As you’d expect, the business press is awash with Budget analysis. Here at Startups.co.uk, we’ve got a break down of the issues affecting you and the reactions from the leading business organisations. Check it out here.
My natural inclination is to use this space to offer my own interpretation of yesterday’s announcements – but I’ve decided not to. Why? Well, as much as I’ve got several firmly-held views on how the Budget could prove detrimental to business growth and encouraging investment, I’m just not sure this is the right place.
I’m not sure you actually care, you see. Yes you’ve got concerns just I have and, more poignantly, the Budget will hit your bottom line and even reduce the odds of your business survive that crucial first year. But, realistically, it’s not going to stop you is it?
Not one of you serious and passionate about starting a business on Tuesday will have been in any way deterred by yesterday’s Budget. You won’t put your dreams on a shelf because of changes in corporation tax or because when you sell you’ll lose 18% instead of 10% in capital gains tax.
You’re not thinking that far ahead, are you? ‘Exit plans’ are for serial entrepreneurs and those already in business. If you’ve got an idea burning through your brain at the expense of being able to concentrate on anything else, let’s face it, you’re going to do it regardless of the economic climate, aren’t you?
And that’s what’s brilliant about starting your own business. It’s yours. Outside forces, consumer spending, the economy and taxes etc undoubtedly come into effect but there will always be successful new start-ups.
Where you least expect to find innovation in the most saturated of markets, disruptive small businesses will emerge defying the odds. And if they’re not, they’ll be creating new markets. Entrepreneurs and small businesses almost always lead innovation – and that’s not going away.
Those new companies that survive and prosper, especially in a troubled economy, overcome outside forces because they’re smart ideas, executed by savvy, hardworking entrepreneurs that focus on ‘their business’ not the business world.
Peter Jones of Dragons’ Den launched his National Enterprise Academy this week with the vision of creating more young people with that outlook. It was fitting then that Jones, speaking at last night’s Fast Growth Business Awards, urged the business leaders and entrepreneurs gathered to concentrate on encouraging and celebrating enterprise rather than bemoaning political barriers.
“Forget the Budget, it doesn’t matter,” were his words – and in the context of pure start-ups, they could easily be mine.
