When I was chatting to that recruiter last week, she told me something pretty interesting. She thinks that one of our main competitors might be in a bit of trouble - at least if the number of CVs coming out of there is anything to go by. And I was inclined to agree, because generally speaking, employee morale is a pretty good indicator of a company's health. If you've got a lot of rats looking to jump ship, there's a good chance that ship is sinking.

I suppose it shouldn't really come as a surprise to learn that a company I know pretty well is struggling. After all, if the whole economy is going down the pan, as every paper I read keeps telling me, our industry is hardly likely to be spared. Lots of people ploughed into it during the good times, so there was always going to be a shake-out when things got tough. Nevertheless, it still came as a bit of a shock. So far this recession has largely been happening to other people; as long as we're still in the black, and our clients still seem to be spending (touch wood), the general panic all seems a bit over-blown. But somehow this made the whole thing seem a lot closer to home - there but for the grace of God go I, and all that.

Anyway, I know the guy who runs this company pretty well (we've bumped into each other at various events over the years), so I decided to give him a ring and invite him out for lunch. He seemed a bit taken aback, but agreed. And yes, I must admit: my reasons for calling him were largely self-interested. I figured that if the rumour was true, I should see if there was anything in it for us (you know - staff, assets etc). This probably seems a bit heartless, and I did feel briefly guilty about it. But the way I see it, these are tough times. If he's going down anyway, there's not much I can do - so if anyone's going to profit from his misfortune, it might as well be me.

Not surprisingly, lunch on Wednesday was an awkward affair: he looked stressed, I looked embarrassed, and we ended up swapping niceties until after he'd finished his main course (he ordered the steak, incidentally - I'd have done the same if one of my competitors was paying). Eventually, I plucked up the courage to ask him how business was.

‘Well, you know what it's like,' he said. ‘These are tough times. For all of us.'

‘Absolutely,' I agreed. ‘Definitely as bad as I can remember.'

‘Worse,' he replied. ‘It's carnage out there.'

‘Oh dear... So you're having a rough time then?' He grimaced, and I realised that we could go on like this until the cheese course unless I forced the issue a bit. ‘Listen - I heard you might be having a few problems, that's all. I just wanted to say that - you know - if there's anything I can do...'

Clearly there was a strange dynamic to this conversation. On the one hand, I genuinely felt sorry for him, and I think (I hope) he knew that. On the other hand, I would also be one of the main beneficiaries if he went down the pan, and he definitely knew that. ‘Don't worry,' he said, looking pained. ‘We're not quite on our last legs yet.'

‘Oh good,' I said. And both of us tried to work out whether or not I was being sincere. Running a business can be bad for your conscience sometimes...

I met a recruiter this week. Ostensibly it was to talk about some possible new roles, but really I just wanted to get a better feel for what's going on in the market (and ideally some inside gossip). Recruiters are normally pretty good for this, because it's their job to be talking to as many significant people in the industry as possible.

To be honest I'm a rotten client for recruiters. I'm always happy to meet them for coffee, but I hardly ever spend any money with them. There are several reasons for this. One, I'm stingy, so I resent paying someone several thousand pounds just to email me a CV. Two, part of me is convinced that I could find the right person myself, given a bit of time and effort - and I feel guilty about paying other people to do things I could do myself. In fact, I've always quite fancied being a recruiter (a proper one I mean, not a glorified telesales merchant); it seems to me that you basically just spend your days chatting to people and trying to match candidates to jobs. It's actually one of my fall-back plans if my business ends up getting credit-crunched (although I accept that this wouldn't exactly be the ideal time to get into recruitment).

Now you might well argue, in response to these two points, that this is the point of the recruitment industry: you pay someone to spend time sourcing, screening and introducing candidates to you precisely because you don't have the time/ money/ resource to do it yourself. And of course, you'd be absolutely right.

However, the other big issue with recruitment these days is that it's getting a lot easier to do yourself. The best recruiters have a huge array of contacts willing to take their calls, and they can retain enough information about people's personalities, ambitions, skills and circumstances to match them to specific roles. If they don't know the right person immediately, they'll know someone who does. But nowadays, there are all sorts of social network programmes that do most of this stuff for you - so why pay a recruiter?

For instance, this week I was trawling through LinkedIn and came across this American guy, who'd worked for a company with a product quite similar to the one I want to launch. He's now in London, so I dropped him a line and we arranged to meet for a coffee (I mostly want to pick his brains, but I figure that if he's any good I might even try and hire him in some capacity).

The thing is that since he has a job already, and isn't looking to move, my chances of finding him through standard recruitment channels would have been minuscule. And when you think about it, professional online networks are still at a relatively early stage of adoption - once people start managing their careers online as well as their social lives, and the programs get more and more sophisticated, I can't help wondering if it might be game over for recruiters. Which would also mean I'd need a new Plan B.

Then again, I've always been the impatient type (I like to think it's what makes me a good entrepreneur, although my friends would probably point out that it's also why I'm still single). So although my new business idea hasn't actually progressed very far beyond the conceptual stage - and possibly never will, if my first conversation with a potential customer proves typical - I've been spending a lot of time this week thinking about what I might call it.

I've always thought that having a good name was incredibly important to a new business. Of course you'd like to think that names are irrelevant, that it's the quality of the product or service that counts. But sadly, I don't really think this is true. For a new business, it's all about first impressions. If the name is rubbish, people don't take you seriously, and that's probably the biggest struggle when you're starting up. Conversely, if you come up with something good, people are a lot more likely to remember it (and ultimately, spend money on it).

In recent years, the internet has made naming a company incredibly difficult. There's almost no point picking a name (especially in the media industry) if you can't get hold of the domain name - and it increasingly seems to me that people have hoovered up every sensible web address in the known universe.

One approach some entrepreneurs take is to pick some ridiculous name that bears no relation to their business – the theory being that as long as it's memorable, it doesn't actually matter what it is. Personally, I don't really buy this. I'm not quite as extreme as my father, who's so convinced that Moonpig.com is going to go out of business because of its stupid name that he's bet me a fiver on it (perhaps it's a generational thing). But I still think that a company name ought to say something about what it does or what it wants to be.

On the other hand, I'd never name a company after myself, even if that tends to solve both problems. I suppose if you basically are the business, then it's fair enough (like my favourite one recently, the banking analyst Meredith Whitney, whose site is basically an online shrine to her wonderfulness). And I remember reading a piece once (I think by a restaurateur) about how much more invested you are in the business when your name's on the door. But to me, it's always seemed like an odd message to give your staff – you’re basically saying that this will always be your business, not their business.

Besides, there are some advantages to naming a company in the internet age. I recently discovered the delights of the utterly brilliant Namethis.com, where people actually help you name your business. It’s like a multi-continental brainstorming session, but without the language barriers and enormous carbon footprint. Now I'm no great believer in the wisdom of crowds - I much prefer one-woman dictatorships to democracies - but it's fantastic to be able to tap so many great new ideas without leaving your desk.

When we were thinking about names for our current business, I remember we sat around in a pub for an entire Sunday afternoon trying desperately to think of something (the names got a lot worse as the day wore on, as you can imagine). Now I can just go online, and a community of complete strangers will help me come up with something brilliant. OK, so I'll probably discover at this point that someone else has already nabbed the domain name. But it’s a lot more fun this way.

secretdiary@managementtoday.com

You know I said last week that it was always a bad idea to ask people about new business ideas? Well if only I’d listened to my own advice (damn that entrepreneurial instinct to take people with you). This week I set up a dinner with the senior industry guy who, the Gail Trimbles among you may recall, spent a brief and fairly undistinguished period as my mentor. This was carefully considered: at best his company could be a customer for my new product; at worst, I figured he was bound to know who I should be speaking to, who my potential competitors might be, and who might be gullible enough to finance me.

However, we didn’t get off to a great start.

‘You’re kidding, right?’ These were his first three words when I told him why I wanted to talk to him. Now I’m no psychoanalyst, but I was pretty confident at this point that the conversation was unlikely to end well for me.

I was momentarily thrown (after all this guy’s supposedly an entrepreneur himself, albeit back in the days of black-and-white TV) before spluttering: ‘Erm, n-no… I’ve got this great idea, you see’ – and then proceeded to talk him through it, trying and failing to spot any kind of reaction.

When I’d finished, he leaned back on his chair and sucked through his teeth, like a man who’s seen too many car mechanics in TV sitcoms (again, never a good sign). ‘SDE, can I give you some advice,’ he asked, rhetorically. Now generally when people say this to you, it’s a sure sign they’re about to be really patronising. And in this guy’s case, it was a dead cert. ‘SDE, I’ve been around the old block a few times, as you know,’ he continued without waiting for a response, as I tried to avoid my face setting in a scowl. ‘And if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that the moment the boss takes his eye off the ball, th-’

‘Or her eye,’ I interrupted, pointlessly.

‘Yeeeees. Well, that’s the moment when the company is inevitably doomed. There’s nothing more dangerous at the best of times, and this sure as heck ain’t that.’

‘Yes, but don’t you think that means there’s a big opportunity for someone?’

‘No, S__. It just means the consequences when you fail – and fail you shall – will be catastrophic, rather than just damaging.’

‘But it’s a great idea. People need this. I’m convinced they’ll buy it.’

‘I think you’re getting a bit carried away with your own brilliance here, my dear,’ he smirked, as I genuinely contemplated jamming my dessert fork into his eyeball. ‘Whether people need it is one thing. Whether they’ll buy it now is another matter entirely.’

Now I appreciated the validity of this point. I didn’t agree with it, and felt it was a pretty lily-livered way of looking at things, but it wasn’t ridiculous. So, realising that I wasn’t going to talk him round, I decided to give up. ‘So if I asked you for 500k in funding, I assume you’d be in, right?’

He smiled, in the condescending way that a grandparent might do when a five-year-old brings home a picture of a tree. I swear to God, if he could have managed it without knocking over his wine glass, he would have reached across and ruffled my hair.

So that was that. Not exactly an unqualified success – and certainly the last time I ask him about a new business idea. My only consolation is that he must have felt a modicum of guilt at least, because he picked up the tab for dinner. Or maybe he just thought I needed the money…

secretdiary@managementtoday.com