When the Academy launched in November, the plan was to crowdfund it within 42 days. 6 days later, it was 100% funded with a long list of backers willing to give their time, skills and money for such an inspiring project.

This week, startups.co.uk named their top 20 startups of 2011 and guess who made the list? That’s right, The Bicycle Academy – not a bad achievement in under two months!

We’re thrilled to be carrying on our collaboration with Andrew and we send him our heartiest congratulations; roll on 2012!

(for our previous post on The Bicycle Academy – go here)

Doug Richard, angel investor and founder of School for Startups, was talking about why being a small business is no longer a disadvantage. In fact these days, it’s the opposite. He said:

There are always advantages of being small. You’re nimble, you’re fast, you can change, you can innovate. You create the new ideas. You can live where you want, you can do what you want and therefore produce what you want.

We love being a small business. We worry a lot – about having enough work, about having too much work, about time, about money – but we love it just the same, and part of the reason we love it is the reasons Doug lists above. We can be as creative as we like, as innovative as possible, and we get to do it while working with people we trust in a location we love.

If you’re thinking of starting your own business, check out the Hello Etsy conference videos. A mixture of advice, ideas, visions and anecdotes, there’s bound to be something to inspire you.

Watch Doug’s address below or on the Etsy channel at Livestream.

When Ellie approached us to build her website, Eleanor Christine Jewellery, she’d already taken a lot of the key steps. She had a logo and accompanying colour scheme for her business, professionally-taken photos of her each of her jewellery pieces and she had already written much of her web content. Providing us with such great elements the the start meant that the development process was much smoother.

To look at the wonderful work in Ellie’s collection, visit www.eleanorchristinejewellery.co.uk

Here is a studio-kitteh update. We’ve had a kitten visiting the studio via the fire escape. She wasn’t looking well and she’d been coming here for ten days in a row, and getting thinner. We took her to the vets and she wasn’t claimed, so Nicola has taken her home. Nic and Andrew’s three year old daughter has named studio-kitteh Tiffany for some reason. No other name will be entertained, and indeed, the very suggestion that the kitten may be called something else, meets with scorn and derision, and occasionally open hostility.

Here is a picture of Tiffany enjoying a lazy stretch on the spare bed. We’ll keep you updated with more studio-kitteh, sorry, Tiffany, developments as they occur.