I’m a big believer in collaboration over competition, but ultimately all businesses need to look at what’s going on around them – and it’s no different here at Startups.co.uk. We’re the best read website for small businesses in the UK and looking at the competition and our own analytics of what you’re reading, I know why.
We give you what you need. You need to know how to start a business, how to write a business plan, how to raise finance and learn from others who’ve been there and done it or relate to others starting-up now. Practical, useable information and inspiration from your peers.
You don’t need endless dissection of last night’s Apprentice evictee as one rival seems obsessed by (are they sure that’s ‘real’ business?); noble as the cause is you probably haven’t got time to lobby government for tax changes either as another site is rallying you to; and forget reading the FT or even BBC business if you’re a private company looking for anything likely to affect your plans.
The misconception that business owners and entrepreneurs care more about what’s happening ‘in business’ than what’s happening in ‘their businesses’ is an easy one to get suckered into.
Indeed, we’ve covered Sir Alan’s circus sackings (and do think it’s had a positive impact) and we also speak to politicians, but my job as editor is to keep dragging us back to writing about what you want to read.
Our stats tells us we’ll get far more visitors to the site if we write a new ‘How to guide start a business’ guide or interview a top name entrepreneur than about how hard it is for you to cope with red tape or CGT changes – you already know that and realistically what can we do?
Anyway, enough about how great we are. I stumbled into this sycophantic backslap after looking at some research coming out of this week’s Microsoft Innovation Day.
It looked at the intrinsic link between enterprise and innovation and how if we get more people active in running their own businesses, we’ll create more innovative tools to give us an economic global edge.
The trouble is, according to the Global Enterprise Monitor stats released earlier this year, other countries such as China are becoming more entrepreneurial at a faster pace than we are. And in March the government white paper ‘Innovation Nation’ insisted greater business support was needed to encourage enterprise across the whole of the UK.
Most interesting was Microsoft’s analysis of what was actually holding people back. Surprisingly, given the supposed credit crunch,
90% were confident they’d be able to secure the funding they needed for the rest of 2008. But despite this, 80% remained pessimistic about the economy and 40% wouldn’t encourage others to start a business in the current climate.
In his speech, Microsoft’s
Gordon Frazer claimed it was simple as a lack of basic support in order to breed belief.
“There’s not enough being done on the ground to encourage people to take their dreams and turn them into reality. In many cases it’s more likely to be a lack of confidence, than a lack of funding that is the problem,” he said.
It’s all very well The Apprentice and Dragons’ Den generating mass interest in business but unless the support is in place to harness that interest with clear structured support and advice, what’s the point? After all, food shows have been a hit for how many years and how many of us actually cook what we watch?
And when will the government and the rest of the media please start championing the achievements of small businesses. Our Startups 100 list of the most exciting, innovative new companies was sent to every business editor in the UK and got scant recognition. Could the BBC not have sacrificed one of its million or so BA/T5 stories?
