StartUp Britain

Introduction to StartUp Britain by Emma Jones

We’re really delighted to get involved with is4profit’s Get Britain Growing campaign. As a national campaign ourselves, we know that it’s the free-flow of information, support and experience that will make the difference to the British economy.
Since the launch of StartUp Britain in 2011, we have seen record numbers of people starting businesses in the UK. Our mission for 2013 is to get even more people thinking about starting a business – we’d like to see the numbers going above the 500,000 mark this year.
In his Enterprise Report in 2012, the Government’s Enterprise Adviser Lord Young calculated that if the UK were as entrepreneurial as the US, we’d have 900K more start-ups here. We’ve got a lot of catching up to do, but we’re making progress!
The statistic that 50 per cent of people would like to start a business but only five per cent do anything about it was one of the reasons we’re here. Technology means starting-up is within the grasp of more and more people. You no longer need a filing cabinet and a waste paper basket to run a business. More than 60 per cent of businesses are now started at home with a laptop and a phone.
We have a very loyal and enthusiastic following at StartUp Britain. Often people check into every single one of our free events throughout the year. Because we can attract some excellent speakers and the content is so relevant to every small business.
We’ve recently developed a retail arm of the campaign, prompted by the opportunity created by the increasing number of empty shops. We offer six small businesses the chance to co-work from a shop together for two weeks at a time in our PopUp Britain shops.
Everything we do is made possible by funding from our sponsors – Intuit, BT, Dell, PayPal, Intel and Viking and we are working further to encourage more BIG companies to get involved with helping SMALL.
The way we work is changing. We need to be ready for the opportunities that will bring.

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See also About StartUp Britain and read about StartUp Britain’s founders.