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Each week, Bristol entrepreneur Owen Rees-Hayward of thingloop shares his start-up diary with Mick Dickinson of BuzzedUp. It’s week four, and we’re lifting the lid on skills, hindsight and getting help with business support.

thingloop makes it easy to lend and borrow physical objects (tools, books, DVDs and so on) with people in your social network. Save money. Save the planet. Borrow stuff.

Did you have all the skills you needed to make your new business work?

“I had always intended to do a start-up business with other people, and was looking at a different project with three work colleagues prior to doing thingloop. In the end, we never came together as a team, so I ended up ‘flying solo’ on thingloop.”

What would you do differently?

“If I could turn the clock back, I’d definitely invest more time and energy into finding co-founders with complementary skills. There are massive challenges involved in a web start-up. You need a broad array of skills from web design, software development, through to business planning and marketing.

“This is probably the biggest lesson that I’ve learned along the way. To succeed in a new business you need a lot of skills, and you can’t do everything yourself. So you need to ask yourself ‘how are you going to connect with the people who have the skills I need?’ Invariably the answer will involve a lot of networking.”

Is there any support for web entrepreneurs in Bristol?

“Bristol actually has quite a lot going on for new entrepreneurs, with some great networking events like South-West Founders, good business support and incubation organisations.

“Unfortunately, I was totally ignorant of these when I started thingloop, and am now playing catch-up, which adds to the fun!”

Next week’s diary focuses on the personal characteristics of an entrepreneur

BuzzedUp offers PR and marketing support to Bristol business.

Get free help for your new Bristol business at BRAVE (St Paul's) www.brave.org.uk

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