Matt Gubba is an entrepreneur with a mission; to help young people who haven’t been to university to succeed without a degree. From an early age Matt knew that following the conveyor belt of formal education wasn’t for him, and made the decision to enter the world of business aged just sixteen.

Over the next few years, Matt went on to launch a number of successful businesses within the media, events, and finance sectors. Then in 2012, Matt Founded BizBritain, an organisation which provides funding, mentoring, and advice, to help 18 - 35 year olds who didn’t go to university to start their own business. Matt is on the judging panel of this year's GWG Awards.

MATT’S FAVOURITE SITES

Fiverr – A great resource if you need graphic design work done quickly and on a tight budget. You can get pretty much anything from business cards to Facebook header designs drawn up by professional designers for just $5. There are also lots other services available including search engine optimisation, copywriting, and web design.

Twitter – I’m a keen tweeter, so Twitter really had to feature in my favourite sites. For me it’s far from just being a platform to share content. It acts as a powerful communication tool which has been responsible for igniting some of my most valuable relationships. If you aren’t already on Twitter, you really should be.

DocuSign – If you run a business, then chances are you’re regularly required to put your signature on a whole number of things. DocuSign allows you to quickly and securely sign documents electronically, without the need to print or scan anything. A big time saver, and very useful when you are on the move. I use it on a daily basis.

FreeAgent – For smaller businesses, FreeAgent offer a fantastic cloud based accounting system which allows you to maintain everything from your bookkeeping, payroll, VAT and financial reports. Its user interface is highly user friendly and simple to understand, even for those with absolutely no accounting knowledge.

Wordpress – Without doubt one of the best open source CMS systems out there. Wordpress is much more than just a blogging platform. It allows you to quickly create great websites with very little expertise. And because it’s so widely used, there are plug-ins for pretty much every conceivable purpose.

Zoho – Offers a great selection of useful applications to help you run your business, including cloud based CRM software, customer helpdesk software, email marketing software and more. Its applications all integrate with one another too, which is really useful if you want to tie several systems together using the same database of contacts.

30 September 2014