When Ian Siegel & his co-founders started building ZipRecruiter in 2010, they were solving a problem they faced daily in their own professional lives – hiring great employees fast, so they could get back to work. “We started out with humble ambitions, to bootstrap a lifestyle business,” says Ian Siegel, “that first year and a half, it was just us four guys, working at each other’s kitchen tables part-time while still working our full-time day jobs.” For its first four years, ZipRecruiter was only funded through the profitability of its product, “amazingly, we were able to grow our business to over 3,000 customers before hiring any other employees…but it really took off on us.”

I co-founded Winnow in 2013 to help the hospitality industry prevent food waste by making the kitchen ‘smarter.’ With my co-founder, Marc Zornes we identified a massive opportunity to help solve the issue of commercial kitchen food waste in a way that is profit-enhancing.

An employment tribunal has ruled that drivers engaged by Uber are ‘workers’, not self-employed contractors, meaning they will be entitled to national minimum wage, paid annual leave and whistleblower protection.

The French tech ecosystem is thriving as France has become a favorable environment for entrepreneurs to innovate in the digital economy.

I co-founded Marley Spoon in 2014 with the mission to radically reduce food waste and fundamentally change how grocery shoppers purchase food by providing access to convenient, market-fresh and delightful meals to millions of households around the world. The food industry is the last industry to move online, and as the inevitable next step, I saw this as a huge opportunity to move into that space and cultivate a company that creates solutions to the intrinsic problems faced daily by customers when purchasing and cooking food.

In my journey I’ve been through a constant and relentless mix of self improvement and consistent learning, from one iteration to the next. I can safely say I have the kind of self determination you need to have to be on this path. There are many ways into entrepreneurialism, even that much mailgned phrase ‘wantrepreneur’ – whereby people want to be company founders but don’t really have much reason why, other than it sounds cool.

I’d had an idea nagging away at me for years and I decided I was going to make it happen when I became a mother three years ago. It was as much about putting something right for consumers as it was about the future I gave my daughter and having the flexibility to be there for her.

Generally speaking, employees in the United States have unlimited freedom to move between jobs — that is, unless the employee signed a non-compete agreement.  These agreements – often used to protect a company’s trade secrets and client relationships — bar employees from engaging in competitive activities with their former employer for a fixed period of time post-employment.

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Awarding stock to employees, whether through a formal share plan or otherwise, can be a very powerful tool to reward and incentivise behaviour, playing a key part in the growth and success of a business. Of course, the incentive is only tangible if there is an opportunity to crystallise the value of the shares at some point in the future – normally at the time of an initial public offering (IPO) or trade sale. Equally, early investors will also want a plan so they can realise all or part of their investment.

London has an illustrious history as a global financial hub. But over the last decade or so, it’s pulled off a pretty impressive feat – one that few cities have been able to achieve.