May 2008 Archives

Yesterday we said that there was no good time to start a business, and that what really counted is the idea, and the attitude of the person wanting to start the business. However what we should have also said was, that although we’re currently in a recession there are different parts of the World who are on the up, and there are different channels that continue to grow at double digit rates.

For every country where there’s a recession, there’s one that is on a business high, if you look at South East Asia, parts of Russia and Eastern Europe, then you’ll be hard pressed to find anyone talking about the recession, and if you look at countries like China and India, they’d probably wonder what planet you were on.

But you don’t have to go to another country to find a market that’s growing in the double digits year-on-year, and a market that’s been growing at that rate or faster for the best part of a decade; and that market is the Internet.

The monthly Experian high street foot-fall figures published today showed a high-street in the midst of the worst period in years with a 1.5 percent decline in shoppers visiting the high street compared to last year, and 3.4% fewer shoppers than April. However Experian’s data for the Internet in the UK showed a continued rise in traffic, and US figures from internet analysts comScore showed a year-on-year growth of 15%.

So if you do want to start or grow your business this year, and you want to do it in a growing market, then you had better get yourself online, or you should start to learn Hindi, Urdu and Mandarin.

Picture Flickr

If you trawl around the internet and through the papers at the moment, chances are you’ll come across an article entitled “Starting a small business in a recession” or “How the recession is the best time to start a business.”

The article will then point to all the big entrepreneurs who launched in a recession, and will give a rather short list of all the reasons why starting in a recession is a “great” idea. The list will include these old favourites; The competition isn’t as hot, so your customers will have to buy from you. You’ll be recession proof come the next recession. If you can make it work in the bad times, it’s guaranteed to work in the good times, and you’ll have a head start over the competition etc. Which all sound quite reasonable and valid reasons, but it’s all just hot air.

We’re with Simon Woodroffe, who set up the sushi chain Yo Sushi. When it comes to the best times for starting up in business, and it doesn’t matter if there’s a recession, and it doesn’t matter if there’s a boom, what really matters is the business idea, and you. As Woodroffe says, “if you have the passion, the energy and the belief in what you do, then 'anytime' can be the right time to set up a business”.

I’ve given up counting the amount of times people have asked me “what sort of business should I start?” If you’re asking that sort of question, it won’t matter if it’s the best of times or the worst of times, you just won’t succeed in whatever business you decide on.

Image Flickr

Years ago we came up with the idea for an article about the best place in the UK to start a business. The rough theory behind the article idea was “There are loads of grants available, there’s bound to be one place that’s offering the biggest grants” or so we thought. Well how wrong we were. After three weeks searching through every grants database we could think of, we came to the conclusion that it was almost impossible to get a grant to setup in business, and if you could then you’d have to go through so many hurdles that it wasn’t worth it.

Well that was true until we came across this. If you’re thinking about starting up, and you’re flexible on where you start, then a new initiative launched by the Welsh Assembly should please you.
The new Wales business Start Up project will provide support to entrepreneurs looking to set up a business in Wales, and is expected to create more than 10,000 new jobs and support the development of over 8,000 new businesses across the country.

Deputy First Minister Ieuan Wyn Jones, who is also Minister for Economy & Transport said:
“This important project will provide a valuable range of services to help new businesses take their first steps and support them through the difficult early stages of starting a business.”

According to business locations advisory service Businessfacilities.com, Wales attracts almost ten per cent of foreign investment to the UK despite its population making up five per cent of those living in the UK.

Image Flickr

Death by powerpoint might be one of the few things that come to mind when you hear the word ‘conference’. We can add a lot more to the list but that’s not the point of this post. In fact, it’s just the opposite. Take all the things you hate about conferences, turn them around, mash them up, and apparently what you get is an ‘unconference’.

Trendy term or something that reflects a real change in the way events could be conducted? We decided to put the SHINE unconference to the test. SHINE was instigated by four dynamic organisations (Ashoka, UnLtd, School for Social Entrepreneurs, The Hub) and aimed to ‘connect, inform, and inspire people interested in social change’.

The usual suspects of the Social Enterprise world were there in full attendance, accompanied by hundreds of fresh faces with admirable passion for creating positive change in the world and hungry to get the support they need to make their ideas happen.

SHINE certainly passed the test and was successful in breaking down the old conventions. The sessions were varied, informative, and in most cases organised for its attendees to solve problems and create real opportunities. The space used (the Bargehouse on London’s Southbank) broke down barriers and offered an ideal setting to create partnerships and friendships.

Next year’s NESTA conference has a few things to learn from it. Attendees are an event’s most valuable resource and should be the engine that drives it. Less lavishness, higher interaction, and more substance is just what the people are shouting for.

We leave you with our usual video taster of the event...

Gordon Brown described the work of IT entrepreneurs as 'critical for the economy' and has pledged to break down barriers to innovation.

"I want to break down every barrier to innovation, whether it is our policy or our attitudes to regulation," said Brown at last week's Nesta Innovation Edge Conference in London and building on the recent government white paper “innovation nation” .

At the conference the Prime Minister described the work of entrepreneurs, IT developers and academics attending the conference as "absolutely critical for the economy". Well he would wouldn’t he.

While it’s moderately easy to get up in front of 3000 delegates and make promises it’s a bit harder to actually achieve those promises. The Innovation Nation report produced in March 2008 by the Department for Innovation, Universities & Skills says very little. As usual, there are the normal promises and little actual cash or easing of regulations, just lots of recommendations that will no doubt be forgotten about next week.

The report also claims to make “Britain the best country in the world to run an innovative business or public service.” Which is a bit of a mouthful plus it also sounds strangely familiar. As far as we remember the old DTI slogan was something like “to make Britain the best place in the World to do business,” well a fat lot of good that did.

In the last World Bank report “Doing Business 2007” the UK was sixth in top economies behind Singapore, New Zealand, The United States, Canada and Hong Kong, and at the time Caralee McLiesh, one of the report’s co-authors put the reason for the UKs failure to keep pace with global change, as

“The pick-up of reform in the UK has just not been the same as in many other countries,” she said.

So unless Gordon Brown follows up on his promises, and really does break down barriers it looks like we’ll be, about as successful at innovation regulation reform as we are at winning the Eurovision Song contest, ie bottom place with 14 points, while Eastern Europe streaks into the lead - Georgia was named the most successful reformer in the World Bank report rising to 37th place from 112th last year.

As I write, the wind and the rain is bashing against the window, yet another disgusting Bank Holiday! All I can think of is switching on the heating and watching TV, while reading the Sundays left over from yesterday, unfortunately the gloom and doom isn’t just outside, it’s also in the papers.

Oil prices are hitting new highs, so what’s the Government doing about it? Tinkering with taxes is the answer. On Friday the Federation of Small Business (FSB) called on the chancellor to scrap the planned 2p rise in fuel duty after oil prices hit a record high.

The AA accused market speculators of driving up the price of oil. “Oil prices have doubled since last year and this is not just due to strong demand from China and other nations,” said Edmund King, president of the AA.

Chris Hannant, head of policy at the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) , added that the high oil prices are pushing businesses to the ‘absolute edge’.

“Sending a positive message to business would make a huge difference, and the government should start by announcing that they are scrapping the 2p hike in fuel duty,” he said.

Tinkering with the prices and knocking off 2p, or 9p, or even 20p is not really going to make a huge difference. We just have to admit that that oil is running out and for the sake of the economy and business as we know it, we’re going to have to start finding some long-term alternatives that will replace oil. Oil underpins everything, it’s not only a means of heating our businesses, or producing electricity or transporting us from a-to-b, but it’s also the basic raw material for plastics and a million other things we use in everyday life.

The AA, BCC and FSB, should start thinking about the long-term and not just the next six months. The current oil prices are undoubtedly a bubble that will burst, and prices will reduce, however, in six months time when the prices are lower it would be good if the AA, BCC and FSB were harassing the Government just as much about long-term solutions to oil, as they are about cutting a few pence off the oil prices.

Image: Flickr

Rachel Elnaugh, one of the original Dragons, certainly seems to polarise opinion. Her fall from grace when her company Red Letter Days collapsed in 2005 saw the press unable to resist poking fun with headlines such as ‘Entrepreneurial guru goes belly up’.

The release of her book telling her version of how it all went wrong, ‘Business Nightmares’, has been met, in certain quarters, with similar derision. Jonathan Guthrie’s piece in the FT was probably the harshest, if best written.

I guess if you put yourself up to be shot at and make yourself a celebrity for criticising others’ ideas you’ve little room to complain about being machine-gunned down when it all goes wrong.

Should that really be the case, though? It’s certainly how celebrity works but all sections of business frequently preach about the need to change our attitudes to failure. In the same breath, there’s almost always a call to support more female entrepreneurs (note Peter Jones rarely gets pulled up for his previous failures).

Rachel’s business failed, but before it did it made handsome profits and generated significant wealth and employment.

As the book sets about telling, the downfall of the company and particularly the reaction from the media, people she felt she could trust in business and the banks, knocked her for six.

The whole process left her questioning her future as an entrepreneur. Indeed, her blog makes candid viewing of a rehabilitation that she’s seemingly still emerging from. Its popularity and the many messages of support she receives suggest she's certainly not alone.

Whatever your view of Rachel and her role in Red Letter Days' problems, her plight surely isn't a healthy reflection of how we view failure.

Some good news! The brilliantly-named Daisy’s Dog Deli has won a unique and really worthwhile competition to unearth the next generation of independent retail talent.

Lisa Gosling’s pet bakery business, which sells nutritious, freshly-baked dog treats using only natural ingredients, proved the pick of 22 finalists who were given the chance to try out their business idea at a busy shopping centre.

The competition run by Make Your Mark, RBS, The Bright Ideas Trust and The Mall was launched in a bid to unlock the UK’s enterprise potential and offer practical support to new retailers.

Daisy’s Dog Deli traded in The Mall Bexleyheath in February and fought off stiff competition to win six months' free trade in her local Mall, a business mentor from RBS, and a place at the prestigious Oxford Keble College Retail Summer School.

Lisa impressed customers and judges with her unique and innovative products, friendly staff and reasonable prices. Top selling treats included ‘Get Well Soon Muffins - low fat treat good for sensitive tummies and poorly pooches’; ‘Liver Brownie – hound heaven with organic eggs and garlic’ and ‘Cat Chasers – a low fat feline shaped cream cheese biscuit’.

“Dogs and food are my passion and I saw a gap in the ever expanding pet market for wholesome healthy treats and food and went for it,” said Lisa.

Tim Campbell, one of the judges and founder of The Bright Ideas Trust, added: “Lisa’s success over the competition period plus her obvious passion for her business made her a worthy winner.

“It is thrilling to imagine how the support from The Mall and RBS will transform her business from just being a local initiative to potentially a national brand. Lisa is living proof that hard work and a Bright Idea can get you anywhere!”

Well done to Lisa and kudos to the sponsors for trying something different and with real value to all the finalists.

Given the disastrous start to his tenure as chancellor, who can blame Alistair Darling for trying to build some bridges with business?

Clearly on the back foot at last night’s CBI dinner, he admitted "getting business tax right is not easy" and said “he’d listened carefully” to concerns over recent policy.

He also pledged to consult businesses on any further significant changes to taxes and would look to make cuts to ensure Britain doesn’t become the “fiscal fall guy” of the global economy.

"I also have to ensure that tax rates encourage investment by providing incentives to innovate and encourage growth," he added, before insisting once again that Britain was still a "good place to do business".

Darling pointed to the government’s new ‘forum of business experts’, which will meet to discuss company taxation, to back up his point.

Fair enough, I guess, but if it’s really going to ‘consult business’ shouldn’t it have at least one representative from small business instead of just ‘ten multinationals’? And why is the CBI (more big business), the only business group invited? How about the FSB, FPB? Heck, we'd even do it if it meant getting you lot a voice!

The Chancellor does know that SMEs make up 99.9% of all the companies he taxes and contribute over half of the UK's business turnover, doesn’t he? Just checking.

For all the good he’s achieved, Sir Bob Geldof still isn’t liked in some quarters. Perhaps it’s because he’s always got something to say. Perhaps it’s because in a society where we’re spoilt for choice in so many aspects of life, some people don’t take well to a scruffy man who swears a lot telling us what to do with our money.

Well Sir Bob didn’t say this during his speech at today’s NESTA Innovation Edge conference, but we’ll say it for him: Fuck them.

We’re assuming the reason Bob hasn’t stopped telling the world what he thinks about anything from poverty to climate change to politics is because he doesn’t care if people don’t agree with him.

He’s not scared to do what he thinks is right, even if he fails. He believes in change and doesn’t let the system, doubters or sneers deter him. He’s someone who’s acted on good ideas and made things happen. That’s because, more than anything, he’s an entrepreneur.

Geldof believes entrepreneurs lead change and that it’s their ideas and innovation that can find solutions to the world’s problems. However, he fears an increasingly risk-averse culture is stifling that creativity and endangering the UK's entrepreneurial streak.

”We so fear failure that nobody dares try anymore. But the essence of entrepreneurship is to try and fail, we need to celebrate the attempt of trying,” he said today.

"Let me tell you about the future, the future will have terrible wars, ones we can't afford, terrible academics - terrible economic crises. Everything is running out, we are running out of air, running out of land, running out of water.

”Never has innovation, new ideas, progress and entrepreneurship been more required than now. There are no options but to address this in a coherent way. We are desperate for ideas and frankly the political body doesn't give it to us anymore."

What price would you put on a mentoring session with Sir Philip Green? Matt Riley, chief executive of Daisy Communications says the experience has been more useful than an interest free £5m bank loan he landed for winning last year’s Entrepreneur Challenge.

After a day at Green’s Arcadia HQ, he said: “Yesterday was worth more than the loan, without a doubt. You just couldn’t buy it, could you?”

Riley’s no novice, though. Daisy is on course for a £250m turnover in the next 18 months having established itself as the UK’s main business telecoms competitor to BT within seven years. He’s made 16 acquisitions and impressively still holds 100% equity in the company.

However, Riley realises the value of learning from such an experienced entrepreneur as Green and picked up more than a few tricks: ”The thing that really impressed me was his reporting lines and his amazing management information. He has numbers at his fingertips. He was getting the morning’s sales figures at 12.15pm and that’s for every store.”

To his credit, Green is now pouring over Daisy’s reporting structures and KPIs to offer his advice. He’s also committed three more full days mentoring before the end of the year.

“I think Philip enjoys talking about his business,” says Riley. “A lot of people in that position enjoy sharing some of their knowledge and I think Philip feels it’s part of what he needs to do as an entrepreneur.” Read more on Riley’s day with Green in The Times.

Having experienced the benefit of mentoring firsthand, it's great to see from Daisy's website that Riley's helping others get access to the same support by backing The Prince's Trust UK Enterprise Challenge.

HRH The Prince of Wales, Chancellor Alistair Darling, BERR chief Baroness Shriti Vadera, Dragons Debra Meaden and James Caan, Cobra Beer boss Lord Karan Bilimoria, Carphone Warehouse’ s Charles Dunstone, Travelex founder Lloyd Dorfman and lots of other business bigwigs turned out yesterday to celebrate the 25th anniversary of The Prince’s Trust Business Programme.

It’s tempting to say their presence tells you all you need to know about the impact The Prince’s Trust continues to have. Except it doesn’t.

Its backers, ambassadors and mentors are crucial, but it’s the success of the 70,000 disadvantaged young people the Trust has helped since 1983 that tells the real story.

If you’ve received Prince’s Trust backing, within a year, you’re twice as likely to be self employed or four times less likely to be unemployed. Businesses supported by the Trust on average turnover three times more than those that aren’t, while each individual on average contributes £3,000 to the Exchequer, equating to £2 return on every £1 invested.

It’s not all about stats, either. Gina Moffatt is an ex-offender who's rebuilt her life after starting her florists business Blooming Scent with the help of The Prince’s Trust and mentoring sessions from James Caan. Her short speech yesterday spoke volumes:

“I was sentenced to six years in prison and didn’t know where my life was going, but with the help of The Prince’s Trust I’m here now running my own business. Instead of being unemployable and unable to lift my head with shame I can now look you and my family in the eyes because of what I’ve achieved through business.”

Yesterday wasn’t just about celebrating achievements, though. Research commissioned by the Trust shows there's a greater need for its work than ever before.

Only 6% of 16 to 30-year-olds start businesses despite two in five admitting they’d like to. Just 8% consider the UK as a global leader for enterprise, while two thirds believe only well-off people can afford to start a business and that today’s entrepreneurs are most likely to be white, middle-class, middle-aged men.

That’s pretty damning and very scary. The government announced yesterday it’ll provide £1m of funding over three years for the Prince’s Trust only to come under fire for no longer matching the investment it raises from the private sector pound-for-pound as was the case under the Tories.

If it’s looking to get business back-on-side and really committed to its pledge to create a globally competitive enterprise culture, then surely that’d be money well spent? £2 back for every £1 spent, sounds like a bargain!

Can you believe Enterprising Solutions, better known as ‘the national social enterprise award’, is 10 years old? Kinda rubbishes those short-sighted critics that think social enterprise is a business fad.

This year’s award, organised by The Social Enterprise Coalition and sponsored by RBS, was launched last night by Phil Hope, minister for the third sector, but it was two previous winners who stole the show.

The current holder of the award, Sophi Tranchell of Divine Chocolate, acknowledged the importance of an award that’s not just recognised the achievements of her business but actually initially inspired her: “Way before we won it, the award made us realise there’s a different way to do business.”

Inspiring others through the championing of social enterprises was also high on Liam Black’s agenda; the first winner of the award with then company Furniture Resource Centre and until recently a director at Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen Foundation.

“10 years ago the vocab wasn’t even formed, now young people know they can shape their lives within enterprise with a social purpose and that’s really powerful.

“It’s a time of massive opportunity and we’ve all a moral responsibility to use business for good. Continuing with business as usual will lead us to disaster. It’s important we use social enterprise to make positive changes to our world and the lives of our dispossessed people who need it so much.

”I hope in another 10 years it’s so much part of our mainstream we’re not even giving our awards for it.”

As a social enterprise ourselves, we couldn’t agree more.

For more information on the awards and how to enter, visit http://www.enterprisingsolutions.org/

Image: Flickr

Stand up Patrick Philpott, MD of SKILL!, a new initiative launching tomorrow to help London school students develop skills in enterprise, networking and communication skills.

SKILL!’s launch event will see 150 students gather on Wednesday 14th May for a day of interactive learning with an impressive line-up of entrepreneurs.

YO! Company founder and former Dragon Simon Woodroffe will share his experiences, while other participators include organiser of the World Entrepreneur Summit and presenter of C4’s ‘Vocation, Vocation, Vocation’ David McQueen, serial entrepreneur and co-founder of Make Your Mark with a Tenner Oli Barrett, and Ariadne Capital’s Julie Meyer.

The final speech of the day will come from Patrick himself – and why not?

After all, who better than an 18 year-old (yes, he’s still doing his A-levels) who’s already been mixing it with entrepreneurs for five years and in business for two, to deliver the message that enterprise is for everyone?

For more on SKILL! and tomorrow’s event, visit: http://skill-london.com/wb/

It’s National Breastfeeding Awareness Week 2008 – that’s 2008, not 1958.

A major part of this year’s campaign is focussed on businesses that still object to women breastfeeding on their premises, with cases of mums being publically humiliated, asked to leave cafes mid-meal or banished to the toilets.

Not nice, not fair and not very clever if you’d like those yummy mummies to remain customers. Indeed, a growing number of savvy entrepreneurs are making their premises Breastfeeding Friendly Places.

They agree to criteria such as providing comfortable seating, access to drinking water where possible and showing employee commitment to supporting breastfeeding and get to show a
Breastfeeding Friendly Places sticker in their window.

OK, breastfeeding isn’t everyone’s preferred spectator sport, but is it really offensive enough to turn away two generations of customers?

A new week, a new attack on the government. This time it’s former Pizza Express and Punch Taverns boss Hugh Osmond, delivering the blows.

He’s so disgruntled at the current UK tax system he’s thinking of relocating his financial services group Pearl Assurance overseas.

He says he’s already put plans in motion to move some of Pearl’s investment funds offshore and could also transfer its head office to a lower-tax locations, such as Dublin or Geneva.

Osmond, who is worth a reported £350m, says he’ll be off too unless the government reviews its tax policies.

“Serial entrepreneurialism is the best wealth-creator you can get. If you are an entrepreneur, you can be anywhere... Everyone in our office, everyone I speak to, is considering it,” he told The Times.

Osmond’s outburst comes on the back of a series of business sales last month which saw several entrepreneurs cash in ahead of the controversial rise in capital gains tax, while new charges on non-doms prompted several high-net individuals such as Doug Richard to threaten to leave the UK.

It’s not just entrepreneurs and investors, either. Yesterday drinks giant Diageo was forced to deny a strong City rumour it was planning to relocate to Dublin, while Shell, Investco and Experian have all revealed plans to take advantage of Ireland’s lower corporation tax.

Osmond’s closing words were ominous: "Any entrepreneur who has made more than ten million quid is looking at leaving.”

Ouch. Not what Messrs. Brown and Darling will have wanted to hear, especially when they’re getting it in the neck over taxing the UK’s lowest earners.

It’s a no brainer we need to keep our best talent and wealthiest investors but could it be a case that high net indviduals simply had it too good for too long? After all, capital gains was 40% under the Tories and their present regime is hardly queing up to offer tax cuts.

Alternatively, regardless of the wealth they’ve created should the super rich stay loyal to countries where they developed their fortunes? And will a surge of tax hurdling blue chips and investors simply lead to a unified European tax system unlikely to benefit anyone?

Questions, questions, questions and it’s only a Monday!

Image: Flickr

Budget brands are booming. It’s simple to understand why: if you’ve fewer pounds in your pocket you look to make them go further.

Primark recently announced a 25% rise in half-year profits to £899m, making it the UK’s second most popular clothes retailer with one in every £10 spent on its budget ranges.

Commentators are speculating it’s only matter of time before Primark usurps Marks & Spencer for top position. Across the pond, April sales figures for budget retailers Wal-Mart and Costco were up year-on-year, in stark contrast to the overall decline in consumer spending.

Assuming the trend continues, what will it mean for those retailers that can't compete with Primark prices?

Premium niche brands have swelled in more affluent stable economic times, but will be looking nervously over their shoulders wondering how far the premium pound will stretch.

Likewise, a back-to-basics, money-counts mentality will pose the first real challenge to the growth in ethical and green trading. Is there a breaking point where price defeats ethics?

On the flipside, retailers which have firmly differentiated themselves and established loyal customer bases could actually be more secure than mid-range mainstream retailers most likely to see customers jump one way or the other.

Tatler editor Jane Procter puts it brilliantly: "It's either Prada or Primark. I don't see the point of shopping anywhere in between."

The danger is companies whose models can't support budget prices try to compete where they can't. If that's you, sticking to your guns (and USPs) could be the smarter move.

Image: flickr

We’ve just seen Office Angels boss David Clubb spouting off about the dangers of remote working.

According to research by his firm, staff are putting in an extra 20 days a year since the introduction of remote email devices such as BlackBerrys and growing acceptance of homeworking.

And this is a bad thing?! According to David it is: “It’s important to maintain work-life balance and keep work in perspective. Occasionally we all need to work outside of normal hours, but this should really be the exception not the rule.”

David, David, David… what are you thinking? How about we examine the upside?

How about the flexibility remote working offers to employees? How about the time saved in travelling to and from overpriced office space? What about the extra service companies can provide consumers and clients by offering out-of-hour and off-site assistance?

Has David not considered the savings and extra revenues this generates powers business growth and so employment?

And besides, doesn’t a BlackBerry have an off button? Is it an unthinkable notion that people might actually enjoy working or having the freedom to clear minutiae on the way into the office?

Today David, you’re not our angel.

Image: flickr

Samuel Johnson’s quote ‘self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings’ came to mind at yesterday’s Microsoft Innovation Day.

Research commissioned by Microsoft for the event drew some surprise conclusions about the obstacles holding back more budding entrepreneurs and innovators from actually taking the plunge.

Surprisingly, especially 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.

If the figures are to be believed they suggest there’s a whole host of entrepreneurs out there with great ideas and the access to the money to fund them, not doing anything about it - that's criminal!

The Global Economic Monitor stats released earlier this year showed a lower percentage of Brits were starting-up compared to many developing countries such as China, while the government white paper 'Innovation Nation', called for a greater need to encourage innovation through enterprise and collaborative support from both the public and private sectors.

Gordon Frazer, Microsoft MD, put it far simpler: “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’s right. Tax, red tape and lack of finance discourage, frustrate and hold back entrepreneurs, but do they actually stop them? In most cases, thankfully not. So what’s left? It has to be a cultural complex that it’s just ‘too difficult’ to start-up in the UK - and that’s where the US remains streets ahead.

As a nation when will we start SHOUTING about small business success instead of simply patting it on the head and running straight back to the City? Flick over the BBC business news, today's FT or take another look at the Budget, and you won't find much to suggest it's anytime soon.

Microsoft has finally lost patience with Yahoo’s refusal to play ball and abandoned its hostile takeover bid launched three months ago.

Microsoft’s Steve Bullmer insisted a deal no longer “makes sense” for the interests of the company’s shareholders, having upped its original $44.6bn bid to $47.5bn (£24.1bn) - $33 per share - only for Yahoo to demand at least $53bn or $37 per share.

Yahoo!’s shares plunged 20% in New York on Friday and 12% in Frankfurt putting pressure on CEO Jerry Yang to reveal what he plans to do next.

Despite insisting Microsoft’s bid has been nothing but “a distraction”, the fact Yahoo has pursued strategic alliances with Google, AOL and MySpace suggests ‘business as usual’ isn’t really a long term option.

Should Yang pull off a deal which sees Yahoo shareholders appeased and the company’s future re-strengthened, the decision to stand firm in the face of Microsoft’s hostile approach could be heralded as one of the boldest business decisions of all time.

After all, Yahoo might not be the power it once was but for search alone it’s still No.2 and regardless of its need for cash that gives it a firm position to negotiate from.

However, should a deal not be struck elsewhere and shares continue to tumble you can’t help but think, no matter what Steve Bullmer says now, Microsoft will be back to pick up the pieces at a far lower price.

Yang’s decision might not look so wise then. Be interesting to see this one pans out, but at the moment it seems to be Yang taking the all the risks and Bullmer who's able to bide his time with shareholder support intact.

Image: flickr.com

The ruffled blonde mop, ramshackle attire, Eton upbringing and hatred of the Kengestion charge grabbed the headlines and Londoners’ votes, but whether it had any influence on his successful election or not, Boris Johnson’s manifesto actually contained several strong pledges to business.

In a document titled ‘Backing London Business’ Boris made the following pledge:

To cut crime costing London businesses £1.4bn each year
Hold biannual summits with representatives from across London’s business communities
Meet the Federation of Small Businesses fortnightly to gauge business opinion
Review the London Development Agency’s enterprise activity to ensure that London’s businesses and communities are getting the support they need
Make it easier for businesses to work with the London 2012 Organising Committee and Olympic Delivery Authority
Make London an attractive place to do business (a little light on detail, this one!)
Encourage planners to use section 106 to secure affordable premises for small businesses
Scrap the £25 Congestion Charge which would cost London’s businesses thousands of pounds a year
Help all businesses avoid congestion charge fines by allowing them to pay by account.
Provide more training for businesses and for a better skilled London workforce
Champion and support London’s 2011 WorldSkills Competition

In his victory speech, Boris insisted he was determined to ‘get straight down to business’. It’ll be interesting to see just how literally he means that…

And no matter how much David Cameron might look to distance himself from any negative publicity, Boris’ tenure provides an early insight into just how far a Conservative government would really go for business.

Over to you, Boris.

The Daily Telegraph splashed yesterday with a front cover of ‘English not first language for 800,000 children’.

Almost 500,000 primary school children and 350,000 secondary school pupils have English as a second language, detailed the story before dissected the various ramifications for society.

Now we’re quite happy to leave the Telegraph to it, but the figures got us thinking for different reasons. Over 800,000 is twice the size of Manchester… and what about the parents?

If your business targets the youth market, are you speaking their language?! Can many of the skilled immigrants entering the UK understand your job ads? You could be missing out.

No wonder translation services such as Applied Language Solutions, the award-winning, highly profitable business the Dragons let get away, have made such rich trade over the past few years.

‘Northerners are more successful entrepreneurs than southerners’, is a story quite a few of the press picked up today.

It stemmed from a report by Hull University and Cranfield School of Management, which used employee numbers to assert that despite there being fewer self-employed individuals in the North (17% of men, 8% of women) than the South (23% of men, 11% of women), northerners were proving more successful at growing businesses.

Northern men employed 3.53 people on average, compared with 2.65 in the South, while northern women created an average of 3.48 compared to 3.08.

The findings, the report identified, were at odds with accepted characteristics of a North-South divide where the South enjoys stronger economic performance, lower unemployment and higher gross domestic product per capita.

Not wishing to take anything away from the entrepreneurial spirit of the North, but what does this actually prove? Putting to one side the dubious value of studying employee numbers alone, deeper delving of the data revealed London’s self-employed women actually led the way creating an average of 7.82 jobs.

Perhaps a victory for the North held more PR pull on a day the ‘Ken v Boris’ battle dominated local election coverage across the national media?

The report’s not without its merits, though. Whether it forms a North-South divide or not, it’s clear business activity differs by region and that’s likely to be for a whole host of reasons. Demographic make-up, traditional sector focus, employment opportunities, education, skills of the region’s workforce, the locale of tech or bio clusters and university spin-outs etc will all play their part.

If anything is clear then, it’s that effective support – be that public or private sector – needs to be localised and focused on each region’s needs. Midlands' businesses will require different support to Cornish firms which differ greatly to Oxford start-ups, for instance.

North-South is too simplistic and defeats the purpose the report was, we’re assuming, originally meant to serve. Nice headline, though...

There’s no mistaking green business is now big business. Consumer demand for environmental and ethical choice has companies queuing up to profess their green credentials – and cash in on the green pound.

Essentially that’s a good thing, right? After all, who could have imagined just five years ago that Tesco would pledge £500m to reduce its carbon emissions or Marks & Spencer set targets to cut emissions by 80% and become carbon neutral inside five years at a cost of £200m?

That’s really walking the talk. Shame other brands continue to just talk.

Not that the consumer is falling for it. The Advertising Standards Authority revealed today complaints about ‘green’ ads considered misleading or ‘greenwashing’ more than doubled in 2007. Ads by Toyota, Ryanair and Shell were held up as examples of bad practice by being more than economical with eco.

Shell’s ad above was ruled misleading because 'it implied Shell used at least the majority of their waste CO2 to grow flowers, whereas the actual amount was a very small proportion when compared to its global activities'. You get the picture.

In fairness to Shell, it is sponsoring the UK Business Council for Sustainable Energy’s Sustainable UK Cities Tour aimed at helping local businesses secure green public sector tenders.

Research by Shell estimates the market for businesses tackling climate change at a whopping £2.8bn - which may well explain the over eagerness of its marketing, but also emphasises the massive potential to be exploited by genuinely green offerings.