The good news is that some entrepreneurs see their great ideas flourish into successful businesses -- and these individuals have valuable advice for other professionals who want to launch a successful organization.

Take Jem Walters, who, having spent 23 years with finance firm Virgin Money, latterly as CIO, wanted to try his hand at entrepreneurship. He co-founded the successful money-saving app startup Snoop in 2019, which was acquired by banking group Vanquis in July 2023.

Today, Walters is CTO at Vanquis and continues to seek innovative ways to deliver better services to the bank's customers. Here, he reflects on the lessons learned from starting a business and offers five best-practice tips to other would-be entrepreneurs.

First, said Walters, don't rush in: "Don't feel like it's necessary to start cutting code on day one. Just give yourself a bit of time to think things through."