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Support for Entrepreneurs

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There really is no shortage of support for people who want to have a go at starting their own business.   Just take a look at this website that offers 99 free sources of on-line support for would be entrepreneurs.  And while the web is packed full of advice and guidance the real world marketplace is pretty crowded too with advisers, mentors, coaches and trainers all queuing up to offer advice and support.

But how much of this stuff is really useful?  For most entrepreneurs the barriers are not intellectual or technical (although often these are presented as excuses for not making things happen ) they are really about self confidence, self belief and a strong conviction that a better reality can really be brought into life.

So a couple of words of advice on choosing and using people and resources to help you with your entrepreneurial dreams:

Make sure that they really are interested in helping you do what is best for you – including walking away from entrepreneurship as it is certainly not right for everybody.

Make sure that they are not under the influence of external goals and targets to encourage people into entrepreneurship.  If they are employed by a project that has to encourage entrepreneurship to get funding then make sure that they put your best interests before the outputs of the project.

And finally:

Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.
Buddha

But what if I am employed to encourage people into enterprise and entrepreneurship?

Always practice from a client centred (rather than a policy centred) perspective.  ie make sure that you use your knowledge and skills to help your client to do what is best for them given a range of options available to them – entrepreneurship, intrapreneurship, employment, work experience, skills training etc.

It is almost certain that in fact the project that you work on is designed to develop an ‘enterprise culture’ and the best way to do this is to help entrepreneurs to go into entrepreneurship having fully considered all other options.  Sure a number will decide that there are other ways to achieve what matters most to them – and many of the people you work with will put their enterprise dream ‘on hold’.  Once you start helping people to make really informed decisions based on their own self interest and an objective analysis of the pros and cons of enterprise not only will the start-up rates improve but so too will the survival rates for small business.  And this is the metric that really matters in building an enterprise culture.

Great Quote from Fromm

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Man’s main task in life is to give birth to himself, to become what he potentially is. The most important product of his effort is his own personality.

Erich Fromm (1900 – 1980) Psychoanalyst
If we can look past the masculine language I think this quote from Erich Fromm is wonderful.   I think everyone should have a flirt with enteprise nad entrepreneurship to sdee if it provides them with a vehicle for becoming what he/she potentially is.  However I am also sure that for many the flirtation will end up with rejection – and rightly so.
My concern is that for those providing services to support ‘entrepreneurial flirtation’ the cost of rejections is high as those paying for services what to see flirtation come to fruition in business start-ups and success. People walking away from entrepreneurship – even if it is the right thing for them to do – will seldom be rewarded by the funders.

Venturefest Reflections

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This year was my first trip to Venturefest Yorkshire.  This is an enormous annual gathering of entrepreneurs, inventors and investors all looking to build the management and financial teams that they need for business success.  Both private and public sector were well represented.

It was free to attend and extremely busy!

A whole floor of the main grandstand was given over to ‘enterprising schools’.  When I visited the busiest stand by a long way was the ‘Robot Wars’ competition where a broad definition of enterprise was in evidence.  Lots of young people engaged in building robots and competing against each other  as well as collaborating to ensure that everyone had the equipment, time and space that they needed to keep things on the road.

Nothing was being bought or sold but enterprise and enterprise skills abounded.

Some of the quieter stalls had taken a much narrower definition of enterprise.  They made stuff (badges, t-shirts and fruit kebabs) and tried to sell them!  I hope that the young people on these stalls learnt a lot from their efforts.  They appeared to be having relatively little fun (compared to the Robot Warriors) and found selling in an exhibition environment to be extremely hard work.

I only hope that they were not put off the idea of enterprise.

Is Enterprise Being Too Narrowly Defined?

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The Local Enterprise Growth Initiative has provided a welcome injection of cash to stimulate enterprise in some of the most deprived areas of England.

However I am worried that ‘enterprise’ is being too narrowly interpreted as ‘entrepreneurship’ and ‘starting businesses’.

The origins of the word ‘enterprise’ come from the 15th century when it was used to describe someone with a ‘readiness to undertake challenges’ or with a ‘spirit of daring’.

Only relatively recently has it become synonymous with business.

I think this matters because the ‘enterprise’ journey needs to start at a place that is right for them. The challenges that they undertake must be ones that they are equipped to tackle. For some, the challenge of starting their own business and earning a livelihood through their own skill and passion is appropriate.

For many more it is probably a long way down the road.

I am worried that some current enterprise interventions will encourage people to start their own businesses – regardless of whether this is the right challenge for them at this stage. The problem is exacerbated because service providers feel under pressure to get people to ‘start-up’ business as this is what their success is measured by.

This might mean that we have a number of businesses started by people who do not have the skills, passion, life expereince and emotional resilience to really make them work. They will find the whole experience unrewarding and may end up with extremely negative feelings towards ‘enterprise’ as a result. We may actually end with less enterprising communities as word of their experience spreads.

Surely there are a wider range of challenges that can be offered and facilitated in the name of developing more enterprising communities than just starting businesses?