Without the killer product, no amount of strategy or investment will create a truly great business. But the idea is only the start. The innovation dreamt by entrepreneurs improves the economy for everyone.

What gives Entrepreneurs that X Factor? In the 21st century, the X Factor might be having the right knowledge to seize an opportunity and run with it. It might be the ability to lever new technologies to make your ideas happen. It could be who you know, how you know them and how you form new types of relationships with different sorts of people. Is this different from what made Manchester the hub of the Industrial Revolution? This is where universities come in and Manchester M.

Manchester is the original modern city, at the forefront of innovation and innovative thinking. It led the world in an industrial revolution. There is an opportunity for it to be part of a new business revolution. Insider has close links with the business community of the North West, and we know that those businesses that are part of RAW2010 are the ones that have faced the challenges of the last few years, and come out fighting. Michael Taylor, Editor, Insider Magazine.

Only entrepreneurs can save the UK. On 21 October, there was a great letter in the FT from Martin Bodenham, the chief executive of Advantage Capital. The way they discuss ideas, the way they spark off each other, the way they .

Entrepreneurship is not something you can teach a person. It is not something you can pick up from a book, but rather, is a hunger that exists within someone who gets a genuine thrill from cutting a deal, no matter how large or small it is.

The small want to be big. In the world of business it seems that everyone has size envy.