Business Link

As an advisor for Business Link I meet a lot of entrepreneurs in the very early stages of starting their own business, especially ‘high-growth' start ups. We're talking businesses which hope to make £1 million within the first three years of starting up - quite an exciting and daunting prospect!

It's amazing that some new businesses manage to turn over £2 million in just 2 years, as was with one case this year. My job is to talk to the people with such aspirations and ambitions and take up the challenge to help them achieve them.

Entrepreneurs who are starting out often feel that they are the only ones that are doing what they're doing. But often just down the road there's someone achieving something just as ambitious, maybe in another sector; it's all about confidence building and letting them know that they can do it. The rest is about getting entrepreneurs in touch with the right people in Yorkshire to help them. Once they have these contacts they're usually away, so I help out where necessary after that.

I thought it would be useful to chat about the most common issues and problems that start-ups encounter:

1) Funding - the first source should be friends and family, then approach banks, then try private equity (such as equity angels) and then approach the main regional schemes (regional development).

2) Protection of intellectual property - people often think that patenting is the be all and end all, but there are design registrations (more cost-effective), copyright which is free yet still adds value, and trademarking also.

Just lately I've been working hard to go back to the first principles of what is it that businesses and entrepreneurs require of Business Link. Start-ups are going to form the main basis of publicly funded business support for enterprise in the future and we want to use this money to help you in the best way we can. Though when I talk to entrepreneurs I am increasingly aware that it's not all about money - it's about making a difference in their field, or making a social impact on their community. We've been listening to people like you, to what you like and don't like about the support available to you and what you want more of.

Businesses that get financial support are much more likely to succeed - it's an unequivocal fact. The question is how do we use the money to support you. I'm at an enterprise café later today where I'll talk to the main players in young enterprise about what we can do to support them at Colleges. It's a nut not yet cracked - how's best to support people coming out of schools and colleges (it's not just graduates who start up businesses).

I have a lot of great events coming up next week that I'll tell you about in my next blog - ‘42 under 42', Yorkshire Association of Business Angels, and I will be at Hazelwood Castle for our end of year High Growth Start-Up event, hearing a talk by Rachel Elnor of Dragons' Den about the entrepreneurial journey and what went wrong with Red Letter Days. There are also monthly peer group sessions in the evenings for entrepreneurs to come along and chat to each other/help solve each other's problems. It's been phenomenal, they swap numbers and talk about their experiences at no cost - completely invaluable, free advice and better than any business advisor could provide!