It’s not easy being an entrepreneur. While there is a sense of satisfaction and freedom to creating your own path, entrepreneurs also face a huge number of daily challenges. For startup entrepreneurs these challenges are often even greater, with experts suggesting that between 50% and 90% of startups fail within their first 3 years.

So how do startups survive these troublesome first years?

At this year´s Startup Summit, we will be joined by Marty Bell, Lucy-Rose Walker, Claire Howell, Joel Hughes, and Andrew Dobbie, who will be sharing their experiences on how to negotiate the rocky road to success.

Marty Bell is the Cofounder and Director of Tens, a sunglasses brand made to make your day look better. Previously, he was the director of clothing and events brand We Own. This year the company has secured investment by Sir Richard Branson.

Marty has an extensive knowledge of branding, digital marketing, web design, graphic design, image & video processing, e-commerce, photography & organization of large scale music events.

Lucy-Rose Walker is the CEO of Entrepreneurial Spark, the world´s largest accelerator for start-up and growing ventures. She has experience helping startups to grow, and has previously signed deals with Royal Bank of Scotland, KPMG, and Harper Macleod.

Her goal is to focus on developing the people and processes behind the business, encouraging more entrepreneurs to start their own company, and also seeking to double the reach of entrepreneurs on board the accelerator.

Claire Howell is the CEO of RedCo. a people development company, and a nationally acknowledged senior executive coach and speaker. Claire was one of the founders of Executive Coaching in the UK and is the most experienced performance coach of this type in Europe. She is an expert in applied and behavioural change through directional and innovative coaching techniques. Claire has helped major chief executives to improve their personal performance and strategic skills.

Joel Hughes from Indiegogo has over 10 years experience spanning retail management, marketing and business development. He previously worked for Crowdfunder and was responsible for developing mutually beneficial partnerships with brands, local authorities and universities in UK. He helped deliver more than £25m through the Crowdfunder platform whilst establishing new connections, and supporting some of the UK's largest organisations to align with a new and exciting industry.

Andrew Dobbie is the Founder and Managing Director of Scotland's fastest growing design & digital creative agency, MadeBrave. He is currently working with Springbank Distillers, Beam Suntory, SKY, IBM, Bowmore, Glen Garioch, Aggrekko, LINN, Flavourly.com, The SSE Hydro, SECC, ARUP, Scottish Renewables, and many more

MadeBrave is preparing for its role as creative partner for Tedx, the global business summit brand, which is poised to host its second Glasgow event. Madebrave won the Glasgow Business Awards within 20 months of starting up, and was finalist for last year´s Herald Scottish Digital Business Awards.

We look forward to welcoming our amazing speakers to our morning panel, “Surving as a Startup”, and we can’t wait to see what insights they provide. This is just a portion of the great speakers lined up for this years Startup Summit so stay tuned for more announcements in the coming days, and don´t forget to buy your tickets at www.sus2016.com!