This week our pitch comes from teenage entrepreneur Mason Robinson. Have you ever lost a USB stick with valuable information?  Well, Mason says he’s coming up with a solution to that problem. He's also launching a kick-starter campaign on March 1st. (You can check out more interviews on www.theprofitmargin.co.uk)


#TPM:60SecondPitch: 16year old entrepreneur: i-Save

Amy Gallo is a contributing editor for the Harvard Business Review. She's just written a book about dealing with conflict at work. Here's her top tips on dealing with a  narcissist.


Dealing with conflict at work

This week; we’re looking at the business behind the BT brand.
On the surface, you could say, it is boringly familiar. But it’s been undergoing a period of radical change, with some swagger - taking on Sky with BT Sport and buying EE in a £12 billion deal. 

What does it all mean for the business in Northern Ireland and its workforce of over 3,000 people here? We’ve been talking with one of the men in charge, Peter Russell, General Manager BT Business in Northern Ireland. He underlined (among other things) how the NI business is embedded within the wider company  “Half of the people we employ in Northern Ireland, work on group functions.”

Peter has also been telling us what business customers are increasingly demanding from BT and what IT trends he sees developing in the wider business community. (Have you heard of G.Fast? Also the internet of things is a space that BT is keen to get more involved in.)

"It's good to talk" BT's business in NI

Over the past decade Robert Carmichael has invested over £2 million  in the The Jungle NI which was the first to offer combat sports in Northern Ireland.  But his starting point was a failing family farm and a legislative environment which didn't support people running around in camouflage with weapons in the fields of Northern Ireland.
The legislation changed, and so did Robert's luck. 

In the Jungle (NI)

Our pitch on The Profit Margin this week is a noisy one! James Hamilton runs “Fun with Drums.”  He explains what the business is about in his elevator pitch. You can find more startups on our podcast www.theprofitmargin.co.uk.


#TPM: 60SecondPitch: Fun with drums

Mark is behind a wide range of businesses;  he set up one of the island's first renewable heating firms, he's an investor in a laboratory in Dundalk and is now behind one of the UK's top weight loss bootcamps. However his world was turned upside down by a family diagnosis of Huntington's disease. He's now treating fund-raising like running a business. We'll be finding out about his time at the Marathon des Sable and how he tests if a business is going to be successful or not.


Turning a bootcamp into a business & running for charity

Our start-up is Kraydel; with an ageing population Kraydel is aiming to develop an unobtrusive remote monitoring system to enable older people to live at home for longer (and remove some of the stress for their worried offspring!) They're through to the semi-final of the NISP CONNECT Invent Competition and are also hoping to make it through in the #VOOM "Pitch to Rich" platform. 

#TPM:60SecondPitch: Kraydel

Our 60Second Pitch this week comes from Testify, an on-line testing platform for game developers. Adrian and Gordon are on the Propel programme at the moment. They're aiming to let game developers discover what gamers really think of their product. You can check our their website here: www.gotestify.com


#TPM: 60SecondPitch: Testify

This week our start-up is Andrew McMaster from Orange Bison. He's  aiming to create a central hub for the gaming community to help students and independent developers get noticed, gain contacts in the industry and perhaps even find careers doing
what they love. You can check out Andrew's pitch here. 

#TPM: 60SecondPitch: Orange Bison

Animation Studio Sixteen South has officially opened it's new building. The £1M investment indicates how the company is going from strength to strength. They've just recently secured a £4M budget for a series with Disney called Claude. We asked founder Colin Williams about the impact of Brexit  on his industry. (EU broadcasters have an EU quota which means they have to buy a certain amount of European TV shows.)

Sixteen South Founder: Colin Williams

Steve Sarowitz set up on-line payroll software company Paylocity in 1997. It's now valued at $2bn. He believes there's an opportunity to build a similar company in the UK, and he's working with Payescape in Mid-Ulster to do it. Payescape has just announced its creating 23 new jobs as they want to "aggressively expand" into the UK market.

Ballymoney firm creating 23 new jobs

Jim Fitzpatrick is an independent broadcaster and producer.  Digital projects include The Profit Margin WWW.THEPROFITMARGIN.CO.UK

THE PROFIT MARGIN #TPM

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