Enterprise UK Blog

Hello to everyone registered for Make Your Mark with a Tenner (not registered yet? Make sure you do by Wednesday 17 February),

Wow!  I can’t believe that over 20,000 places have already been filled for this year’s Tenner.  It only seems like a few minutes ago that we opened for business!  It’s going to be a VERY busy couple of months at Tenner Towers!!!

Here are the main things I’ll be encouraging the judges to look out for this year;

1)    It takes real get-up-and-go to get out beyond the school gates and engage with your local community.  I’ll be especially impressed by anyone who does this!

Lots of juicy enterprise-related surfaced in the press over the weekend after a somewhat barren second half of last week.

Make Your Mark in the Markets

Mail on Sunday

‘Pitch your idea at the street markets’ (Jenny Little)

From the Mail: increasing numbers of would-be business owners are turning to street markets to launch their enterprises, attracted by low start-up costs and greater flexibility. About 47,000 small and medium-sized businesses operate through retail and wholesale markets in the UK, generating an annual turnover of £7.6bn. There is also Make Your Mark in the Markets, a competition backed by Enterprise Insight and the National Market Traders Federation, an initiative designed to encourage market-based businesses.

Only 1 week left until the deadline for One Big Idea!!

We’re looking for ethical or sustainable business ideas which can made and sold in the Coop. All the profits will go to supporting charitable projects out in Malawi.

Remember it’s open to everyone and even if you don’t enter you can vote for your favourite idea.

Good luck!

Happy end of the week folks. Between duck houses and yet more apocalyptic predictions of winter weather the press appear to have lost interest in enterprise for the time being. I’ve supplemented the regularly scheduled round-up of the newspapers with a few choice pickings from the blogosphere.

Entrepreneurs Forum

‘TV Dragon challenges North East teens to turn tenners into turnover’

Peter Jones, star of TV’s Dragon’s Den, and Chairman of business-led enterprise campaign Enterprise UK, today invited young people from the North East to enter Make Your Mark with a Tenner.

http://www.entrepreneursforum.net/news/viewarticle.php?id=651

Metro: London

Three of our Enterprise UK Ambassadors have had their entrepreneurial talent recognised and rewarded at the third annual Northwest Women in Business Awards.

Best Young Entrepreneur WINNER – Anna Heyes

Best Young Entrepreneur RUNNER UP – Lucy Byrne

Best Start Up Business RUNNER UP – Vicky Corcoran

Congratulations to all of you!

For more details about this years awards go to www.nwda.co.uk/news–events/press-releases/201001/women-in-business-awards.aspx

From the pages of our esteemed British press…the latest in enterprise news:

Daily Mail

‘Is your teenager the next Richard Branson?’ (Justin Harper)

The third instalment in Enterprise UK’s ongoing coverage of the Enterprising Young Brits competition. This week’s focus is on teen entrepreneurs, with a profile of Enterprise UK ambassador Ruth Amos and a quote from our very own Head of Secondary Education, Richard Strudwick.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/article-1248139/Is-teenager-Richard-Branson.html
Financial Times

‘Malcolm Gladwell’s business blindspot’ (Luke Johnson)

Entrepreneurs: bold gamblers who employ people and generate value for an economy, or reckless risk-takers who amass riches through the misery of the capitalist system? Luke Johnson weighs in with his thoughts.

A new study, unveiled by Enterprise UK’s Head of Policy and Research, Peter Grigg at an Enterprising Places Network event in the North East could change the face of support for people who are looking to explore their entrepreneurial potential. 

The study explores the attitudes and behaviours of people who are considering setting up a business to help them understand their motivations and the barriers preventing them from pursuing their goals. 

Unlike the traditional approach to the market which is based on demographic segments, Enterprise UK have identified seven different ‘types’ or ‘typologies’ – from self-starters who will just get on with it, to ‘independence seekers’ ‘creative team players’  ‘structured planners’ and so on. 

Welcome to today’s kaleidescopic view of the newsworthy enterprise-y things picked up in today’s press.

Daily Mail

‘Bosses using their credit cards to keep firms afloat’

Bosses are being forced to use their credit cards, raid their savings and borrow money from friends to keep their companies afloat.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1247744/Desperate-bosses-small-firms-turn-credit-cards-Whitehall-fails-settle-bills.html

 
Financial Times

‘Small businesses hit at late Whitehall payments’ (Jonathan Guthrie)

New findings from the Federation of Small Businesses show that central government and its agencies are persistently paying private contractors and suppliers late, according to the Financial Times. A survey of 9, 700 small companies conducted for the FSB found one in three payments takes more than ten days to arrive

Much to the amusement of my fellow education team I spent Thursday afternoon blowing up an inflatable globe to check it didn’t have any punctures and then deflating it (which took much longer than blowing it up).

My globe and I then headed off to Basingstoke to attend an event at Cranbourne Business and Enterprise College (CBEC). The event was organised by CBEC’s school council for all the school council’s from their feeder primary schools around the theme of community. I arrived just in time for lunch (yummy) and to be served a cup of tea by a very helpful CBEC student.

Registration for Make Your Mark with a Tenner opened on 11 January and we’ve already pledged to give over 17,000 students £10 for the month of March so that they can come up with creative and enterprising ideas to make profit and make a difference.

That’s a lot of enterprising students but we’ve still got money to give, the piggy bank isn’t empty yet so find out more and get involved at www.enterpriseuk.org/tenner

A happy and enterprising Monday morning to you all. Below are our highlights of news from the enterprise…’space’ that emerged over the weekend. Little in the way of hard news, but there are some interesting bits and pieces on bank finance and small business tax worth reading.

Financial Times: Money (30.01.10)

‘Nimble companies snatch customers’ (Jonathan Moules)

Jonathan Moules discusses the importance for companies of being entrepreneurially nimble. Several small companies have found that being creative and agile can be a boon in these conditions as they take business from less dynamic, established players in the market.

Last Thursday Enterprise UK and Newham College of Further Education teamed up to present Take Control Today! The idea of the event is to inspire those who have been made redundant to start a business or those who already have businesses to help them grow.

Another dose of enterprising news from today’s papers. Of note: some interesting discussion around small businesses and social media, and a piece from the Financial Times that illustrates the new-found political currency of entrepreneurship:

BBC Online

‘Dragon’s Den challenge for Bristol teenagers’

Peter Jones has thrown down a challenge to business-savvy youngsters in Bristol to make a profit from a £10 loan.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/bristol/hi/things_to_do/newsid_8485000/8485649.stm
 

City AM London

‘Update your business profile’

Borders are not what they used to be (I’m referring, by the way, to the divisions between countries, not the late American book-selling behemoth). There was a time, Alfred Lord Tennyson once observed, when “a smile at home was a scowl abroad”. Borders that were once immutable – cultural, logistical and so forth – are being washed away under the crashing waves of globalisation.

This has been particularly true of enterprise in two respects. Firstly, enterprise is recognised as a valuable, financially and socially-enriching concept that transcends boundaries. Witness the success of last year’s Global Entrepreneurship Week, in which thousands of people from 90 countries came together the celebrate those who have ideas and make them happen.

News junkies, seek enterprise news and ye shall find below. Highlights include some interesting research around the number of small businesses who are not online (shocking!), and a new report from a cross-party group of MPs on boosting an export-led recovery (Global Entrepreneurship Week, anyone?).

Daily Express

‘Recession over? You’re joking’

Entrepreneurs are among the pundits the Express has gathered together to discuss whether or not Britain has really pulled itself out of its financial crisis.

Not online (rubbish!) – in the paper only, pp. 24-5