Moonpig Founder Nick Jenkins On Naming Your Business, Achieving Viral Growth And Plans For Expansion

As the founder of one of the UK’s leading personalised greetings card companies, Moonpig’s Nick Jenkins is well versed in the world of business and digital.

Having established Moonpig in July 2000; at the peak of the collapse of the dotcom bubble, Jenkins has successfully scaled the online platform to multi-million revenues and launched in both the US and Australia with further growth in the pipeline.

We caught up with the digital entrepreneur at Sir Richard Branson’s house for the Pitch to Rich 2014 competition, where he shared his advice on naming your business, his “admiration” for viral growth, and what’s next for Moonpig…

Naming your business

Jenkins outlined five key requirements that he felt were essential when choosing your business name but explained that, when it came to naming his own business, Moonpig wasn’t his ideal choice as it stemmed from a nickname at school.

Despite the nickname, the entrepreneur reflected that it ultimately “made a better brand than a nickname”:

“What I was looking for was a name that had to be as few syllables as possible, it had to be unique on Google, it had to be phonetic, easily represented by a graphic logo […] and it had to be available as a domain name. I spent four days searching for a word that was unique on Google […and that was available as a domain name] that I could use for this and I couldn’t find anything. I was throwing all sorts of things into it.

“I spent four days looking for something that would satisfy those criteria and I came up with a couple. One of which was my old nickname at school, Moonpig, it just so happened that it ticked all the boxes and it worked very well. It was sort of despite the nickname thing; I would rather not have used my nickname at school but it worked.”

Business inspiration and going viral

When it comes to business inspiration, Jenkins is spurred on by the activity of digital and social businesses that have ability to “grow virally” as he explains:

“I look at some of the social businesses like Facebook that have changed the way that we behave and have been able to grow virally very, very quickly. They’ve grown virally because they provide something that people really want and that’s the crucial thing. Viral growth happens because people want it.”

On his own experience of becoming somewhat of a viral sensation, Jenkins added:

“Moonpig, to some extent, was viral – I buy a card, I send it to you, you like it, you come online and you buy one. So a lot of our growth in the early years was viral. The businesses that I do admire are the ones that have grown spectacularly in the last five years – in particular the likes of Facebook, Twitter and so on. I’m in awe of those [businesses].”

Plans for expansion

Over the last 14 years, Moonpig has expanded its offering to include a range of flowers, custom mug designs, wall art and even t-shirts, but Jenkins believes that there is still the potential to capitalise upon other opportunities:

“We’re starting to make in-roads [internationally]; there are other countries that we’d like to do and [we’re also looking] at a range of gifts. We’ve realised that we’ve got a lot of people who love our cards but people are generally buying gifts as well. I think Moonpig is now the third largest online florist in the UK so we have a very big business there.

“I think probably over time the gifts will start to become as important a part of the business as cards.”

http://startups.co.uk/moonpig-founder-nick-jenkins-on-naming-your-business-achieving-viral-growth-and-plans-for-expansion/

Tips For Building An Easy And Effective Website ...

Your small business can have a distinctive and effective presence on the web if you build the right website.  

From choosing the best domain name to working with the right host and finding the best design, it only takes a few minutes to get up and running.  

But, it is important that you are not cutting corners along the way, because you and your customers will notice the difference.  Many small business owners either cut corners or spend far too much money in order to get online, and you can avoid both while having a fantastic site to offer your current and future customers.

Online Identity 

Your website is your online identity, plain and simple.  It says everything about the service you provide and the level of professionalism and credibility that you present to the online universe.  How it looks, how it feels and its reliability and speed all work together to create either a positive or a negative impression.  You want to make sure that your site is nothing short of amazing so that people will visit, stay and shop on your online locale.  This can be done in-house or with professional assistance, and there is no shortage of options out there that can help you to create the ideal site.

What Are You Trying To Achieve ?

You should look at your budget and your overall goals before you start to look for domain names, hosts and design options.  Think about how you want the site to look, feel and the overall user experience as well.  Does your domain name that you are considering reflect your company, niche, product or service?  Does your host provide fast and reliable connectivity that is secure? Do they allow enough storage and bandwidth to accommodate your needs?  Does your design look and feel good, making it attractive to visitors and easy to navigate?

Shop Around 

Once you have considered these basic questions, you can start to shop around and look for the services and tools that will get you online easily. A website does not need to be a lot of work, and you don’t need to be an Internet guru in order to have a great online presence.  But, you should be choosing options that give you the greatest amount of flexibility along with ease when it comes to ongoing maintenance, upgrades and changes that you will want to make along the way.

Keep It Simple

Every company is different, and so are their expectations.  It is easy to find the right options for you once you do a little planning and thinking.  Resist the temptation to think that the process of getting online is complicated, because it really isn’t.  For you, what matters most is cost and connectivity along with site management tools.  For the customer and visitors, they want a good layout, ease of use and security.  Consider these factors and choose the right tools and options that will make all of this happen so that you can get online on the right track from the very beginning.

http://income.com/2657/building-an-easy-and-effective-website/

You Might Be an Entrepreneur If You Meet These 3 Conditions ...

Article by Steve Vanderveen - 

After four years of operating a small startup incubator at a private liberal arts college I've learned a lot about creating business models that work and who might become a successful entrepreneur. It’s not about having access to capital or area of study. Rather, it’s about having the right skills, the right process and the right heart.

1. The right skills.

Marketing innovation. As Michael Ellsberg wrote in The Education of Millionaires, the prerequisite to selling is listening. It's important to understand people and their needs, build networks and relationships and create unique solutions to pitch effectively.

Managing risk. Entrepreneurs aren’t risk takers as much as they're risk minimizers. One way to minimize risk is to bootstrap: Provide the resources for a startup with customer revenues. Another way is to follow the advice of Eric Ries, pioneer of the lean startup movement, proponent of the “build-measure-learn” mantra.

Test all business model assumptions, ranging from the notion of the customer problem to the hypothosized revenue stream. Startup expert Ash Maurya wrote in Running Lean that the job of entrepreneurs is to find a business model that works before running out of money.

Leading oneself and others. Entrepreneurs keep going when others stop trying. They overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles. They build tribes. They transcend the status quo, form new relationships and patterns of behavior and bring change where it's sometimes unwanted.

Having experienced the process, entrepreneurs quickly adapt and confidently try new things. And things don’t always go as planned. Entrepreneurs, like leaders in the “fundamental state,”  a term coined by Robert Quinn in Building the Bridge As You Walk Across It, have the “adaptive confidence,” “detached interdependence” and “grounded vision” to figure things out.

2. The right process.

Entrepreneurship is a discipline. Peter Drucker, sometimes called the "inventor of management," argued that entrepreneurship is a management discipline. It’s a process that can be learned and applied.  

Discipline implies a process. Entrepreneur and educator, Steve Blank, outlined the customer development process in The Four Steps to the Epiphany, which was validated and further refined by Maurya and Ries for their own startups (Spark59 and IMVU, respectively). The process begins with customer discovery or understanding problems from consumers' perspective and testing whether the entrepreneur’s solution fits. 

Then there's customer validation or determining how, when and where customers (the market) and the entrepreneur’s solution (the product) meet and value can be exchanged. And customer creation entails discovering how to entice the next wave of customers to move en masse toward the sales channel. Then and only then should resources be spent to build a company to support the business model.

That last step is called company creation. Before I became a lean startup convert, I used to ask students to do the company creation step first. They wrote long business plans outlining the structure of their company before any of them knew or had tested if they had a business model that worked. How wrong I was. And how much student time and resources I wasted!

3. The right heart.

Love of the game. It takes much trial and error to find a business model that works. If a businessperson doesn’t love the process, he’ll lose energy not only before running out of money but also before it's even the right time to ask for money. 

Commitment. So what determines if entrepreneurs keep going? Love, like skill, involves both nature and nurture. It entails affection, passion and discipline. It requires both the heart and head. As is the case in a marriage, a commitment to putting others first is needed for getting through the tough times. The entrepreneur should find ways to complement others' skills and invite them to complement hers. Entrepreneurship is one of the ultimate team sports. 

Skills, process and heart can be learned. They also flow from some natural endowments.

The most difficult challenge in operating an incubator at the college level is giving students enough time to discover and develop the skills, process and heart to become successful entrepreneurs. And if they do, the next challenge is giving them the opportunity to prove that they deserve additional support to find a business model that works.

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/237312

Want To Change The Results You Are Getting ? Change Your Mind !

Limits Exist Only In The Mind ......... 

Make Today A Great Day !! 

How To Be Remarkable ...

Love this quote by Tim Ferris ... 

"The key to getting started, down the path of being remarkable in anything ... is to simply act with the intention of being remarkable" 

What I Wish I'd Known A Year Ago ...

Hindsight is a great thing - it’s easy to look back and wish you’d done things differently. Five business owners tell us what they wish they had known a year ago and why it would have really helped their firm grow or saved them money

• “It’s worth spending time choosing the right accountant.”

Sara Drawwater from marketing agency Something Beckons had some false starts getting to grips with her business finances: “We chose our accountants because we had a friend there, but we didn’t consider whether they fitted our business. We’re mostly web-based and we work in the UK and Africa. But our accountants were extremely traditional. It wasn’t a good fit.

“We didn’t get the right advice from our accountants, and that had a negative effect on our business. We should have spent more time choosing accountants who really understood our business, vision and needs.”

• “Social media works best with other forms of networking.”

“It’s best to use social media alongside other forms of networking, rather than in isolation,” says Kapil Kapur, the database expert behind Fingertips Intelligence and Simply Spreadsheets. “For instance, I go to networking events in and around London. But it took me time to realise that social media is a good way to follow up with people I meet. It’s much sharper than sending out bland emails.

“Social media has brought me new business too. For instance, I got an email from someone wanting a quote. They first found my details on the website PeoplePerHour.com. Then they Googled my name and found my profile on the LinkedIn social network. Only then did they contact me.”

• “Cheap advertising isn’t always good advertising.”

Bristol-based wedding stylist Kathryn King thinks she should have said “no” to offers of cheap advertising in unsuitable publications. “I wasted so much money on ads. It might only be £50 here or £100 there, but it adds up,” she warns.

“I took the sales calls and believed what they told me. I put an advert in one title after promises it would go out in Bristol, but when I received the invoice I realised it had appeared in a Hampshire publication.

“I’ve realised now that there’s a reason the space is ‘cheap’ and ‘available’. And I’ve rationalised my advertising, focusing on areas which I know work.”

• “Don’t overlook graduates when recruiting.”

“I’m just about to recruit and I wish I hadn’t left it a year,” says Cara Sayer, managing director of SnoozeShade (Really Simple Ideas Ltd), a blackout blind for prams and pushchairs.

“Last year I was partly put off by cost, but I also thought I needed somebody who was very experienced. But now I’ve realised a graduate recruit will suit my needs. I just need someone who is enthusiastic and not necessarily that experienced. Someone who is on the same wave length as me and who will get things done is more important. When you’re running your own business it’s important that your staff will do things the way that you would do them — they are an extension of you.

“I wish I’d invested in a full-time recruit a year ago. If I’d taken on a graduate then recruiting wouldn’t have been as expensive as I’d imagined.”

• “Always put a proper agreement in place when outsourcing work.”

“I decided to outsource my website build,” explains Craig Martyn, who runs HomeSellQuickly.com. “I found a contractor through oDesk, but we ran into some problems. Although I already had reliable web hosting, the contractor decided to host my new site for me.

“It then stopped working and he wanted to charge extra to fix it. Because he controlled the hosting, he effectively hijacked my site. If I’d had access to it, I could have got it fixed by someone else.

“My mistake was not having an agreement in place which covered hosting. With websites you should specify where the site is to be hosted and ensure you retain ownership over all code, content and images.

“Make sure you know all the passwords so you can access everything. And as you can’t anticipate every eventuality, specify how you’ll handle unforeseen issues too.”

http://www.startupdonut.co.uk/startup/set-up-a-business/what-i-wish-i-d-known-a-year-ago-

Think You Don't Need To Use Social Media In Your Business ? Watch this ...

The Uncomfortable Truth Of What Is Keeping You From Success

Do you really want to know what is keeping your from success?

Really, really?

Because it’s not a lack of productivity apps or time management skills …

It’s not even those customers that aren’t calling you back, those friends who are not supportive or those colleagues that never seem to listen to you…

I’m sorry, I’m so so sorry.

But it’s you !

Here’s why:

1. You’re Not Clear On What Success Really Is

I’ve been interviewed for a popular magazine in the Netherlands when I was a student and it was all about what we wanted out of life after our studies. I’m caught on print that all I wanted was to have an amazing, well-paid job, a big house and a car to go with it. 6 years later I find myself in a big fancy office, filled with high-achieving consultants, which I drive to in my big fancy car from my big fancy house being incredibly jealous of the guy who waters the plants, because he’s obviously a lot more HAPPY with his life and work than I am.

Having a clear vision on what success is to you is a basic necessity; how else are you going to know that you’re heading in the right direction and if you indeed ARE successful?

But make sure your vision grows and evolves along with you in life.

2. You’re Not Listening To Your Gut

Us human beings are a fascinating bunch; instinctively we almost always know what’s right or wrong for us but we hardly ever listen to those instincts and we do the wrong things anyway. The reasons for this could fill an entire library but the effect of it is that we waste our time and energy on things that are not in line with our core vision and are therefore keeping us from success.

Listening to your gut and acting on it demands you to be very brave. It means that you’ll have to say no to opportunities and people even when that puts you at risk of being unpopular or not profitable in the short-term. But it’s authentic, and in the end, that’s the only way to success.

And not listening … that will keep you nice and safe in your comfort zone. You know, the place where you’ll very likely NOT to achieve the things you want to.

3. Your Ambition Is In The Way

Who is your big hero, entrepreneurial or otherwise? Do you just look up to them and learn from them or do you want to be exactly like them?

There’s a big difference ! It’s great to have people to look up to and learn from, especially in this day and age where so many inspirational stories are shared. We learn that we’re not alone in our struggles on the path to success and we learn how to recognize and not fall in to the pitfalls these people have.

But what if you want to be exactly like them ? What if you’re not happy until you’ve achieved the same as they have ?

Personally, I can’t seem to shake the ambition of being a combination of Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama and Angelina Jolie and am not happy until I get the same recognition they get …

Yeah, that’s never gonna happen !

Not because I don’t deserve that recognition or am anything less than they are, but simply because I’M NOT THEM.

But it does limit my behavior and level of courage at times …

We all have our own lives, paths and characters and can be extremely successful in our own rights, but we’re keeping ourselves small if we keep comparing ourselves to others.

4. You Can’t See What You’ve Already Achieved

At what point will you be able to look at yourself and your business and be happy with what you’ve achieved?

Most of us can’t. Most of us have this continuously lingering thought in the back of our heads that tells us that it (and we) are still ‘not good enough’ …

It’s both the comparison of ourselves to others and an ancient imprint in our brain that compels us to always be something bigger and better than we are. It’s evolution and simply in our DNA.

But it’s not really useful is it ? What’s the point of working this hard and actually achieving all this success but not enjoying it for what it is ?

Sometimes…there’s nothing keeping us from success. Sometimes, we’re already there but just not able to see it.

Not sure if you’re holding yourself back in any way ? Answer these questions:

-       Do you really know what success looks like for YOU ?
-       Do you always listen to – and act on – your instincts ?
-       Does the awesomeness of [insert name] keep you from even trying?
-       Could it be that you’re already there ? Hint: listen to the people close to you !

Dreaming big, having huge ambitions and always aiming for growth and improvement are all essential for success and are great characteristics for anyone that thinks of themselves as a personal leader.

But don’t let them become their own pitfalls.

http://addicted2success.com/success-advice/the-uncomfortable-truth-of-what-is-keeping-you-from-success/

5 Things You Should Be Doing To Have An Insanely Productive Week ...

A productive week depends largely on what you focus on every working day and how much time you allocate to activities that take up your time. Working harder does not necessarily mean you are being productive. There will always be a better way to complete that task. Find it, work smarter and get more done in your working week.  

These are a few things you can do to have an insanely productive week this and every other week.

1. Stop planning, start doing. 

It's okay to make time to plan what needs to be done in the week or month but when you get back to the planning table often, you lose precious productive hours.

So instead of plan, just do it. The option to work on a task in the future instead of now may seem comfortable, but not prudent. While you keep telling yourself you don't have to do it now, that task won't go away. And somebody will have to eventually account for it. So instead of procrastinating, get on with it and check it off your to-do list.

Also, are your meetings really worthwhile? Most people spend too much time in meetings, when they should be working and getting things done. To ensure you are making the most of your time, create a time budget. This will help you realize how much time you are losing to meetings or planning when you should be doing actual work. You will be surprised at how much you can get done every week if you start tracking how much time you spend planning or meeting.

2. You don't have to say "yes" to every request. 

“The difference between successful people and very successful people is that very successful people say “no” to almost everything.” — Warren Buffet.

Saying "yes" to a request may seem easier than a simple "no". Yet every time you agree to do something for somebody that brings low or no result, it makes it difficult to have a schedule you can really control. You don't want that. You can achieve more if you know what you have to do, when you have to it and what you expect to accomplish. All that can be done in a controlled schedule.

3. Don't be a perfectionist. 

If you keep chasing perfection, it could take you longer to get your tasks done – and you will most likely be less productive than you planned. The reason being is that when you activity strive for perfection you spend more time on a single task than required, causing your other responsibilities to get pushed back. This will cause you to lose time. Perfectionism is even higher when you don't account to anyone but yourself, as the fine tuning never ends.

4. Get everything out of your head. 

Don't rely heavily on your memory. It will fail you when you need it most. Instead, write things down.

There are hundreds of options for taking notes -- everything from the good old sticky notes to applications like Evernote, Any.do, and Wunderlist. By jotting down everything that needs to get done in the week, you will have a better picture of what needs to be accomplished – and set priorities accordingly.  

5. Review and measure your accomplishments. 

Just before you close the week and prepare for next week, review your achievements, along with everything else that needed to be done, to see if you really got work done. Get back to your to-do list and check them off and find out what you were not able to do and why. Celebrate your accomplishments, take note of everything you postponed and learn from your mistakes. You will be better prepared for the following week. 

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/237985

Kelly Hoppen's Six Steps To Starting Your Own Business ...

Kelly Hoppen MBE, entrepreneur and Prince's Trust Ambassador, shares her top tips for starting a business ...

Starting Doing This ... Today !

Anytime you’re able to do what you want, what do you typically do ? 

If you’re like most people, you do the thing that you find the most enjoyable, the least scary or the easiest.

Therein lies a MAJOR stumbling block to success – procrastination.

Sure, you need to finish that project, but first you’re going to spend a few minutes on Facebook.

Yes, you need to get that blog post written and uploaded, but…are those dust bunnies under your desk? It won’t take long to run the dust mop around and then you will get right back to work.

And so it goes.

It is amazing the things that look more interesting to us than doing what we need to do. Sometimes it is “shiny object syndrome”, where something new seems that it would be more fun than working on the client project that is due next week. But it can even be something we normally would not want to do (Dusting ? Really ?) if we were not facing a more daunting task that we want to put off.

One of the reasons many of us went in to business for ourselves is that we wanted to set our own goals, control our own schedules and we didn’t want to answer to someone else. The one good thing about answering to someone else, however, is having that external accountability.

When you’re accountable to someone and you need to answer for your actions, you know what happens ? You get stuff done. And oftentimes just getting stuff done makes all the difference between succeeding and failing.

We tend to be our own worst enemies when it comes to being focused. But when you have someone to report to each day and account for what you accomplished, and whether you achieved your goals for the day,  procrastinating becomes downright difficult – and even a bit embarrassing. You know you’ll have to make an excuse if you didn’t get your work done, and you know your partner isn’t going to buy that excuse any more than you’re going to buy hers.

Find someone with whom you are compatible and become each other’s accountability partner.

Set goals for each day or week and share them with your accountability partner. Then you report on how you did on reaching your goals.

Here is how I do it : Every Monday I send out two emails to my accountability partners. One is my list of goals for the week and the other reports on how I did on my goals for the previous week. They do the same with me.

Just knowing that I will be reporting on what I accomplished (and what I failed to accomplish) motivates me to get more done.

This is a simple technique but I think you will be completely amazed at the difference it makes in your business.

http://www.idealady.com/start-doing-this-today/

How High Can You Jump ?

Something recently reminded me of a story I used to tell when I was a therapist & coach teaching people how to break through limiting beliefs and realise their potential.  It went something like this ... 

If you ever decide to change your career and become the owner of a flea circus … you know the sort of thing : little fleas on tiny little trampolines and tiny little bicycles, that sort of thing ... then the best fleas you can get live in Mexico - where they all jump 12 metres high.

Trouble is, if you have a flea circus, you don’t want all the fleas jumping to exactly the same height – because that would be boring, you want each act to be different … so you have to train your fleas !

All you have to do is go to Mexico and look in the shadows of the big cactus plants, ideally first thing in the morning, so you can sneak up and catch the fleas sleeping.

Then you need a number of different jam jars, at different heights - say some 3 metres high, some 6 metres high and some 9 metres high - and you put the fleas into the various jars.  

Finally the fleas wake up and the first thing they do is jump (cos that's what fleas do !) ... and of course they hit their head on the lid.  So they jump again – and hit their head again.

After a while, they start to realise that they are going to hit their head every time they jump, and it hurts !!  So next time they jump, they jump to just below the height of the lid.  And they learn to jump to that height, and that height only - so they never have to hurt their head again.  

Then, after a couple of weeks, you take the lids off the jam jars ... and guess what happens ?

Each flea has now learnt to jump to a certain height and so he continues to jump to that height only – because he doesn’t want to hit his head again.  He doesn’t realise the lid isn’t there any more ... and that’s how you train fleas to jump to the height you want them to jump.

Unfortunately, we work in a very similar way.  If we learn that we can only do certain things, we only do those things and we think we can’t go any further.  We belief that we have limits. That’s our experience and that is what we buy into.

Until someone says “look - there’s no lid there”.  And we may be unsure and nervous at first, we may be reluctant to jump higher in case we hurt our head, but if we trust that person enough we jump a little higher to see if it's true ...

And very quickly we realise that there is no lid and we can jump as high as we like !

So make today a great day .......... and see how high you can actually jump when you realise there is no lid.  We have no limits !

Can A Group Of Aspiring Entrepreneurs Start Up A Business In One Weekend ....