Product Business of the Year 2014: Meet the finalists

Given the wealth of creative new innovations coming out of the UK, the annual Product Business of the Year award looks to celebrate businesses producing products with the potential to become ‘the next big thing’.

From food, to toys, to gadgets or even something cooked up in a lab, this award is for product start-ups that stand out from the crowd and boast excellent growth projections.

Competing product businesses do not necessarily have to manufacture the product but revenue growth, profitability and major client wins will all be taken into consideration.

The finalists

Eyespace

The daughters of International Eyewear founders Phillip and Barbara Abel, Julie and Jayne Abel were keen to strike out and launch their own optical business for the “fashion conscious” – Eyespace. Since launch in 2013, their customised range of glasses and frames spanning over 420 ‘intelligent styles’ has attracted orders from thousands of opticians nationwide and helped them supply through the UK’s largest purchasing groups for independent opticians. With a product that looks great both in design and on paper, the Abel sister’s eyewear start-up stands out in what is a crowded marketplace.

Read the full Eyespace profile here.

Gousto

Heading up a growing cluster of recipe box delivery start-ups, Gousto’s product offering has rapidly found favour with investors and UK consumers alike by helping people create high-quality meals whilst reducing unnecessary waste. Having raised more than $10m investment and with annual growth rates of 900%, the Gousto concept – delivering a weekly box of different ingredients and recipes to your door – has not only disrupted the food industry but has also created an entirely new market, with Gousto the frontrunner over its competitors.

Read the full Gousto profile here.

Lost My Name

Making “the best personalised book in the world”, product business Lost My Name has become a firm favourite with children and parents for its stories which use a unique algorithm to match a child’s name and gender to create their own personalised story. Since launching earlier this year, the start-up has built a successful business model with notable margins by operating via print-on-demand and the charming nature of its books has seen sales sore – over 100,000 books have been sold to over 100 countries around the world so far.

Read the full Lost My Name profile here.

The Judges

Having co-founded Omega Logic in 1999 which launched mobile top-ups in Britain, technology entrepreneur and angel investor Dale Murray CBE has a keen eye for products and is certainly well placed to lead the judging for the Product Business of the Year category. Restaurant entrepreneur Iqbal Wahhab OBE and Startups’ very own David Lester are also on the panel.