A UNIVERSITY student has set up a new business to bring the gadgets of the rich and famous to a wider market.

Tom Kadwill, 19, is in the early days of an online venture called Tekrux, supplying automated technology for lighting and other electrical appliances around the home.

He has two suppliers, one in the UK and another in the Netherlands. Their gadgetry enables people to use items such as a £15 keyring, which can operate lights and switch the television on or off.

Tom, of Harley Street, Leigh, said: “Usually this technology is found in rich homes, but my aim is to bring to everyone at a price they can afford.

“The keyring item can turn lights on as you arrive home at night and is more energy saving than leaving a light on while you are out.

“It’s good for older people and those with mobility problems.

“My nan uses the light and TV controller from her bed.”

Tom, a former Deanes School pupil and Seevic student, also works part time at Little Havens Children’s Hospice.

He is currently studying for a degree in economics, at the University of Hertfordshire, and is into the second round of their Flare business competition, with a £15,000 prize up for grabs.

Deven Oberoi said Oberoi Grand Interiors, at Pride Park, was fast becoming the third successful business created by the entrepreneurial family.

His wife is the boss of Derby IT company Oberoi Consulting and appeared on the Channel Four show Secret Millionaire, in which she gave some of her fortune to worthy causes.

And his father, Dayal, 71, set up the successful Mackworth lighting shop Oberoi Brothers, which Deven helped run for 20 years.

The 42-year-old left the Humbleton Drive shop last year.

He now operates his new business single-handedly from an office next door to Kavita’s.

But Deven, who lives with his wife in Hazelwood, said being in such close proximity was far from distracting.

He said: “We’re both doing our own thing and it works absolutely fine.

“In fact, we’ve started passing on each other’s businesses to clients at events.”

Oberoi Grand Interiors works with customers to design, build and fit interior and exterior furnishings to residential and commercial properties.

Deven’s role involves taking details of clients’ needs and linking them up with businesses which can complete the building and fitting work.

He said: “This really is the best thing I ever did. The recession really helped me to re-focus on what I wanted in life.

“I have suppliers beating a path to my door.”

Deven said his father had originally planned to retire and wind up Oberoi Brothers Lighting after he had left.

But Dayal continued to run the 43-year-old business while waiting for the property to sell and, when no buyer came forward, decided to keep it open.

Dayal said: “After initial concerns that Deven was leaving, I decided to carry on because I enjoy this business so much.

“Since then, we have lots of new lines and a fresh new-look showroom.”

Deven said: “We’ve now got the challenge as a family to keep three business running and we all want to do well.

“But I think we’ve got a good name, a good brand and a good reputation and, together, we’ll really help each other out.”

 

Don’t tell Rebecca Ramos she can’t do something, because she’ll start learning it right away. She has taught herself how to build Web sites, design graphics and make jewelry. Now she’s learning to weld.“I just never thought there was anything I couldn’t do,” Ramos said.

Such spirit has propelled her through five start-ups.

Ramos, 39, has mixed her passion for art with business. Her design flair is most visible at ChickeeBoom, a company she started in June to sell jewelry online and at home parties.

Last year, she bought some jewelry while on vacation in Florida. Back home, friends fell in love with the rings, buying them right off her hand.

Ramos first thought she could sell jewelry she found; then she realized she could make some of it. Within a month, ChickeeBoom was up and running. It’s already profitable.

“She doesn’t sit on decisions,” said Glenn Baldwin, who has provided virtual chief financial officer services to Ramos’ companies for seven years. “She is a textbook entrepreneur: She loves developing things and seeing them grow.”

ChickeeBoom is the creative outlet Ramos craved while running other businesses.

She got the entrepreneurial urge when leaders at the company where she worked didn’t listen to her ideas. She left and started Expressive Arts in 2000 with two partners, Steven Lindsey and Joel Galloway. The marketing firm grew to eight employees, generated annual sales in the mid-seven figures and counted giant Wal-Mart as a customer.

In 2003, the trio formed Group 518 to provide shipping and warehouse services, mainly to Wal-Mart. In 2005, they shuttered the unprofitable company after the retailer took that work in-house, and they launched BrandTenders to market promotional products.

By 2008, everything changed. The partners had a falling out and closed Expressive Arts and BrandTenders. Debts piled up, Expressive Arts’ building hadn’t sold and Ramos, who was ready to have her second child, had personally guaranteed most of the business assets and debt.

Ramos filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, with liabilities nearly four times her assets.

“It was my decision to get that behind me and start fresh,” she said. “I still want to find the best in everyone. I still approach business like that – it’s just my nature.”

That same year, Ramos and Lindsey formed Crain & Craig (their middle names). The marketing and promotional products firm billed more than $1 million in the first two years.

Ramos spends most of her time on Crain & Craig and works on ChickeeBoom in her North Dallas garage after sons Ridge, 5, and Rhett, 2, go to sleep.

“ChickeeBoom is fun, but right now Crain & Craig is the No. 1 priority,” said Ramos, who always sports a signature ring and charm bracelet.The Ramos file

Born: Chillicothe, Mo.

Education: Associate degree in industrial design, Art Institute of Colorado

Business philosophy: Stick by your word.

Biggest challenge: Time. I have four jobs – running two companies and being a mom and a wife (to husband Marc).

Biggest mistake: Trusting people too soon

Best asset: Integrity

Worst habit: I don’t take time for myself.

Wheels: Hummer H3

Reading: Jewelry: Fundamentals of Metalsmithing by Tim McCreight

Last meal request: Shinsei’s oatmeal cookies

Nobody knows: I can name all of the U.S. presidents in order.

Advice for a 20-year-old entrepreneur wannabe: Failure is OK. It’s what you learn and how you rebound that’s important.

Launching a company need not be daunting. Just ask serial entrepreneur Maria Elena Ibañez.

While in the beauty parlor one Saturday, Ibañez got to chatting with a woman experienced in the Hispanic food business. That’s when she decided to launch Intermark Foods and hired that woman to start the following Monday.

Ibañez moved so quickly she even forgot to tell her husband, who came back from his morning workout to find a stranger in their home office. Ibañez is a big believer in learning as you go.

Ibañez had already built two successful international computer distribution companies, selling the second one just before the tech bubble burst. So in 2002, after failing at her second try at retirement — she was bored — Ibañez knew she wanted to start a low-tech company where her tech skills would be a competitive advantage. Her goal: to compete on authenticity and quality, not price.

The fragmented domestic Hispanic food industry, with its promising growth potential, was a logical choice.

That was it. No business plan in the beginning; no extensive research. Though this may not be the best route for every entrepreneur, Ibañez has always launched her companies quickly, spurred on by belief in herself and her nose for opportunity.

She bought two cases of books from Amazon on the grocery business and quickly read them. Then she researched the grocery aisles and learned where the Hispanic foods market leader was missing — dairy products.

sIbañez launched her brand, El Latino, with just four cheeses, and the first year she brought in $1 million in sales.

Now she carries 256 products, including all the national favorites Hispanics grew up with. There are dozens of cheeses in various styles, as well as sausages, frozen fruits and vegetables — such as yucca, guava and tamarind — and, of course, traditional sweets. While the industry has been growing on average 8 percent to 9 percent annually, Ibañez’s revenues have been zipping along at 30 percent year over year, she said.

“You have to go where the market is,” she said, adding that her products were in Publix within three months and in Wal-Mart within a year. “If you have an idea you are passionate about, follow your instincts and see what the market wants. You can polish your idea based on the market response.”

Ibañez also never let a poor economy be a deterrent. She launched all three of her businesses during recessions or downturns. “You can get deals on offices and warehouse space and pick up great talent the big companies are trimming,” she said. “It’s the best time to start a company.”

This is a good time to get started and there’s nothing wrong with the learn-as-you-go approach, said Tim Berry, technology entrepreneur and author of 3 Weeks to Startup. Not all businesses can be started this fast, but many can, he said.

“You don’t wait ’til all the lights are green before you leave your driveway,” the founder of Palo Alto Software told the audience at Entrepreneur Magazine’s Growth 2.0 conference in Miami Beach. “You don’t worry about making mistakes — you will make mistakes. The idea is to fail fast, learn from it and move on.”

Fortunately, there are lots of local resources to help. SCORE chapters offer workshops on each aspect of launching a business, including the business plan, funding, marketing, cash flow, website set-up and more. The University of Miami’s Launch Pad helps hundreds of entrepreneurs as does FIU’s Pino Global Entrepreneurship Center. See the box on this page for more.

Raju Mohandas, a counselor with SCORE Miami who has launched and financed companies, led a recent workshop called “Start Your Own Business.” To evaluate your business idea, he said, look at your personal goals, your own skill sets and knowledge base, and most importantly, whether your idea solves a problem in the marketplace. Be ready to commit at least five years.

“Not everyone can be a head coach; some people are fine being an assistant coach. This is where passion comes in, and your goal mentality,” Mohandas said.

Start-up market research should include your own Internet research, talking and listening to prospective customers, and assessing the competition’s strengths and weaknesses, pricing and distribution, he said.

As you are setting up your company, this is also the time to get your professional team lined up. Experts recommend a lawyer, accountant and insurance agent, for starters.

“There may be a big difference between a good friend and a good attorney. This goes for CPAs too,” said Mike Tomás, founder of The ASTRI Group, which assists and funds start-ups. “Allocate resources and invest in professional services up front. You will either pay now or pay later. Trust me — now is better.”

Another important step: If you have a partner in the business, figure out who should get which part of the business pie, Berry said. Start-ups put this off because there is not much money in the business yet, but they shouldn’t.

“This isn’t lawyering; this is talking,” Berry said. “Lives change, people have different needs, people break up. Write it down and sign it.”

Other steps to launch:

• Prepare your initial sales forecast, expense budget and estimated starting costs. Monitor cash flow to make sure you don’t run out of money.

“Cash flow is like the blood running through your body to keep it moving,” Mohandas said. “On a start-up you need to look at it on a daily basis.”

• Start focusing on marketing strategy. (Read more about this in coming weeks.)

• Begin registering and protecting your name and intellectual property.

• Secure your domain name and get on the Web. You want a .com name if possible, otherwise you are marketing your competitor, said Berry. Find a great webmaster to whom you can outsource.

• Set up your legal entity — LLC, C-Corp. or S-Corp — based on the recommendation of your lawyer and accountant. Apply for any licenses needed. MyFlorida.com (click on Business) has a good explainer on this.

What about a business plan? If you are going after bank or investor financing, a business plan at this early stage is critical, experts say. If you are self-financing, it is still a terrific tool to map out your strategy, timeline and goals and keep you focused, and you will likely need it later. Ibañez, too, wrote plans when she needed them for financing or the sales of her companies.

Ibañez’ first venture was selling software and then hardware in Latin America in the 1980s. When she sold that company, she signed a noncompete clause. So she looked at a map for her next opportunity and pointed to Africa, a place she had never been. “My vendors thought I was crazy. They thought I had lost my mind. They said there’s no business in Africa. I said, `Whatever business there is is going to be mine.’ ”

And she was right. There was no computer distributor there at that time. Her business grew 4,600 percent in seven years, Ibañez said.

Today, at Intermark Foods/El Latino in Doral, she enjoys product development and is always adding new product lines, such as drinkable yogurts and fresh sausages.

“There’s a thrill in building from zero,” Ibañez said. “The idea that you create something from nothing is very exciting.”

Megan Hurley is quite the force on her soccer team.

She is taking acting classes at Off Off Broadway, an acting school for kids in Phoenix.

She has even started her own business and clothing line.

All of this, and she’s only 8 years old.

About a year ago, Megan approached her dad Daniel with an idea to put some of her drawings onto t-shirts and sell them.

“She loves to design and do art work, she’s actually making jewelry, scarves, bracelets and stuff,” said Daniel Hurley.

She even helped her dad design the website and came up with the name for her clothing line, “Purrfect Clothing by Megan Leah.”

“Everything that I do I get approval from her, so if she doesn’t like it, it doesn’t get up on the shirt,” her father laughed.

Megan already knows the importance of giving back too.

A portion of every sale gets donated to the Humane Society and other animal-based charities.

Megan is a huge animal lover, she has four cats and two dogs of her own, all from the Humane Society.

She is selling her clothing at her acting studio, Off Off Broadway, and on her Purrfect Clothing

Along with being an actor, Megan says she wants to work with animals when she grows up.

“It’s a good thing, she’s helping animals and starting her little business,” said Daniel. ”At her age, it’s pretty incredible.”

Becky Stockbridge McKinnell is young, in a hurry and knows what she wants. She was too busy growing iBec Creative, her startup web and graphic design firm in Portland, to apply to be considered a top entrepreneur under age 25 in BusinessWeek’s annual competition — something else she’s long wanted to do. On the cusp of “aging out” as her 26th birthday approached, she finally submitted the necessary paperwork last year.

Paradoxically, her sense of timing was exquisite. While other businesses were slashing workers and closing shop in a calamitous economy, she was adding new employees and clients, boosting business 87% in 2009 over the previous year. BusinessWeek took notice, and in October named her one of 25 young entrepreneurs in the country to watch.

Not everything in her career has gone as planned. “I went to the University of Vermont my freshman year, majoring in business. I’ve always been interested in art, and started taking art classes, but the major was so demanding there wasn’t much opportunity for electives,” she says. McKinnell found that the University of Southern Maine was one of the few schools that offered an art and entrepreneurial studies program, so she transferred.

She capped her studies by entering the USM business plan competition as a senior and was named a finalist, which earned her free office space for a year. Coupled with a $5,000 grant from the Libra Foundation as seed money, she set out to execute her business plan.

Following the sage advice of a professor to focus on a niche market with a clear need, McKinnell zeroed in on medical practices — an untapped market in terms of adopting web marketing strategies. The problem was, though, doctors didn’t yet perceive a need to harness the pervasive power of the web.

McKinnell had been keeping busy, however, with website development for other small businesses. “Customers started recommending me to others,” she says. “It took me about a year to realize my original business plan wasn’t working. It was really hard to let go. I’d worked so hard and believed there was such a huge need. But once I made the switch, it was easier to grow my business.”

An adaptive, creative mindset meshes perfectly with web dynamics. “I ended up in the right place and a good place,” she says. “The industry changes so quickly. And it’s fun. It encourages creativity.”

Though McKinnell is drawn to the creative aspect of online marketing, “there is also a precision to it. You can be so exact with coding — there’s an element of perfection to it,” she says.

Unlike traditional marketing, “where you might spend thousands of dollars to print a brochure, yet it’s hard to determine the impact, if you spend $500 on Google Adwords, Google Analytics makes it easy to measure effectiveness in terms of attracting website visitors and measuring conversion” to business transactions, she says. In web-speak, the difference is outbound/push marketing vs. inbound/pull marketing. “It’s all about community, especially employing social media like Twitter and YouTube and Facebook. People decide if they want to be in touch and what they want from you,” she says.

A Massachusetts native, McKinnell says Maine is a great place for business. “Maine offered me a lot of helpful assistance getting my business started. I definitely want to stay in Portland. I want to grow my team to about 10 people, and [grow] the business to $2 million to $5 million in the next four years.”

It took only a few weeks of research for Romanian entrepreneur Emi Gal to decide to base his digital media firm in London, and his choice confounds a fairly enduring set of stereotypes about Britain’s global appeal.

International experts agree there has been genuine progress in the country which a few decades ago was fast fading as a magnet for the science, health and technology brains and entrepreneurship that also drive the knowledge economy.

‘London is pretty much the centre of the world if you want to work in media and advertising,’ Mr Gal, 23, told Reuters.

As the Labour government campaigns for re-election this year in the face of headlines predicting an exodus of financial brains if bankers’ bonuses are more heavily taxed, voices like his may be heard with increasing frequency in some national media.

Besides Mr Gal, whose software allows media companies to make money from online videos by adding ‘hot spots’ to outlets for consumer products, other new businesses are increasingly choosing Britain as the place to be.

Another newcomer is Compound Photonics, which started in a laboratory in Phoenix, in the United States, and moved to Cambridge to develop extremely high-definition screens for next-generation cinema goers and television audiences. Co-founder Jonathan Sachs said it was attracted to Britain partly by a world-class photonics lab at Cambridge University.

In response to a set of policies put in place, data from the British government’s department for trade and investment show new businesses from countries such as the US, South Korea and Israel relocating to or setting up new headquarters in Britain.

The pace has accelerated from nine new foreign entrepreneurs in 2005/2006 to 58 in the first nine months of 2009/2010.

Mr Jean-Christophe Dumont, a migration expert at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, said Britain is now well placed in Europe on a number of indexes that measure factors such as taxes, red tape, the dynamics of internal markets and how they are connected on the world stage, as well as the ability to access a qualified work force.

Seeing Britain’s success, he added, countries like France and Japan have recently drawn up policies to attract foreign entrepreneurs or wealthy investors who might plough large sums into job-creating businesses and boost economies.

According to the Legatum Institute, an investment-led think-tank, Britain is second only to the US for entrepreneurship and innovation - ahead of Canada, Sweden and the Netherlands.

‘The best thing that Britain does at the moment is to provide an infrastructure for small and medium-sized businesses to grow and reach not just Britain, but Europe, the US and the rest of the world,’ said Mr Gal.

‘To reach a global audience from just one location is not something you can get from many cities in the world.’

The entrepreneurs say they are lured by a range of factors - from a common language, attractive geography and London’s status as a global hub, to less tangible assets such as cultural diversity, openness to foreigners and enthusiasm for new ideas.

Many also cite pools of highly qualified scientists seeping out from universities, and a sense that Britain offers a dynamic business environment.

The government initially set out policies to attract or poach entrepreneurs by offering advice and support on everything from drawing up business plans, recruiting high-calibre staff, to attracting investment and getting visas.

‘We couldn’t sell Britain on the language and location alone if the science base and the ecosystem were not also very supportive,’ said Mr Eric van der Kleij, a ’senior dealmaker’ at the Global Entrepreneurs Programme. He and his company work to bring together entrepreneurs with experts who can guide and act as liaison with the authorities and potential investors.

Mr Arup Chatterjee, an Indian scientist who runs a nanotechnology business called I-Can Nano, said Britain had pipped even the US with less tangible extras.

‘People are very open-minded here,’ he said. ‘And if you want to start your business quickly in an innovative and new area of science, clearly you choose to turn to a friendly, warm and welcoming face.’

At a time, when teens are glued to the computer screens playing games in the virtual world, there is a new breed of Indian Indian teens who are busy managing their own ventures in the real world. For example, Mohnish Nagpal runs a blog ‘Sensonize.com,’ through which he makes money online by advising people on how to make money online. Coming back home after college, Nagpal starts working at 5.30 pm when his target audience in the U.S. wakes up and logs on to the internet.

One of his posts lists blogging, affiliate marketing, paid surveys and writing articles for directories as some of the ways of making money online. “Very few people know that you can even earn by tweeting,” Nagpal says. With a steady five-figure income, he doesn’t have to worry about pocket money. “Every time someone clicks an advert on my blog, I get paid for it,” he adds.

This year, Nagpal, who first earned Rs. 5,000 off the internet at 13, started Limespace Networks, a website-hosting firm that caters to 35 customers. A student of commerce and IT at MMK College in Mumbai, Nagpal has already made it to a list of top international bloggers aged 21 or under on Retireat21.com, a forum for internet entrepreneurs.

Another teen entrepreneur is Mumbai based 13-year-old Monik Pamecha, who runs a website etiole.com, a networking site for ‘geeks’ called iluvtech.org and URL shortening service hop.im. Pamecha’s sites are so popular that they are regularly visited by Public Relation executives of gadget companies who deliver their latest products at his doorstep in anticipation of a review on his five-year-old blog, Etiole. Pamecha has recruited 26 other authors from around the globe. Each gets paid from the advertising income generated by the website traffic they attract. Apart from reviews, Pamecha posts technology tips. Now, Pamecha, a student of Lilavatibai Podar School in Mumbai, is all set to launch a media-sharing website also.

Farrhad Acidwalla is the Founder and CEO of web development and media company Rockstah Media. “I created an aeromodelling and aviation website that attracted a lot of attention and sold it later,” says the HR College student who has several customers including corporates. “I have just bagged clients from the education industry in UK,” he says. Acidwalla, who earned his first revenue at the age of 13, stays up all night to run his business. Today, the self-taught web-developer works with a team of web designers, developers, search engine specialists and social media marketers to build and promote websites.

TJ Dzine is a firm managed by Tanay Jaipuria, which provides web design, graphic design and search engine optimization services. Jaipuria works for 20 hours a week and occasionally gives up hanging around with his friends. Charging between $75 - $100 for a logo and $250 - $300 for a website, the Mumbai based lad designed 25 logos and created ten websites last year. Jaipuria dreams of studying computer engineering and starting a business venture in the manner of Silicon Valley start-ups.

After being recognized as the world’s youngest certified professional web-developer at the age of 14, today at 23, Suhas Gopinath is the Chairman and CEO of Globals, an IT consulting firm that specialises in web-related services. Gopinath began his journey at an internet cafe in Bangalore where he struck a deal with the cyber cafe owner and offered to run the place during lunch if internet use was made free for him. “With internet charges at Rs. 10 per hour and pocket money of Rs. 25 a month, I needed to maximise every opportunity I got,” he says.

The first website Gopinath created was called Coolhindustan. “But, of course, Hindustan is much cooler today, thanks to the power of the youth,” he says. During his entrepreneurial journey, Gopinath had to face several obstacles to gain the confidence of companies, due to his young age and the lack of academic qualification.

We just love stories like this at UKpreneur - keep them coming and do let us know about your venture.

A high school freshman from Holland is making a name for himself in the cyber world.

14-year-old Zachary Collins sold his second Web site in less than a  year to a company in California.  Zachary developed yazzem.com in his own personal think tank, which happens to be the basement of his parent’s home. The teenage entrepreneur says the Web site lets visitors share their thoughts about anything by sharing topics.  The catch is they can only write out their thoughts in 200 characters or less.

Teens in Tech paid $15,000 for it.

“At first I did think it was a joke,” said Zachary.

Zachary only became interested in computers three years ago.  His father says he started with an old, used laptop.  Zachary built his first Web site in two days.  In June, he sold the Twitter application search engine for $2,000. 

“It’s pretty amazing just to be able to connect with people from California and meet people like the founders of Twitter,” Zachary said.

Profits soared for yazzem.com, and like any responsible businessman, Zachary split the profits with his team and his co-founder, Dustin Snider from New York.  The two met each other online.

“He’s wanted to be a millionaire since he was at least eight.  It may have been younger, but he knew he was going to do something to be a millionaire,” says Zachary’s mother, Jennifer.

Zachary says another goal of his is to someday meet Bill Gates.

For Art Koff, who had a successful career in advertising and communications for more than 40 years, just because he was beginning a retirement lifestyle lifestyle didn’t mean that he was ready to give up his passion, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The entrepreneur knew that he needed something to do to occupy his time, so he started a website called RetiredBrains.com, a job posting site which aimed to attract other active living seniors who felt that they wanted a diversion or needed some extra cash.

“I got up at the crack of dawn,” Art Koff tells the news source of his days as an ad man. “I can’t imagine what would happen if I didn’t have someplace to go and something to do.”

Though many active living seniors look forward to a more leisurely pace of living after retirement, the recent economic crunch has led to a 31-year-high in unemployment for Americans over the age of 65, which suggests sites such as Koff’s might be particularly useful to mature individuals searching for a new career.