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Start Up Britain – Driving Enterprise Led Recovery?

March 28, 2011 by admin

Another day; another website driving the ‘enterprise led recovery’.

Today sees the launch of Start Up Britain.  Described on the BIS website as ‘an independent collective of UK entrepreneurs and big businesses, representing the private sector response to the Government’s ambition for an enterprise-led recovery.  Over 60 leading global brands have pledged millions of pounds in support to new entrepreneurs’.

Now, 60 global brands offering discounts does not in my mind translate into millions of pounds worth of support. It smacks of introductory discounts designed to develop the start up market.

On its own site Start Up Britain says we are:

a new campaign by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs, launched on 28th March 2011. Designed to celebrate, inspire and accelerate enterprise in the UK, it has the full backing of the Prime Minister, the Chancellor and HM Government.

This is a response from the private sector to the Government’s call for an ‘enterprise-led’ recovery. We believe that many of the important functions and services necessary to foster and champion new enterprise can be open-sourced, instead of provided by government directly. We aim to do this by creating a living market-place online for the wide range of enterprise support that is already available.

As a private sector organisation we aim to shoulder some of this responsibility for enterprise promotion with the government, re-modelling existing cost centres, and reducing the cost to the taxpayer.

So Start Up Britain is  a campaign.  But what kind of campaign?  A campaign to change policy? Or an advertising campaign?  Details on what is being campaigned for, and who the campaign is targeting are a little sketchy.

The line about ‘many of the important functions and services necessary to foster and champion new enterprise can be open-sourced, instead of provided by government directly’  leaves me perplexed.  What is meant in this context by ‘open sourced’?  What are the ‘important functions and services’?  I think they are saying leave business support up to private sector, because they can turn a few bob on it.  Not sure how this will pan out for the poorest in our communities but hey – this is an enterprise led recovery we are starting here.  We will have to rely on trickle down and philanthropy to sort out the poor.  Seems a bit like the privatisation of healthcare – where the profitable bits are taken on by the private sector leaving the expensive stuff – like enterprise in areas of deprivation to be managed by the state.

Now I love the idea of a living marketplace for enterprise support.  A place where buyers and vendors can meet, talk and exchange.  A place where customers can soon see who is the real deal and who is selling tat.  But I am not sure that a series of links to ‘some of our favourite sites’ really constitutes a living marketplace.  More of a sales and referral network really.  Many of which seem to end up in the US.

Follow ‘Tip 4 – Get a Logo’ and you end up on a San Francisco based platform that will crowd source you a logo designer on the cheap.  That is really going to help UK based graphics companies.  Thanks.  But the problem is even more acute than that –  ‘Tip 4 – Get a Logo’.  I must have assessed over 200 business advisers in my time and I have NEVER heard any of them give such a crass piece of advice as ‘get a logo’.

And it seems to me that just about every private sector sponsor/supporter of Start Up Britain gets a link to sell their book, their training course, their start up packs.  Vested self interest anyone?

If you follow the links to ‘Schools to learn about entrepreneurship’ you find there are just two.  One from Peter Jones the other from Doug Richards…

I especially liked the section that says ‘Knowing your market’. It offers links to a range of online survey platforms.  Is the implication really that an online survey is all you need to know your market?  Surely a link to some more generic advice on the importance of market research and its limitation might be more helpful?

The section on ‘Getting Funding’ does not even mention families and friends as a potential source!

If you follow the Warren Buffet link to ‘get some motivation’ then you get a malware warning.

And if you follow the link to Capital Enterprise at the time of writing you will find that it is broken.

At best what we have here is a bit of flaky directory, with no way for us to rate our experience of the providers.

And Cameron, Cable and Osbourne turn out to launch this curate’s egg?

The twitterstream for #startupbritain is telling.  Part spam, part gushing praise and hardly any objective comment at all.

Filed Under: enterprise, entrepreneurship Tagged With: barriers to enterprise, development, enterprise, entrepreneurship, professional development

The E in LEP is for ENTERPRISE

November 9, 2010 by admin

Not Economic.

Not Entrepreneurial.

ENTERPRISE.

If LEPs really focused on encouraging enterprise rather than economic growth how would things change?

If LEPs looked at how they create a culture where enterprise (the ability to act boldly in pursuit of progress) was the norm rather than the exception, a mass participation sport, something that was seen as cool and for everyone, not just those smart ‘entrepreneurial types in suits’ what sorts of things would they be doing?

How would our communities change?

What would happen to our economy?

Filed Under: entrepreneurship, management Tagged With: community, community development, enterprise coaching, entrepreneurship, management, professional development, training, transformation

A Community Ecology of Enterprise

November 5, 2010 by admin

Enterprise is not just about ‘entrepreneurial types’ and ‘business ideas’.
It is not just about business and commercial endeavour.
If I want to make something happen to improve things in my community I may start a business, but I may start a campaign, or a festival, or a local action group.  I have worked with many people whose motivation was not to develop a business, but to make a difference, and in some cases setting up a business has been a means to that end.  No more than that.  It is simply a means to an end.
Well managed and run these kinds of community based activity all contribute to a more enterprising community and provide the kind of community ecology and practice ground from which commercial endeavours may spring.  They also help to build the social capital that is essential to building a sustainable and resilient local economy and community.
If LEPs were to think more about the kind of community ecology that supports enterprise and how this can be developed I suspect they would get a much greater ROI than on more traditional approaches of advice, managed workspace (we are awash with these in Leeds, mostly under-used and inappropriate for the communities they were built in) and access to finance.
Yes the web matters.  But it won’t be primarily because either a LEP or the national Business Link site offer generic advice and guidance (which to be frank just replicates what is already out there in most cases) but because local sites and sites of shared interest will provide highly specific and contextual advice – usually in the form of dialogue and conversation rather than factsheet.  The web will provide a platform for conversations that cannot easily take place face to face.
We have to start to think differently.  We have to innovate. We have to be prepared to try new approaches.  I hope LEPs are up to the challenge.
For me this means getting away from thinking about one to one advice for high growth, one to small group for lifestyle and start-up (in deprived areas) and one to many (content led websites) for the rest, and instead seriously building the networks, social capital, self belief and self-reliance that will allow our communities to become much more enterprising.

Filed Under: enterprise, entrepreneurship, management Tagged With: community, community development, community engagement, development, enterprise, enterprise education, entrepreneurship, management, operations, policy, professional development, social capital, strategy, training

Dear Lord Young…

November 1, 2010 by admin

Congratulations on your appointment as the new enterprise csar.  I am sure that the unpaid and part time role will keep you engaged.

I am pleased that you will look at how to ‘encourage people to start businesses rather than find jobs as employees’.  It makes a refreshing change from the usual line of the ‘private sector creating jobs’.  As we know big businesses have, on the whole, been laying people off over recent decades rather than taking them on. And just how long can we keep going with the mentality of ‘gizza job’ and ‘on yer bike/bus’ in a 21st century globalised and localised economy?

Can I suggest you take an early look at the semantics of ‘encouraging people to start businesses‘  and the very practical consequences that are likely to flow from it.  When a figure in authority, never mind Government, sets out to ‘encourage us’ to do something, some of us come over all suspicious.   Are you really interested in our well-being, or is there a more self centred game being played?  There is a good chance that in the very act of ‘encouraging us’ you serve to engender resistance to the very idea you wish us to entertain.  Psychologists call this reactance.

I have not read in detail the guidance on the Regional Growth Fund.  But I understand, from correspondence with someone that has, that it specifically says that self-employment is not something it should be used to promote.  Instead it should be used to encourage jobs created by employers.  There seems to be somewhat of a contradiction here.

But back to the point of encouraging  people to start businesses.  I believe that what you really want to achieve is a society where more people do start businesses that survive and thrive.  This should be the real policy goal.

So how to get there?

I would advocate that you should dissuade as many people as possible from starting new businesses.  Only for those people who insist that this is something that they have to do should we roll up our sleeves and help.  By working in a focussed way with a relatively small number of highly committed people we might have a chance of getting some real success stories.  And as we know, success breeds success.  More positive role models out there leads to more people following in their wake.  This contrasts with the current approach of offering a little support and encouragement to a lot of people, resulting in high business failure and loan default rates and a widespread perception that a journey into enterprise is likely to leave you worse off than when you started.

Can I also suggest that you do not wave money at people, New Enterprise Allowance style,  in a bid to encourage them to start a business?  The reality is that we have armies of advisers out there wading through thousands of appointments with people who are often half-hearted in their aspiration to start a business, but whole hearted in their commitment to securing the money that they see themselves as entitled to.  Instead of offering them a carefully calculated economic incentive (calculated to make things cheaper for the treasury I suspect rather than enabling people to start businesses with a decent level of working capital), offer them nothing, except excellent and committed advice, coaching and support that they need to put together an idea that is worth investing in.   I suspect that almost overnight the numbers of individuals engaged in ‘enterprise development’ would fall dramatically, but those that remained engaged would be there for the right reasons – to develop long term and sustainable strategies for self employment or entrepreneurship – and not just to secure a grant or a loan that they can default on with relative impunity.   NB don’t expect many of the enterprise support agencies to support this idea.  They have developed business models that survive on a mass market for enterprise development.

Of course access to finance matters.  But let others be the gatekeepers to it, not those who are supposed to be coaching clients to develop their enterprising ideas.

Then of course we have the challenge of helping the hundreds of thousands of people who will be faced with redundancy over the next few years.  Can I suggest that we put in place a service that does not ‘encourage them to start a business’, but that does encourage them to fully explore and understand all of their options?  I am sure that many of them have the potential to become successful, if initially reluctant entrepreneurs, if only we can provide them with the right kind of support.

And finally, don’t get all hung up with ‘national voluntary mentoring schemes’ and traditional business support organisations.  Instead get interested in what you can do to encourage communities to provide the support that local people need in pursuing their enterprising ideas (these may be much wider than self employment and business start ups).  Some of the more imaginative enterprise coaching schemes have started to develop community panels to provide practical assistance to local people.  This is an approach that can certainly be developed further.

There is tons of potential out there – and at the moment we are wasting much of it.

Filed Under: enterprise, entrepreneurship Tagged With: community, community development, community engagement, enterprise, enterprise coaching, operations, professional development, social capital, strategy

New Enterprise Allowance or New Enterprise Alliance?

October 6, 2010 by admin

Another government, another push for another 10 000 small businesses to be created from the ranks of the long term unemployed.

To me it seems similar to what we already have under the Flexible New Deal, unless I am missing something: it may be a tad better resourced.  But, I am encouraged that Iain Duncan Smith appears to have a real commitment to social justice, at least, he chairs the cabinet committee on it.   Let’s hope that his commitment to social justice rather than newspaper headlines really shapes this New Enterprise Allowance.

So what are the chances of success for the New Enterprise Allowance, and what might be the pitfalls?

To begin with, although I am a big fan of mentoring, I am not convinced that it is the best way to support people with transitions from unemployment to self employment.  The best mentors (as opposed to coaches) have ‘been there, done that, seen the film and got the t-shirt’.  They can offer sage advice and guidance based on practical experience (usually gained over many years in a specific and relevant industry, and importantly should be chosen by the mentee and not assigned to them by a service provider); Mentors should know what it takes and be available to put in the time and commitment necessary.  Let’s also hope that they are properly trained, supported and supervised in the process of mentoring.  And mentoring should not be a mandatory component but an option, we have to recognise that folks learn in different ways and for some the thought of being mentored just does not cut it.

So, if we must have a mentoring programme let us run it well.  Lets take mentoring seriously.  Let’s make sure that we have enough well trained mentors.  Personally I doubt that we will.  More likely we will find an army of middle managers looking to do some CSR, or rebadge existing enterprise advisers as New Enterprise Allowance Mentors.  Plus ça change…probably

I think the enterprise coaching role is, in places where it has not been confused with enterprise evangelism, much more likely to be effective.  Non directive, facilitated conversations that give people space to develop their options and make their own choices provides a sustainable route to more enterprising communities.  Conversations that don’t use ‘benefits’ and ‘enterprise’ as carrots and sticks to manipulate people to meet government targets and trigger payments by ‘results’.  Our industry is riddled with such practice.  We need conversations that respect people and their right to choose.

I suspect that mentors will work with mentees primarily on ‘the business plan’.  I doubt they will have the coaching skills to really work on developing the person rather than their idea.

Will a decision not to start up be valued and rewarded as highly as a decision to start?  I hope so.

Will the New Enterprise Allowance engage ‘the community’ in supporting local people struggling to make the transition to self employment?  No sign of community panels and networks to support the formal delivery structures.  It is not so much a New Enterprise Allowance that we need in our communities as a New Enterprise Alliance….

Will the scheme be designed to encourage the formation of team based start-ups where complimentary skill sets and personalities ensure that all functions in the business are adequately covered?  I doubt it.  It will, if history is our guide, take the shortest, lowest cost, route from benefits to self-employment, not the route that is most likely to result in a sustainable business with the potential to grow.  While we should be looking to maximise return on investment I suspect we will look to minimise investment.  Cost per start-up will be the metric of choice.  And the sooner we get the better.

The New Enterprise Allowance will be for long term unemployed who ‘want’ to start a business.   Finding the people who really WANT to will be an enormous challenge.  Personally I don’t think it is anywhere near enough for someone to want to start a business.  It needs to be something that they HAVE to if they are to have a decent chance of success.

We have approaching 800 000 people who have been unemployed for more than 6 months.  The New Enterprise Allowance hopes to help 10 000 of them to start a business this year, that is just over 4 in every 500.

  • But which 4?
  • What percentage of the 800 000 will wish to engage with the programme?
  • How many will the delivery mechanism engage with at the start of the process?
  • How many of those will make it through to trading?
  • What positive outcomes will be delivered to those that engage with the programme but decide not to start a business?

This represents a challenge.  To help find the few who really will do the groundwork required and learn what needs to be learned.  It is a challenge both for marketing the scheme and effective psychological contracting between service provider and service user..

And the whole scheme reeks of yet more ‘fast enterprise’.  A couple of mentoring sessions and three half days with a training company and you will be ready to roll.  Well maybe. And maybe not.  Where these sorts of schemes prevail they prioritise the most capable and even then have frightening business failure and loan default rates.  Good business start ups plan and prepare carefully.  They don’t rush it.  There is little point in starting 10 000 new businesses in a year if the survival rates are not good.  And please this time will someone show an interest in survival rates?

Then there is the cash element.  In the transcript of his speech on Conservative Home, IDS is reported as saying:

We will provide business mentoring and a financial package worth up to £2000 to get your business up and running.

Now quite what is meant by ‘a financial package worth up to £2000’ remains to be seen.  Cash grant?  Loan?  Benefits?  But clearly in this transcript it is £2000 in addition to the mentoring provided.

But can anyone explain to me the why the magical figure of £2000?  How about we teach them to access the finance that they need to give their business a well capitalised start?   Whether that is £5 or £5m?  If we are serious about teaching people how to run a small business let’s not cap ambition according to the size of our currently cash strapped treasury pockets.

So at first glance it looks to me like wrong pedagogy, wrong curriculum, wrong ‘financial’ package, wrong pace of change and a failure to embed enterprise culture in the community.  Apart from that all systems are go.  I can already hear the usual suspects sharpening their pencils in anticipation of the invitations to tender.

I hope it is me that is wrong….

What do you think?

Filed Under: enterprise, entrepreneurship, management Tagged With: business planning, community, community development, community engagement, enterprise coaching, management, operations, professional development, training

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