People

Uday works on our Get Ready for Business Growth scale-up programme and delivers the Refining your Business Model workshop. He is the founder of Red Ochre. With a financial background and years of experience in corporate finance, Uday has started several businesses and survived a recession. He's an award-winning mentor and speaks at conferences all over the world.

What can people expect from your workshops?

“You may not realise this but all businesses have a business model. The workshop will help you understand it and gives you tools to refine it; the primary tool the workshop uses is the Business Model Canvas. This is now a universal methodology used by organisations of all sizes, to evaluate ideas for new start-ups or new projects, existing projects, departments or businesses.

The Business Model Canvas is simple, flexible, visually appealing and enables deep team engagement. It captures at a high level the key elements of your business delivery requirements and enables you to test the ideas before launching at scale. We have been using this tool on British Library support programmes for several years with participants reporting very positive results.”

What’s the one BIPC resource you love to recommend to people?

“The Library has a wealth of business and trend data that entrepreneurs can use to research ideas, methodology, social and marketing trends, customer/client data, and more. Despite this valuable resource, many entrepreneurs neglect market research - it's a hidden gem, accessing and utilising this data can be a game-changer for any enterprise.”

Your best piece of business advice?

“The best advice I've received is to deliver what the customer/client really needs. Too often, entrepreneurs make the mistake of trying to sell their own solutions without considering the customer's needs. Once you have the right solution, communicate it clearly and ensure that the customer can afford it.”

Tell us something about you.

“If work did not interfere with life so much, I would love to be in jazz bars or concerts. Jazz showcases talented individuals going off on creative tangents while working together to produce beautiful music - it's an excellent metaphor for how successful creative businesses can achieve great outcomes."