How should the UK support promising businesses?
The business news that matters
Hello and welcome to the latest edition of Off to Lunch…
The UK should look at supporting promising businesses through regional schemes funded by public-private partnerships.
That is according to Emma Jones, the founder and chief executive of Enterprise Nation, in her latest column for Business Leader.
Enterprise Nation helps start-ups in the UK get access to support and advice. It was founded in 2005 and has grown into a community of more than 120,000 people.
In her column, Emma writes that access to government-funded support for businesses is “fragmenting” across the UK. Small and medium-sized businesses are “very used to seeing government-funded support chop and change”, she adds. However, doubts about the future of the UK Shared Prosperity Fund - which has supported regeneration projects and start-ups - are “concerning”.
Emma adds:
With news of council bankruptcy increasing apace, carving a future funding model that does not need to weigh on government cash is clearly going to be vital.
There are options, and in my view, this could be the time to consider developing a regionally delivered public-private funding partnership, at a national scale.
This could see start-ups and early-stage businesses access a free, online, and basic level of support and then founders contributing financially to costs for more intense programmes for which they are eligible, and from which they are evidentially proven to benefit.
This then creates a clear role for the private sector to invest in and roll out pioneering support solutions.
She goes on to say:
It’s a golden opportunity to do something good. Let’s have the debate and not resort to the old short-term crowd-pleasers that tick the box but solve nothing. Getting this right will deliver improved individual performance for companies, as well as a better return on investment on taxpayer spend.
You can find out more about her proposal - and why it matters - by reading the column in full here
Podcast…
The latest episode of our Business Leader podcast looks at learning from failure. We speak to John Stapleton about how he co-founded two successful food businesses - New Covent Garden Soup Company and Little Dish - but also suffered failures with a business in the US and with a promising athletics career before he went into business.
You can listen to the episode on Substack here, Apple here or Spotify here
Other stories that matter…
1. The government will fund apprenticeship schemes for small businesses as part of a package of measures announced by Rishi Sunak to cut red tape for small and medium businesses. You can find out more about the government’s proposals here
2. Nespresso is to open its first high-street coffee bar in London. “There is a real cultural phenomenon around coffee shops and on-the-go coffee,” says Anna Lundstrom, chief executive of Nespresso UK. Story by The Times here
3. The UK suffers more cyber attacks than anywhere in Europe apart from Ukraine but only 13 per cent of businesses think they are “resilient” to threats, according to new research from Microsoft and Goldsmiths, University of London. More here
4. Netflix is considering changing its corporate culture memo so it focuses on staff taking ownership of their actions, rather than enjoying freedom. Reed Hastings, the co-founder of Netflix, has said in the past that giving staff the freedom to be creative has been a vital part of the company’s success. More from the Wall Street Journal here
5. From the weekend papers, legal disputes over inheritance and wills are becoming more common in the UK due to the trillions of pounds of property wealth that is being passed down from older generations. Over-65s in the UK own £2.73 trillion of property and £2 trillion of that is mortgage-free, according to research by Savills. In contrast, just 10 per cent of homeowners are aged between 25 and 34. You can read a feature by The Sunday Times on this here
The new Business Leader…
The new Business Leader website and magazine have now launched. We are building a new inspirational, aspirational and agenda-setting business publication for the UK. You can read our analysis, interviews and expert columnists on our website by clicking the image below. Our new magazine is on its way to shops and you can subscribe to your own print or digital version by clicking here
And finally…
Index Ventures, the venture capital firm, has launched a new book called Scaling Through Chaos. The book analyses 200 start-ups and 200,000 people to offer insights on how to build and lead a team for a business that is looking to scale-up. You can find more about the book and the research by clicking on the image below…
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