Legal
General
Trowers & Hamlins (Contracts and Advice)
Most of my investments are now using Trowers as they have a broad collective of advice from their network of offices around the country which means costs can be reduced dramatically. Love them.
Specialist
Trowers & Hamlins (Fundraising and Exit)
Trowers represented the Childs Farm investors at Exit, and I cannot recommend them enough. They were absolutely part of the team, and their midnight humour kept us all focused. Straight forward and hardworking, bright and commercial. Tim Nye and Alison Chivers are superstars here.
Intellectual property
Antinghams Solicitors (IP and IP Registration)
Mark Antingham only does IP registration – and he does it brilliantly. He’s helped me over the last 12 years with all things IP, and he’s great fun too – and full of hysterical stories! Most importantly, I think he is reasonable when it comes to costs, as well as being knowledgeable.
Intellectual Property Office (IPO)
The IPO is the official UK government body responsible for intellectual property (IP) rights including patents, designs, trademarks and copyright. You can register your product in the UK here. Once you are talking multiple categories and international categories, I would suggest that you use a specialist lawyer. It is vital you get this right so you don’t lose the rights to your own products.
Corporate PR
I have found that undertaking a strategic communications programme, spanning both my personal experience as an entre- preneur and that of the business, has really paid off.
When you are in growth, highlighting your business success at key milestones on your journey raises awareness, helps drive sales and attracts new customers, investors, partners and employees.
A note of caution on PR: tempting that it is to go all guns blazing on podcasts, speaker events etc, steer well clear until you have some- thing to share with authority, and by that I mean you are a Top 3 player in your category. Anything that distracts you from the strate- gic path should be avoided until then. Too often I see people talking themselves up in direct correlation to their business going down...
The key is to hire a PR agency that can cover off the business press and the wider lifestyle and product media as well. For this I have turned to Kate Catchpole and her team at Catchpole Communications and they always deliver.