About

Ben Lobel was the editor of SmallBusiness.co.uk from 2010 to 2018. He specialises in writing for start-up and scale-up companies in the areas of finance, marketing and HR.

Blog

Achieving happiness as a business owner

Author Simon J Benn continues his advocacy of positive thinking as an entrepreneur.

Government Grants

Grants available to Scottish businesses

Mike Newman, founder of Glasgow-based My1login, received an array of cash grants to develop his small business, which provides an encrypted vault service for logins, passwords and pins.

Government Grants

Getting a grant from an enterprise agency

Caroline Eccles, co-founder of Lancashire-based film company Huckleberry Films, received a business grant of £2,000 from enterprise agency Hyndburn Enterprise Trust.

Funding your small business

Will the Funding for Lending scheme take off?

The latest government inititative intends to prise money out of the banks' coffers and into small and medium-sized businesses, but will it succeed?

Business Ideas & Planning

Why I started a business: Consultant

Mary Cummings talks about the transition from working for a corporate to starting her own marketing consultancy.

Business management

Starting a food company

Clippy McKenna started food brand Clippy's Limited in 2008 and now has her jellies, chutneys and relishes stocked in the likes of Asda, Tesco and Harvey Nichols.

Crowdfunding for Business

Why banks can’t fix the UK economy by themselves

James Meekings, co-founder of Funding Circle, argues that crowdfunding is set to steal a major chunk of the business financing market from the banks.

Business management

Language barriers and international trade

Nick Evans, technical director of ExtraMile Communications, which specialises in multilingual email marketing campaigns, discusses how messages can be lost in translation when dealing with foreign markets.

Accounting

Conquering late payment

Clive Kahn, CEO of payment solutions company CardSave, considers how small businesses can combat the UK's late payment culture.

Alternative finance

Will social funding change small business finance?

Rory Earley, CEO of Capital for Enterprise, investigates the emergence of a social funding marketplace for small companies.

Alternative finance

Raising money through the Angel CoFund

SmallBusiness.co.uk talks to George Whitehead, chairman of the government-backed Angel CoFund, about the fundraising potential for small businesses.

News

Small businesses lax on data security

Small and medium-sized enterprises are not taking basic precautions to protect confidential data.

Ben Lobel

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