception at the Guildhall to welcome the cohort. This was attended by the cohort, the interviewers, mentors, investors and sponsors. 

Pete Smith, COO of Songkick, and one of the EF interviewers commented: “It was only a year ago that the first rumours circulated that an Entrepreneur First scheme was going to happen. The speed at which the Entrepreneur First team has moved to set up, design, and market the programme to recent and soon-to-be graduates would make any start-up team proud. The most impressive thing is undoubtedly the talent that they’ve attracted to the programme in its first year. Helping as a mentor with the interview process, I enjoyed every session I was involved in and was excited by the calibre of the people sitting in front of me. The best of them now form the first ‘Summer 2012’ cohort, and, while it’s obviously early days, I predict that they’ll nail it this year and completely validate the Entrepreneur First initiative. More to the point, they’re going to build some great companies."

5,600 post-it notes, 120 cookies, and 48 hours later the EF team is still reeling from what the EF cohort 2012 managed to achieve in such a short space of time. Based at Innovation Warehouse, EFKO was a chance for the cohort to get together for the first time, to work out who they might like to form teams with and to show what they could do in a 24 hour hackathon. 

Saturday was focused on using the Business Model Canvas to twist, pivot and ideate around different business models. The cohort used the first session to work with their own ideas, which included providing a guarantor for international students and an intelligent personal fitness app. In the afternoon we had a mix and match session using randomly generated themes including dating for politicians, education for lovers and gaming for grannies. These led to some more...erm...creative ideas, including an interesting take on the Dollar Shave Club model.

Over pizza and beer, the cohort pitched ideas they would like to work on for 24 hours. Six teams formed and worked through the night to build a business model and prototype for their idea. The teams focused on intelligent book-marking, fashion recommendations, recruitment, supporting international students, car repair services and youtube covers.

The weekend culminated in the teams pitching to our panel of judges. The winner was Youcover.me, a fun way to compare different covers of a song on youtube. The team built the fully functioning site in 24 hours and hope to attract budding singers, as well as wannabe Simon Cowells to their site. The site is now live, so please go and check it out!

A huge thank you to the mentors and judges that dropped in over the weekend from Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Groupon, GroupSpaces, Twitter, Accel, Bridges Ventures, Aihit, GoCardless, EP Capital, Angel Capital Group, Nutmeg and Seedrs. Also thank you to Innovation Warehouse for providing us with their (awesome) space.

At Entrepreneur First we have been talking about loans for young entrepreneurs for some time. At the budget announcement this week, George Osbourne said that the government would consider offering loans for young people to start their own businesses, similar to the loans available for students. This is thanks largely to the lobbying that Richard Branson and his Virgin Media Pioneers have done and we are pleased to see that the issue is getting some serious air time.

We would welcome the opportunity for very low cost, government backed loans for potential entrepreneurs and look forward to the government's investigation into this. However, throwing money at the problem alone is not enough. Young entrepreneurs need support through training and mentoring. We encourage the government to ensure that these systems are in place alongside the loans. Entrepreneur First provides a practical and prestigious route into entrepreneurship for the UK's top graduates and we make sure that our budding entrepreneurs have the guidance they need to create successful high-growth businesses straight out of university.

Yesterday we released our report on high-impact entrepreneurship, in collaboration with Silicon Valley Comes to the UK. One of the most important themes that runs through the discussion is the increasingly global nature of high-impact entrepreneurship.

As Peter Tufano, Dean of the Said School of Business and one of the panellists at SVC2UK, put it,

“You can’t be nationalistic about entrepreneurship”

The best ideas and the most talented entrepreneurs and innovators can’t possibly all originate in the same place, so if a country wants to harness entrepreneurship to stimulate its economy, it has to be open to a free flow of ideas, people and capital. The report elaborates in greater length what this means in practice: from Joi Ito’s discussion of Singapore’s entrepreneur visa to Reid Hoffman’s plan for making it easier for startups to hire the best people, irrespective of their nationality. 

To find out more, read the whole thing.

Today, in collaboration with Silicon Valley Comes to the UK and McKinsey & Co., we’re publishing a report on “High-Impact Entrepreneurship and the Economy”. 

In it, we discuss how governments, entrepreneurs, companies and universities can stimulate the kind of entrepreneurship that makes a real difference to the economy. Among other things, we talk about:

- Why economic nationalism and high-growth entrepreneurship don’t mix

- Why encouraging more people to start businesses has little effect on economic growth

- Why direct government funding for startups sometimes has a negative impact on a country’s entrepreneurs

To find out more, read the whole thing.

Where did the report come from?

Back in November, we were excited to be involved in the fantastic Silicon Valley Comes to the UK conference, which brings entrepreneurs and investors behind some of the US’s most disruptive companies to Britain for a programme of talks, workshops and seminars. 

One of the highlights was a panel discussion held at Parliament on the topic of stimulating the economy through high-impact entrepreneurship. The panel included Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn and investor at Greylock Partners; Joi Ito, Director of the MIT Media Lab; Megan Smith, Vice President of New Business Development at Google; and Peter Tufano, Dean of the Saïd Business School at Oxford and co-founder of the Harvard Innovation Lab. The panel was chaired by Sherry Coutu, serial entrepreneur and leading angel investor. Sherry asked us to write a report on the discussion, which would both summarise what the panellists said and explore some of the broader evidence to which they referred. The result is what we’re publishing today. 

We’re excited to have worked on this with some of the leading lights of the startup and technology worlds and over the next few days, we’ll be discussing some of the themes that emerged and the panel’s recommendations on our blog.

There were some great applicants to EF who we weren't able to offer a place on the programme. EF are keen to support the entrepreneurial ambitions of all graduates and to kick this off we held a networking and training day for all those who had been unsuccessful in the recruitment process. This was a chance for these high potential entrepreneurs to network, find co-founders and find out about other options.

ClubWorkspace in Clerkenwell hosted the event in their fantastic co-working space and it was packed with applicants, entrepreneurs, our friends from Microsoft, startups and pizza... The morning focused on mixing the group up to talk about their skills, interests and entrepreneurial ambitions. The afternoon looked at other available support, with Microsoft showcasing their BizSpark programme and Unltd talking about what they could provide for social entrepreneurs. We also had pitches from  Unruly Media, Silicon Milkroundabout, Talent Puzzle, Forward Internet and Freshminds about potential jobs in startups. The highlight of the day was Pete Smith, co-founder and COO of Songkick doing a founder Q&A on how Songkick was started, how they secured investment and how to work with friends.

ClubWorkspace kindly donated some prizes for our pitching competition with Noel Azirar winning three months free office space, and Mahdi Shariff and John King winning one month free office space. We look forward to hearing how you guys get on!

A huge thank you to everyone who attended and made it such a fun event, and to all our partners who supported the day.