The Self Starter of the Year Winner

by Startacus Admin

Ladies and gentlemen, the time is here; the end has come.

All week long the voting has been fierce for who should become our Self Starter of the Year 2014.

At long last the votes have been counted and verified and we can now reveal that our Self Starter of the Year 2014 is…SUZANNE NOBLE, with a whopping 35% of the vote!

This is the pitch that won her the title!

“Imagine you’re 50 something, with a successful career behind you and a comfortable lifestyle. What do you do?

Retire early, let your flat out and decide to travel around the world? Or ditch the day job, employ a couple of University grads (one of whom happens to be your son) and create an App for Londoners on a budget? If you guessed that I opted for the latter, you’d be right. My startup Frugl was borne out of my own frustration with trying to find fun things to do in London that didn’t cost the Earth. It started as a vague idea back in 2009 and eventually materialised into an App in 2014. In between there were lots of fits and starts until eventually, with the help of my co-founder, a couple of Shoreditch based developers and more than a little of my own money, it became a business. The past 12 months have been the most challenging of my life as I have had to learn about technology, running a digital business and networking. There were many highlights but winning the Smarta Mobile of the Year Awards was one of the big ones for us. Winning the Startacus Self Starter of the Year Award would be a great start to 2015.”

Suzanne’s Prizes

Along with the accolade of being named our Self Starter of the Year, Suzanne also wins a treasure trove of real prizes;

• £1k worth of consumer market research via key sponsor Marketest

• A Huddlebuy Gold Card

• Creative Barcode Membership

• Innovation Bank membership

• £100 of Moo.com credit,

• £250 of Net Lawman Credit

• 1 year’s free use of Penelope

• A trophy from Startacus to put on the mantelpiece as an eternal reminder of what a fab self starter she is!

A True Self Starter

Startacus Co-Founder Alastair Cameron said "We are delighted that Suzannehas been named as our Self Starter of the Year as she demonstrates really well the ethos we try to nurture within the Startacus community. She is enterprising and innovative, but most importantly she is an inspiration to anyone who has ever thought of doing something with their big or small idea; living proof that with guts, determination and a lot of hard work, pretty much anything is possible"

The lead sponsor of the annual award is Marketest, Will Thomas explained why they support the Self Starter of the Year Award.

“The Self Starter of the Year Award provides us with a brilliant opportunity to help one deserving entrepreneur gain a better insight into their target market. We offer £1,000 worth of market research to the winner and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. We are proud to say we are the leading sponsor of the award because Startacus and Marketest share an important, common goal - which is to help Startups!”


2nd and 3rd Place

For the first time we are delighted to offer 2nd and 3rd place in our annual self starter of the year awards!

2nd place goes to Alan Radbourne with 25% of the vote, read his pitch here. As the second place winner, Alan has won;

• 50% off services from Marketest

• Creative Barcode membership

• Innovation Bank Membership

• £50 of Moo.com credit

• £150 of Net Lawman credit

• 3 months’ free use of Penelope

3rd place goes to Col Skinner with 12% of the vote, check out his pitch here  As the third place winner Col get his hands on;

• 30% off services from Marketest

• Creative Barcode Membership

• Innovation Bank Membership

• £50 of Moo.com credit

• £150 of Net Lawman credit

• 3 months’ free use of Penelope

A word to all of our finalists

Congratulations to our winners Suzanne, Alan, and Col but also a big high-five to our other finalists Prashant Lagisetti, Russ Carley, Adrianne Rutherford, Ash Phillips and Olly Whittle; you are all winners to us!

A word to all of our sponsors

Thanks also to our lovely sponsors who have made our Self Starter of the Year awards possible Marketest, Huddlebuy, Creative Barcode, Innovation Bank, Moo.com, Net Lawman, and Penelope; you guys rock!

A word to all of you

Our weekly self starter awards will be kicking off again soon, make sure you are registered to be in with a chance to win. More details to follow soon!

Startacus,The Self Start Society, is the place for enterprising people to learn, share, connect and bring ideas to life.

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• #self starter of the year
• #self starter
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• #frugl
• #winner

Published on: 28th January 2015