Natasha Courtenay-Smith, founder of press agency Talk to the Press, has won the Women in Business Award at this year’s Start Ups Awards.
Natasha became a full time journalist in 1999, working first on women’s monthly magazines including Health & Fitness and Shine, and going on to write features for the Daily Mail.
She launched the features agency Talk to the Press in 2007 after realising variations of the key words ’sell my story’ are typed into Google by over 5000 people in the UK every month.
The company, which aims at helping individuals across the country who wish to speak to the national media or who have a story to sell, recently published its 300th story.
Sara Rizk, deputy editor of Starups.co.uk, said: ‘Talk to the Press’ place among the finalists of this year’s Startups Awards is testament to the company’s originality, flair and strong prospects for growth.’
Natasha said: ‘I am thrilled to have won this award. There were almost 300 entries in the Women in Business category, and it’s wonderful to know that having been analysed by a number of business experts, Talk to the Press was deemed the best.’
She added: ‘Every day, my team and I feel incredibly proud to be helping ordinary people who wish to talk to the press, or sell a story to newspapers and magazines, and it’s fantastic that all our hard work and dedication has been recognised by Startups.co.uk.’
The judges, who included Holly Tucker (director of NotOnTheHighStreet.com), Charlie Mullins (MD of Pimlico Plumbers) and Clare Young (runner up on The Apprentice), said: ‘Her innovative business builds on the growing media demand for fascinating stories about real people, and has proved immensely successful, facilitating stories in most mainstream newspapers and magazines as well as online and broadcast media.’
Other finalists in the ‘Women in Business’ category included NuBeginnings, the UK’s first boutique boot camp, and Biscuiteers, which sells hand iced biscuits in themed collections.
Visit the Talk to the Press website: http://www.TalktothePress.co.uk
Natasha’s advice for women who are considering starting up a business:
‘My main piece of advice is just to get going with your idea. I think its too easy to be deterred from starting a business because you worry about not having a business plan, not understanding VAT, not understanding cash flow, not having enough money.
The upshot of focusing on what you don’t know about business is that your business never gets started in the first place.
I really knew very little about business, even once I’d launched my website www.talktothepress.co.uk. I certainly didn’t have a business plan, and I didn’t even know what the word projection really meant, let alone do projections myself.
Everything I now know about business, I learned as I went along. It wasn’t easy – for example, learning the true meaning of the word “cashflow” at a point when I had no money in the bank but on paper the business was doing relatively well.
That said, there is nothing particularly mysterious about running a business, especially a small one like mine. It’s just a question of getting on with it and asking questions as you go along.’
The awards ceremony took place on Friday 13 November at the Marriott Hotel, Grosvenor Square, London.
Business excellence was rewarded across a variety of other categories, including Young Entrepreneur of the Year, Product of the Year and Green Business of the Year.
To find out more about the awards, go to: http://www.startupsawards.co.uk/
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November 23rd, 2009 at 2:49 pmNatasha featured in the press! « Sell My Story says:
[...] Startups Awards, women Natasha’s big win at the Startups Awards has been featured by the Financial Mail’s Women’s Forum. As well as discussing the award itself, Natasha also offers her top tips for women who are [...]