Up next in 10
Looking to start a business this year?
Emma Jones, serial entrepreneur and founder of small business support platform Enterprise Nation, sits down with Jennifer Sieg and Emmanuel Nwosu to share her top tips for start-up success in 2025.
Whether you're a budding entrepreneur looking for an idea, a consumer goods business looking to expand, or an online retailer looking for a re-brand ā you're in the right place.
All that and more ā plus an inside look at the debut of this year's Start-Up Show ā in this episode of Founder Favourites.
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Produced by: Jennifer Sieg, Emmanuel Nwosu, Joe Lee, Joseph Curay Teneda
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0:00
I remember interviewing years ago a founder and it's the one time where he came and I interviewed him at an event
0:05
and I said to him I'm so jealous of what you've just described so there were three founders in his business and I
0:11
said well how do you split your responsibilities and he said I do finance a second founder does operations
0:18
and the third founder does sales and as he said it I thought they are the three key pillars that you've got to get right
0:24
for any business you need someone who's selling so that is all about what do your customers want have you got your
0:30
price point right how are you innovating with your product you need someone to do back office operations how are we
0:36
delivering what the salespeople need and then you need somebody to count the money so are we you know and more is
0:43
coming in than is going out lots of advice that I've given to small businesses is you can't be in the
0:48
business every day so a huge thing that business owners need to be aware of is you do need to take time to work on the
0:55
business not in it so what I do do is I take brief trips I always go try and
1:00
find a really big view either the sea or a big cityscape and I essentially just
1:05
check in are we delivering according to the business plan what are the Innovations we need to be on top of how
1:11
is the team performing so you what I do need is to get perspective so I don't necessarily need a holiday but I need to
1:17
take time out to just kind of take a view and say right look at the business rather than work in it and just make
1:24
sure we're on track so this is a great question CU this is all around how do you build credibility and and it's one
1:30
thing that again I'm very passionate about when it comes to procurement so this is a big topic for us encouraging
1:37
more smmes to sell to government and it always used to drive me mad because when small businesses would pitch for
1:43
government contracts one of the questions was which other work have you done for the public sector and I'm like
1:49
well how does someone get a first shot at it if you always ask the question what has been your background so this is
1:55
where it comes fake it until you make it
2:03
[Music] okay Emma thank you for joining us obviously Emanuel and I know all about
2:10
you and we're really big fans but for those readers or not readers sorry viewers and listeners today um tell us a
2:17
little bit about who you are and and what you do so I am Emma Jones I am founder of a business called Enterprise
2:23
nation and we help people start and grow their own small business so we have lots of small businesses uh year with just
2:30
under 900,000 small businesses who come to Enterprise nation and we connect them to lots of support and resource really
2:38
cool and I know that you're obviously a Serial entrepreneur in your own right and we've talked a lot about it so what
2:43
had led you to starting Enterprise nation in the first place well I had a business before Enterprise nation and I
2:50
guess Jenny if I go back a while and you'll hear uh lots of business owners talk about this I was bought up in a
2:56
family of entrepreneurs uh my mom was a restorator so we quite often lived above
3:01
the shop I was waiting on from the age of 12 so you very quickly learn the value of money that if customers are
3:08
coming in you're making money and if customers aren't coming in you're not uh but no I'd had a business which I sold
3:14
within a two-year time frame so my first business was called tech.com was started in Manchester a great northern city and
3:22
uh I had got that business to five people and sold it to a much bigger business which is now called RSM Tenon
3:29
it's just called Ten at the time and the experience of starting and growing a business made me think actually I think
3:35
a lot more people are going to do this so this was coming up to 20 years ago shocking as to how long ago it was um
3:42
but I read a book written by A Great American man called Dan pink uh who wrote a book called free agent nation
3:49
and he was talking about the rise of the self-employed in America and I kind of thought whatever happens in the states
3:54
tends to happen in the UK about five or 10 years later so I thought well I think lots of people in the UK will start
4:01
businesses and actually when I launched Enterprise Nation also launched from Manchester because I was living up there
4:06
at the time it started as a this phrase is used of a a lifestyle business I
4:12
actually don't like that phrase but it was a Consulting business so it just earned enough first of all for me then I
4:18
made my first hire maybe about 12 months later and actually it was probably only about five years ago that I decided to
4:25
grow Enterprise Nation seriously kind of scale the business so we're now at 48 eight people and as I say we hopefully
4:31
help lots of small businesses but the kind of germ of the idea came from having started grown and sold a first
4:38
business seeing that lots more people were hopefully going to do this and take the entrepreneurial dream forward but
4:44
did they have a place to go to get support before you started like your first business what was the idea behind
4:50
that and you know why were you working at 9 to-5 before you started that business or what were you doing yeah so
4:55
the first company I was working in 95 and in fact one of the books I've written is called working 5 to9 how to
5:01
start a business in your spare time so this of course is the rise of the side hustle both businesses that I've started
5:07
I've started whilst holding down a day job and this is the thing is so much of the advice we give on Enterprise Nation
5:15
we know because we've been there as a business so yeah I was working at a again a big American firm called Arthur
5:21
Anderson so it was a big Professional Services firm I joined that organization
5:26
straight out of University and actually interestingly when I talk to young people now so many young people want to
5:32
start businesses but my advice is always go and work somewhere for about five
5:37
years if you can just because what Arthur Anderson did for me is it helped me bring contacts it builds your
5:44
confidence you get to know how to write proposals so I was at Andersons for about five years and I started my first
5:51
business at the height of the doom boom hugely exciting time to start a business it was the year 2000 lots of people
5:58
leaving their jobs starting companies and the idea came because it was very similar to what I was doing in
6:04
my day job so at the time I was running what was called an inward investment unit for Arthur Anderson attracting lots
6:11
of companies to invest in the UK and my first business which as I say was called tech.com put the inward
6:18
investment process online so we just start and I started that first business with a co-founder so yeah it was a DOT
6:25
startup and as I say it was a very quick flip as they call so start grow to a little size and then sell you said you
6:31
were working um your 9 to5 while you were starting your business how was that like was that you know challenging
6:38
difficult I'm sure you probably had no time for yourself what was that like well this is the thing about side
6:43
hustles is people are prepared to do it though so and and lots of time and as I say at the time it was relatively it
6:50
didn't have a term so the term side hustle has been a relatively recent invention and of course now most people
6:57
have got a side hustle a side big so people are becoming very used to this but actually what's great is if you're
7:03
starting a business at nights and weekends all of that entrepreneurial juice that you're Gathering you can
7:09
apply that into your day job so actually when I did come up with the idea for them the business I went to my boss
7:16
Arthur Anderson and I said look I love working here but I've got this idea for a business and he said well I tell you
7:22
what I'm going to help you get it up and running so I think if you can and again advice we give to lots of people who've
7:28
got a sight Hustle can you make your existing employer your first client because that's a great
7:34
start but yeah it's just really sensible to ease yourself out of employment into
7:39
self-employment because of course you're keeping the safety of the salary coming in and of course having a side hustle
7:46
you're just giving yourself time again to build the confidence in your startup idea to build confidence in your own
7:52
startup skills so it's a big commitment but it's definitely still the advice we
7:57
give to people is if you can hold on to the day job build your business at nights and
8:03
weekends I find it interesting that you mentioned everything that happens in the US happens in the UK five or 10 years
8:09
later because I think one of the biggest things obviously Emanuel and I are American but we really wanted a chat
8:16
about trends that you've been seeing I mean this has been quite a year for a lot of entrepreneurs and now we look
8:21
into the new year I guess what have you been seeing in the community and and surrounding you well I guess first of
8:28
all is uh confidence well politics there's so much kind of you know and that's what we've got with the states
8:34
we've got got very much in common you have a new leer you I'm I'm desperately diplomatically thinking how I talk about
8:41
your new leader but you have a new president incoming we have a new prime minister and a new Administration and of
8:47
course that always creates change for small businesses and one thing we always talk about Enterprise Nation when it
8:54
comes to the role of government when supporting small business is actually to offer a sense of cont continuity so uh
9:01
small businesses like continuity with governments because then support programs tend to continue so what small
9:08
businesses have had to contend with is kind of changing political um sort of Trends however there is something really
9:14
interesting and as you say I do still feel what happens in the states comes here so a really interesting trend from
9:21
this year which I think we'll see really takeoff in 2025 is in the US you have a very
9:26
dominant Market of what have called cdfis so it stands for Community Development Finance institutions but I
9:33
actually think lots of that is around culture and we've tried to mimic your culture uh by making it when directors
9:40
fail it used to be in the UK that you couldn't become a director a second time round if you're first business had
9:46
failed we've changed those laws to mirror the us that you can get up and running again but I think if you kind of
9:53
look at how do we build the culture you've got to start at an early age so how do we encourage young people to to
9:59
feel confident to feel that entrepreneurship is a career route for them so those are the kind of Trends I
10:04
think we'll see in 2025 how do we start entrepreneurship at a young age how do we make sure small businesses get access
10:11
to contracts to funding and I think we'll continue to look at the US to say how do they do it there and let's take
10:18
the best practice and bring it back home I'm sure you speak to you know loads and hundreds of small businesses every day
10:24
um how do you think or maybe what are they telling you about how the budget recent budget is going to affect them
10:30
going into 2025 not good to be honest and again for those who've watched Enterprise Nation for a while we have
10:37
always been adamant that we always want to be a positive and optimistic place
10:42
because starting and growing a small business is really tough and so we want to be the place where businesses come
10:48
and think actually I want to do something positive I want to hire someone I want to make more sales Enterprise Nation can help me do it but
10:55
we also have to face the reality of what we are hearing from small businesses so
11:00
the response to the budget and actually I think it was a big funnny enough that we're kind of doing this podcast which is a form of communications I think it
11:07
was a fall down in government Communications because actually the budget wasn't too bad for small business
11:13
but no one spoke about it so of course what got the media Spotlight and I have to commend cam because you've done an
11:20
incredible job post the budget of calling out the things that businesses aren't happy with National Insurance of
11:26
course being a big one wages going up for bigger businesses they are reacting
11:32
to this and it's not great but for smaller businesses the budget was good news for smaller businesses they won't
11:38
have to pay National Insurance so good result there was an extension to something called shared Prosperity
11:44
funding so this is the funding that pays for business support programs good result uh something that's very close to
11:50
our hearts extension of a program called help to grow management Enterprise nation's part of running that extension
11:56
of that for 12 months good result but it was never noted in the budget and kind of none of the headlines covered this
12:03
because actually the government didn't really promote it so if you look at the detail the budget wasn't too bad however
12:11
going back to the role of a government when it comes to supporting small business we love it if they give
12:16
continuity but we particularly love it if they build confidence in the market and what the budget didn't do a good job
12:23
of is building confidence within businesses anyway it's a big week this week it's small business Saturday so I
12:29
think that confidence raising will now start to commence is that something you hope to do then you know going into
12:35
January where the startup show that Enterprise Nation hosts every year is that something like you hope to do that kind of build that confidence within
12:42
businesses and entrepreneurs so Emanuel it's the biggest thing we try and do at startup show and I know you've both been
12:48
to Startup show but we and we've got a new venue this year so people will just walk in and my one hope is that people
12:54
walk in and they immediately will feel this feels positive it feels can do and
13:01
somebody walks in thinking oh I've got this idea but is this the year that I get started and then they leave thinking
13:07
right I've heard everything I need to know but more importantly I've met loads of other people who are doing this they
13:13
seem to be confident about doing it I will give it a go and that is our job that as I say running a small business
13:19
is really hard every single day you've got issues to deal with our job is how
13:25
do we provide the platform the space for positiv ity for small businesses
13:30
actually to say should I focus on looking at the opportunities for the year ahead and how do I make the most of
13:36
those so hopefully startup show will be that place of optimism but also give
13:41
lots of information on how to get going do you want to like briefly actually explain what the startup show is to for
13:47
our audience and you know uh listeners and viewers who may not know what it is I would love to share what the startup
13:52
show is it's possibly my favorite event that we run so it's going into its 11th year so it's been running for just over
13:58
a decade uh we host it in January because it is the time where lots of people have time to think over Christmas
14:05
they come back to their day job back to their side hustle and they think oh I just want to kind of do something so it
14:10
is a one day event where as I say hopefully we can offer everything that people need so there's a stage for
14:16
access to funding called show me the money there's a stage on how to build a brand I think we have a meet the
14:21
journalist session that Jenny's going to come on to we have a stage about digital adoption because of course that's huge
14:27
for startups how do they use low or no cost technology to get up and running and then we've got a big keynote stage
14:33
called Visionary voices so we've got great entrepreneurs Emma Barnet from the BBC who's starting a business we have
14:40
the founder of oddbox we've got two founders of a new brand I think you've promoted them actually called Siri
14:46
who've got I use Siri every day my siblings are trying to like they're trying to get me to buy it for them for
14:52
Christmas because they love it well well maybe we should get some freebiz for the show so the founders from there are
14:58
coming they're going to tell story amazing incredible story and that's the thing on the Visionary voices stage it's
15:05
back to this point of we want people to share their own entrepreneurial story so everyone in the audience who's at an
15:11
earlier stage thinks actually if they can do it give me the tips give me the
15:16
confidence I'm going to go off and do it as well so it's 25th of January one day of information and inspiration for
15:22
anyone who's thinking of starting and growing a business Jenny you've been on the startup show panel before how was it
15:27
like when you were there it was great and it reminded me because I feel like last time I went or last year there were
15:33
so many people in attendance that hadn't had their own businesses yet but they just wanted to start them and I can't
15:38
help but think whether or not they did because I haven't been in touch with them but you know you go into that new year and I bet so many people have this
15:45
New Year resolution they're going to start a business or do they just stick with that ambition and not actually
15:50
follow through with it I mean I don't know if you see that as a trend people want to start they go and want to start
15:55
but they don't actually follow through with it or they do I don't know but how do you well it's interesting because you mentioned Trends Jenny when I first
16:02
started a business so 20 plus years ago I think there were a lot of dreamers not doers now I think there's a lot of
16:08
people who dream and then turn it into reality but I think the big difference is because the enabling factors that are
16:14
now in place you can easily raise a startup loan raise a startup loan it's a personal loan so as you don't raise it
16:20
you borrow it technology means you can start in your spare time so because of all of that it's so much easier for
16:27
people to test it to give it a go and then of course then the sort of million dooll question is for those who start
16:34
looking 3 years later are they still up and running that's where the figures tend to be quite acute is the number of
16:40
people who start do they get through that kind of first three years of trading and like how much money would
16:46
you say you need to start your own business so I have written a book called how to start a business for less than
16:52
Ā£99 how many books have you written I don't know if I know this maybe about five but this was a long time ago I have
16:58
not done for a while and I'm just I'm saying this I think it was how to start business for Ā£99 not less than Ā£99 so
17:04
dead on99 but the ethos of that book was you can start a business on a budget so
17:10
for less than 100 quid you can get up and running and of course young people and I know I've spoken a little bit
17:15
about young people incredibly Adept with technology going on to Tik Tok starting a Tik Tok shop using Instagram building
17:23
their brand doing so on a budget and then bringing the sales in young people are also brilliant hustling so I think
17:30
you can start on a budget and of course then what you get into is all the business Basics that you need so then
17:36
you do need to know how to sell how to manage your money how to build a team uh but yeah you can start on a budget and
17:42
that's why I think we're still seeing so many people take it into their own hands if you were to like walk us through like
17:47
you know building Enterprise nation and even the compy like your first company were the processes similar you know what
17:54
did you learn from your your first business that you kind of took into when you were building Enterprise Nation great question I've never been asked
18:00
that question before first business was very quick in terms of It kind of starting growing and selling so I have
18:06
learned a lot more through Enterprise nation and you'll hear this a lot I've
18:11
learned a lot from things that I didn't do well um and I think that's kind of how business owners are is you have to
18:17
learn from the failures probably just more than the successes uh so I guess key things for me um and again this is
18:24
advice we give to all people starting a business and probably my number one piece of advice focus on what you do
18:30
best and Outsource the rest and we we've spoken about this for 15 years at Enterprise Nation focus on what you do
18:35
best and Outsource the rest so a big learning for me is the bit of the business that I love is doing this being
18:42
out and sharing the the message of Enterprise Nation sales Business Development I love the external bit I do
18:49
not like operations day-to-day management it took me a long time to realize find someone who's good at that
18:56
so you can focus on the bit that you like doing and get other people who are experts in other areas so I've
19:02
definitely leared that I would say this but I have learned the value of seeking
19:07
advice and of course that's what Enterprise nation is all about is get support find your tribe and I guess
19:14
that's the thing is advice is multifaceted and I think it's kind of comes from three key areas one is
19:20
definitely your peer group so people at the same point as you you kind of just want to say how are you feeling what are
19:25
you experiencing second is professional advice iers accountants lawyers HR
19:30
experts definitely times when you need them and then the third and possibly most valuable form of advisor is a
19:37
mentor so on those days where you just need to download as a Founder do you
19:43
have someone who can just kind of guide not necessarily tell you what to do but help you come up with your own decisions
19:50
so I would say to any business focus on what you do best Outsource the rest definitely get good support and the
19:57
third thing is is don't put too much pressure on yourself on the speed at
20:03
which things happen so I think sometimes people start a business and think it's going to be an overnight success and I'm
20:09
going to start it and sell it very quickly but of course every great successful business is probably 20 plus
20:16
years in the making so take your time try and enjoy it if you can for the journey because it is a journey but yeah
20:23
things can happen or they can take a little bit longer than you think but stick with it do you find it that the
20:28
advice you give is quite Universal because I feel like last last startup show I met so many different types of
20:35
businesses and they were all there hearing the same advice whether and we're the same way I mean we we'll interview you know a fintech one day
20:42
restaurant owner the next day Henry of Admiral group the next day you know so it's it's all different types of businesses but they all kind of have
20:48
these interconnecting Trends I think the at the startup show I met someone who now makes smelling balloons and she has
20:55
like an incense company and like she sells them to cafes so like like you get like mocha smelling balloons when they have parties and like something like
21:03
that is very I wish I had had her name so I could plug it in but um she came to another event that I had cuz she met me at the startup show last year and those
21:10
types of things you notice them and you're like but then there was also finex there there's also all these kinds of businesses so what's it like giving
21:15
that advice to a community that's so diverse it's a great point and I would say the advice is similar because
21:21
business Basics are quite the same and and again I remember interviewing years ago a founder and it's the one time
21:27
where he came and interviewed him at an event and I said to him I'm so jealous of what you've just described so there
21:33
were three founders in his business and I said well how do you split your responsibilities and he said I do
21:39
finance a second founder does operations and the third founder does sales and as
21:44
he said it I thought they are the three key pillars that you've got to get right for any business you need someone who's
21:50
selling so that is all about what do your customers want have you got your price point right how are you innovating
21:56
with your product you need someone to do back off office operations how are we delivering what the sales people need
22:02
and then you need somebody to count the money so are we you know and more is coming in than is going out and they
22:09
whether you're starting a fintech or a balloon smelly balloon company I ni smelly balloon company uh that you you
22:15
need those three things and so they are and of course there's lots of different nuances depending on the sector you're
22:21
in but they're the three Basics and if you look at the fundamentals of Enterprise Nation they are the three
22:27
most popular things that people come onto the platform for how can I sell more how can I do it more efficiently
22:33
and how can I make sure that my finances are sound so I think if you get those three things right that's hopefully
22:39
setting you up for a good stable business and you had a co-founder your first business and with Enterprise
22:45
Nation you didn't have a co-founder corre many businesses that we speak to they say like oh you need a co-founder having a co-founder is great and you
22:51
just even said now the three co-founders had three different skills that really helped you know grow the business so how
22:58
was like what was that like having no co-founder when you started a business that you sold you know with a co-founder
23:04
it's very lonely this is where we get all personal no it is very lonely so yes my first
23:10
business uh every decision was shared every issue was shared and and actually
23:16
and I should say when I sold the business with my co-founder we had an 18-month what's called locking Clause so
23:23
we were bought by Tenon as I say as they were called at the time and you and we had to work there for 18 months and I
23:28
did dutifully work there but I spent 18 months he was called Adam Breeze my first co-founder I spent 18 months
23:35
pitching to him to say this can be our next venture and every time I I we were
23:40
in Manchester and I we'd go to different places and I'd say right I've got the next idea and he refused all of them and
23:46
so not not without trying I did try and bring him into this business and actually he's still very successfully
23:52
operating in the wi investment world so yes I had no choice but to set up Enterprise Nation on my own but it is a
23:57
lonely jour Journey because as a sole founder and there's someone on my team who's kind of sitting right behind us so
24:03
I have to be careful in saying this but you don't want to share the problems with your team you know they come in to do a great job you're the leader it's
24:10
your job to lead uh you don't have a co-founder to talk to and this is where I come back to the value of mentors so
24:17
what's really helped me and I've pretty much the gentleman who was responsible for buying my first company is pretty
24:23
much still my mentor today so if you can have that place to offload for some founder who are soul Founders it can be
24:30
their spouse it can be a member of their family it can be a mentor but yeah I think with that the highlight of being a
24:36
soul founder is you don't have to check any decisions so you can just go ahead and do the downside is lots of those
24:44
questions are constantly going on in your mind and you don't necessarily have that outlet for them yeah I don't regret
24:50
being the sole founder of Enterprise Nation I've now got a beautiful team and one of the great things that kind of
24:56
makes me proud of this business is I've got a very young executive team who've been with me some of them now for 10
25:02
plus years and so they have kind of become the operators of the business dayto day so a lot of the decision-
25:09
making now sits with them and so yeah if you can build that kind of business that's ideal but my advice is try and
25:16
find a co-founder if you can and just a bit of advice on that try and find someone who's got complimentary skills
25:22
but different so it goes back to that kind of if you're good at Finance find someone who's good at sales if you're
25:28
good at operations find someone who's good out front so yeah I think it does help if you can find someone to share
25:34
the journey with you and you know since you started Enterprise Na by yourself would you say you basically had no
25:41
holidays during that time like how was your schedule like I'm sure it's busy busy you're probably on the beach still
25:46
checking your still checking your emails on the holiday in the beach somewhere never clocking off so it's interesting
25:52
and I have to think about this a lot because um I don't do holidays and when
25:57
um mainly my dad will kind of say do it at all my dad will say you never turn
26:03
off you kind of but but the thing and I once read this in an interview and I remember reading it thinking that's
26:08
exactly how I feel is that when your work is your hobby it never really feels
26:14
like work so of course I run a business and every day I wake up and I'm like right there's a job to do but I am very
26:21
and I feel very lucky I love what I do and therefore I'm kind of on constant
26:28
holiday if that makes sense what I do however try and do and again lots of advice that I've given to small
26:34
businesses is you can't be in the business every day so a huge thing that business owners need to be aware of is
26:41
you do need to take time to work on the business not in it so what I do do is I
26:46
take brief trips I always go and try and find a really big view either the sea or a big citycape and I essentially just
26:53
check in are we delivering according to the business plan what are the Innovations we need to be on top of how
26:59
is the team performing so you what I do need is to get perspective so I don't necessarily need a holiday but I need to
27:06
take time out to just kind of take a view and say right look at the business rather than work in it and just make
27:12
sure we're on track this is going to jump way back to when you started Enterprise Nation but my question is so
27:17
you worked for 5 years with a firm and then you built a company for two years and then you decided to just go into
27:24
small business consultancy how did you convince people that you were someone to listen to like I not that you didn't
27:29
have the experience but sometimes that happens after you've scaled 17 businesses or you know something of the sort so did you just what' you do I
27:37
guess is my question so this is a great question because this is all around how do you build credibility and and it's
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one thing that again I'm very passionate about when it comes to procurement so this is a big topic for us encouraging
27:50
morees to sell to government and it always used to drive me mad because when small businesses would pitch for
27:56
government contracts one of the questions was which other work have you done for the public sector and I'm like
28:02
well how does someone get a first shot at it if you always ask the question what has been your background so this is
28:08
where it comes fake it until you make it okay so so back to the actual question
28:13
so I essentially found a first amazing client who was prepared to kind of take
28:19
a risk and I will never forget this first client so as you say I'd started up Enterprise Nation it was a Enterprise
28:26
Consulting business so it was going around regions of the Northwest to say here's how you can build an enterprising
28:33
area and this amazing man called John Barker who worked for an Enterprise agency called furnace Enterprise have
28:40
you ever been to Barrow in furnace I don't think so well it's the most incredible place they call it kind of
28:45
the edge of the world because it's literally on a a dead end in England but I don't say dead end in a disparaging
28:51
way it's literally geographically and there's a huge uh ba presence ba system
28:57
so they build huge boats there but they were in what the Boatyard was decreasing
29:03
its employment so they said right how are we going to build the future for our economy so I said well you want to encourage young people to start
29:09
businesses so I got my first contract by running a whole program and again
29:14
however many years on we're still doing this helping young people start businesses and John Barker from furnace
29:20
Enterprise said okay I'll take a risk on you come in show us how it's done that
29:25
was the first client and of course once you've got cred it then helps you build up the others so
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I think it was a bit of bravado again what we have to learn from the Americans all the time bit of bravado hopefully
29:37
focusing on what they needed good delivery and then the rest as they say is history just one more contracts kept
29:44
on building what would you say was like maybe the most unique business that you've ever you know encountered so
29:51
there was one I remember um we did a because actually when Enterprise Nation sort of first started we were very
29:57
focused on business businesses that were run from home so actually our first Incarnation we were called The Home
30:02
Business website my first book was called spare room startup how to start a business from home and in Cardiff Wales
30:08
we did a home business Summit again years ago and a business turned up which
30:13
was a feret business like an animal for ferrets and I'm so confused it was a
30:20
ferret breeder and so he bought his ferrets with him and it was all run from home and I kind of remember thinking wow
30:27
it just kind of shows that anything can be done from a home base so I think from feret breeders to smelly balloons I
30:34
think smelly balloons coin thing I think it's probably best to say scent it sent it rather word I was trying much better
30:42
you can tell you're the one in Communications that just doesn't sound right scented balloons okay well I guess
30:49
to to wrap things up I what what do you see as the future of Enterprise Nation I mean I see that you've got a knack for
30:55
the American Market I mean do you plan to go global do you plan to keep championing the UK what what do you see
31:01
in terms of the future growth of what you're doing uh Focus actually is our big word I think for 2025 focusing on
31:08
the current markets in which we're delivering uh so we really want to make sure that small businesses in the UK is
31:14
supported and we've got pillars that we really want to do that help small businesses win more contracts raise
31:19
money hire people so we want to do that right uh we're expanding in Ireland so
31:25
we've been operating in Ireland for about three years so I'd love to continue expansion there and I guess
31:30
just kind of continue to represent the views of small businesses I think 2025 could be a big year for small business
31:37
and what we desperately want to do and I think if someone ever kind of says to me when will you feel your job at
31:43
Enterprise nation is done is we really want to kind of hone in
31:49
on how you take friction out for small businesses every day in their lives so small businesses every day thinking
31:56
about things figuring out how to do things and we just want to leverage business support and we're working on a
32:01
concept of how do we get an AI powerered personal business advisor connected to every small business in the UK to do the
32:09
thinking on their behalf where we say to scented balloons hey today you might want to look at your social media the
32:16
next day we can see you're doing really well you might want to think about hiring a person if we can take out
32:21
friction for small businesses and make it as easy as possible to start and grow a business in the UK an island then I
32:29
think our job will be done so 2025 we've just got to keep our heads down and keep focused on that mission I think one of
32:35
my final questions might be just like just how important is entrepreneurship to you and if you weren't an
32:41
entrepreneur what would you be doing oh wow if you weren't running into ja's Nation what would you be doing I
32:48
have absolutely no idea maybe I'd be scented balloons I
32:54
don't know or business uh I think I think if I wasn't mind you I think it's probably one and
33:00
the same I think if I wasn't doing what I wasn't doing I'd love to invest in other people's businesses so business
33:06
fascinates me and as Jenny said there's so many different types of businesses and there's nothing more gratifying
33:11
watching someone with a passion and an idea turn that into a growing business
33:17
so I think if I wasn't running a support platform and Community I think it probably would be funding those to
33:23
hopefully go on the journey that I've been on which is to take the dream turn it into a business yes there's going to be hard days but I think it would
33:30
therefore be an investor rather than an entrepreneur I don't know if they're one and the same that's a bit of a cop out
33:35
earlier Emanuel said he was going to ask you what you're going to do when you retire and I was like Emma's never retiring I was like I was like should we
33:42
ask what she going do she retires and then yeah like Jenny lit was like Emma's never retired well it's interesting and
33:48
again just to kind of finish off on an American is um I'm Guided by something that Steve Jobs infamously always used
33:55
to do which is every morning and I don't this is true but I definitely know it comes from a Steve Jobs story when he
34:01
was brushing his teeth he would look in the mirror in the morning and he would ask himself if this was your last day on
34:07
Earth are you doing today the thing that you should be doing so if this was your last day on Earth are you doing today
34:14
the thing that you should be doing and I think the day that I stop is the day that I can't answer yes to that and then
34:20
that's when I'll stop final question what would be your advice to you know young entrepreneurs going into 202 five
34:28
what trend should they follow what should they you know hold on to and why should they not give up on their dreams
34:35
well I would say just get started so definitely kind of do so if you're thinking about it do a business plan go
34:41
to a teenage market so kind of go up pop up meet your customers make some sales
34:46
get yourself on social media which as I say young people feel so comfortable with and definitely definitely seek
34:53
support so what young people have got by the bucket load technology capability
34:58
they feel very confident they've got no mortgages so they can take a little bit more risk what they don't necessarily
35:05
have is years of business experience or contacts so find people who can help
35:10
everybody wants to help a young startup come to the startup show I was going to add that there we go if you're if you're
35:16
around London come to even if you're not around London yeah come cuz you can watch online watch it on no excuses and
35:23
I guess that's probably just the final thing I'd say is no excuses there's no reason not to start and grow a business
35:29
in this country in 2025 support is available everywhere cash is available everywhere markets are up and opening so
35:36
I would say yeah just do it that's our clip that right there is the that's the promotion clip right there thank you so
35:42
much for coming thank you we are unfortunately out of time thank you for having me lovely talking to you
35:48
[Music]
#Business Formation
#Small Business