The most successful new businesses are the ones that keep their eye on international markets. That was the message Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone delivered to a room full of enterprise support workers and budding entrepreneurs earlier today.
The setting was the grand opening of the spanking new London Innovation Centre in Croydon, South London. Launched in December 2006, the project was created to fulfil a London Development Agency funded scheme to support innovative and creative businesses in the surrounding boroughs.
The LDA has given the project £1.2b worth of funding in exchange for results – a quota of million-pound turnover businesses to be precise. The LINNOC, as it has been dubbed, is now ‘actively searching’ for high growth businesses it can offer its support services to in a bid to meet this quota.
Ken told a welcoming audience, among which sat the Startups team, that the project was exactly the kind of thing government should be pouring resources into.
Creative and innovative businesses that generated jobs outside the financial markets contributed to a rich and diverse culture that foreign investors would be attracted to, he argued.
He also had some choice words of advice for new and budding entrepreneurs out there, currently putting the final touches to their business plans.
“The firms that will be most successful will be the ones with eyes on international markets,” he confidently announced.
Not sure it’s a point the average new cleaning service, or catering business had considered, but something for some of you to ponder.
