‘There are three obstacles to starting a business’

What is the biggest deterrent to starting a business in this country?

I don’t think there is much of a deterrent. [In 2013] we know that more than 520,000 new businesses started, so, as a consequence, we have more people that are wrestling with the challenges of how you scale a business.

I want to see a shift in emphasis from starting up to scaling up. I want to see “starting better” as a campaign. I want to see people using insight and access to data to make more informed decisions.

In 2013 Lawrence Tomlinson, your predecessor as entrepreneur in residence, published an explosive report into the treatment of small businesses by banks. Is this still a main focus of your role?

When I think of all the reasons why it is difficult to start a business, there are three obstacles. One: access to talent; two: access to finance; three: access to customers.

Selling is difficult. There is nothing more difficult in business than winning paying punters. The best solution is going digital – going online, getting your business found. It is remarkable that 2m businesses are not yet online, that only a third of British businesses have a transactional website.

Access to finance, in my opinion, is not as important as this. Lawrence chose very specifically to target an individual institution [in his report]. I don’t have that same insight, but I think it is remarkable that in this day and age, depending on which stats you read, between 60% and 90% of businesses go directly to their high street bank as a source of finance. I think that’s crazy, given that in the last five years we have seen an explosion in alternative routes to finance.

Now we are finding that through platforms like Seedrs and Crowdcube you can raise money for your business through the sale of equity. What I want is to have a business finance finder so that more businesses have a common resource that they can refer to which they can use to educate themselves.

Are small and micro-businesses making the most of e-commerce?

Government stats show that £104bn was spent online by British consumers last year. We are seeing a complete transformation in the way consumers shop – the majority of people want to find a business using their search engine, and many people are finding that a frustrating experience when they can’t find the business they are looking for.

[Getting online] is a bit difficult and requires a bit of effort. By and large, if you aren’t desperate to see any business growth, the obstacles are such that people think: “I will do it another time.” I think we have now reached the tipping point where it is less and less convenient for businesses to continue on this path. We are all realising that online is the new landline.

I don’t think there’s a silver bullet, any one thing we can do that will get all British businesses online. My insight is that the thing that will influence businesses more than anything else isn’t time or government or tax incentives; the thing that will influence them more than anything else is their peers.

What does your role as entrepreneur in residence entail?

Two things really. It’s about putting the spirit of entrepreneurship into the corridors of Whitehall. I am not saying they don’t have that already, but I do like to try to add to it. The next thing is to bring insight directly from the front line of commerce into the conversations that take place in Whitehall.

Does more need to be done at a school level to push entrepreneurship as a viable career option?

Absolutely. I think entrepreneurialism is infectious. I think young people should be given a genuine sense of the reality of building your own business, and that it’s a realistic ambition for them to hold and pursue. [Young people] should embrace working at the earliest age possible and fund themselves through their education at any level and at any age. They need to actively pursue entrepreneurialism from the point of view of being work-ready, and that’s not to be underestimated.

I want to see that more young people are given a general sense of what it is like to operate in a business context. It doesn’t matter what your line of business is, whether you aspire to be a hairdresser or a surgeon, the truth is you are going to need a website and to know how to engage customers.

Do you find it inspiring meeting startup entrepreneurs?

I have listened to thousands of business pitches and I have a personal portfolio of nine businesses. But, yes I do find it inspiring. It is inspiring listening to an entrepreneur talking about their business, the obstacles and successes – I don’t only find it fascinating, I find it a privilege. It is always jaw dropping.

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