The New Founder of the year Award
CRITERIA
Have you taken the leap to launch your first venture within the last 18 months? What challenges have you overcome and what opportunities have you seized to succeed or build the foundations for future growth?
This award celebrates the potential that exists within founders of the UK’s most promising start-ups and scale-ups to create value and impact.
Focusing on the market opportunity identified, the model to capitalise on it, and how it has been implemented within the first 18 months of trading, judges will look at how initial targets and KPIs have been exceeded, the vision and plan for growth and the founder’s understanding of key challenges, customers and how to differentiate from competitors.
Open to any first business founder that has been trading for no more than 24 months from entry deadline date, this Award recognises those demonstrating the entrepreneurial aptitude, commercial acumen, vision, ambition, innovation and drive to build a successful enterprise. Judges will evaluate:
- Your personal story, career and attributes that are helping you to succeed as a new founder
- Evidence of the market opportunity you identified, your model to capitalise on it, and how it differentiates you from your competitors
- Details of key innovations you have introduced, or developed, that have created uniqueness and competitive advantage for your business – and the impact on the wider industry if applicable
- How your leadership has driven improvement in performance over the last 24 months.
- Your plan to sustain your growth and ongoing financial success.
- Top line revenue and net profit figure for the current year, previous year and prediction for the next year of trading.
SCORING AND WEIGHTING
In this category judges will compare the extent to which each candidate has demonstrated excellence in the following areas:
ENTRY STATEMENT
In a summary of no more than 350 words, please describe what your business does, the market in which it operates and what differentiates you from your competitors. Please include your key business achievements that are significant for your market sector or industry. (Please note that should you become a finalist the answer to this question will be used in external PR & Communications to explain who you are)
In no more than 1200 words, explain why you should win this award using the bullet points below as a guide:
- Employee & Customer Engagement 25%
- Provide evidence and case study examples of how employees and key stakeholders have been recruited, retained, motivated and optimised to deliver growth objectives.
- Provide case study examples and top line data to demonstrate how you have increased your customer base or market penetration over the last 18 months.
- Leadership & Innovation 25%
- How has innovation supported scale? Provide evidence or case studies to demonstrate how an innovative product, service, solution or initiative has driven commercial success.
- Show how the management structure, leadership philosophy and culture of your company supported scale or high growth over of the last three years.
- Organisational Ethics & Policies 25%
- How are ethical, environmental or social impact policies or initiatives aligned with your growth objectives?
- How does your approach to diversity, equity and inclusion align with your overall ambition for the business?
- Explain how your ethical or diversity policy or sustainability strategy has improved employee / client attraction and retention.
- Financial Performance & Growth 25%
- Explain your key growth metrics, including financial targets, KPIs, timescales and overall ambitions plus examples of milestones and barriers/challenges that have been overcome. Growth metrics can include adoption, subscription, lead generation, client base, headcount, NPS scores, etc.
- How do you benchmark against your peers in terms of sales, profitability or market share?
- How has your company performed against your growth plan and what will help you to sustain future growth?
- Show examples and/or case studies of what has supported, or will drive further, commercial success.
