Courier Paper - An interview with the London Startup champions

by Startacus Admin

Courier is a London based newspaper title about startup culture.

Launched a year ago as a quarterly publication, Courier focuses amongst other things on the people, passion and the psyche of small business and startups around EC1 and the whole of the big smoke.

We picked up a copy a few months back and after reading it front to back, we thought it’d be great to interview founders Soheb Panja and Jeff Taylor - Editor and Creative Director /Publisher respectively. So with the publication one year old this month, here’s our timely chat with the guys about Courier itself, their own startup Eureka moment, and other such stuff…

Hi Guys - we really like Courier, it really feels like a familiar friend to the Startacus team!

Thanks for that. It’s very encouraging to hear people enjoy Courier.

Where did the inspiration come from for Courier? What was your own eureka moment?!

We were coming across some pretty amazing people starting their own ventures from all sorts of sectors, whether it be people making perfume or rethinking banking. A lot of them shared similar qualities of curiosity, courage and imagination. We were just drawn to this rise of modern business that was a million miles from popular interpretations of ‘entrepreneurship’.

You are currently focusing on the London startup scene - do you see yourself spreading your metaphorical wings and widening the geographical appeal of Courier or keeping it local to London?

Well, we’ve already started to. In our last issue, we touched on the animation startup scene spread across the country and did what we thought was a fascinating report on a bunch of automotive companies around the Midlands doing some extremely innovative things around reducing carbon emissions.

But yes, we are primarily a London-based publication. It’s been more a result of trying to cram a fraction of the interesting stuff we’ve come across into a 32 page publication.

We are used to hearing the best things about working as a startup in London - but what from you experience is wrong with the 'scene' so to speak?

Sometimes the very existence of ‘a scene’ can itself be problematic. Like any scene, it can be a bit cliquey. But I genuinely think that’s at the margins and there’s mainly a loose, open and accessible community of people collaborating and sharing ideas.

We like using the term 'self starter' rather than entrepreneur, as it seems to be a little less threatening and more inclusive. What do you think are the key attributes of a self starter?

It’s those same qualities we mentioned earlier that we saw in others and inspired us to start Courier - curiosity, courage, imagination. There’s lots of other things you often see as well, but those are the ones we’re particularly drawn to.

(Totally share your discomfort with the ‘e’ word. It’s a horribly loaded word.)

How do you see Courier developing as an online and offline publication over the next 12 months?

Just better.

Thanks guys some really good answers and we look forward to picking up a new copy of Courier very soon. If you would liike to find out more about Courier and where you can find a copy - check out the Courierpaper.com site.

If you like this journalist / publishing related post, you will also like these other related articles from Startacus:

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• Boat Magazine - We interview Erin Spens

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Published on: 9th March 2014