Simon Hulme
Biography
Simon Hulme is a Professor (Education) at UCL School of Management and Programme Director of the MSc Entrepreneurship degree. He lectures in Entrepreneurial Finance.
He is author of Entrepreneurial Finance, now in second edition, specifically to help early stage entrepreneurs understand the financial statements and the process of fundraising.
Simon is also a Business Angel investor (now fully invested), and has taken part in around 80 investments round.
Simon is a serial entrepreneur having built up and sold two significant businesses in the past. At the age of 24 he started his first business, Frame Express, a chain of sixteen fast picture framing shops in London. Stores included key locations such as Baker Street, Kensington High Street, South Kensington and Kings Road. The business was sold to The Oliver Group Plc in 1989.
In 1992 he launched a greeting card publisher, Card Connection, with equity funding from venture capitalist 3i plc. The business copied a format used by several already-established competitors selling cards through a network of distributors working from home. The concept involved the distributor placing the wire-frame card display spinners in retail stores on a consignment basis, and only charging the retailers for the stock sold each month, when the display was replenished. Card Connection adopted a more structured approach than competitors, offering franchises rather that distributorships. In addition it built a strong national accounts base, and serviced convenience store multiples and petrol station forecourts. By 2006 the business was serving 17,000 stores in the United Kingdom and Ireland and was selling 16 million cards a year. In 2008 it was sold to UK Greetings, the British subsidiary American Greetings Inc.