Need for Speed
Four reforms to upgrade Britain's startup support
This week started a day early for us, with Hannah Prevett in The Sunday Times kicking off a flurry of media coverage for Full Speed Ahead, our latest report that probes how Britain can upgrade its network of startup support programmes.
As our Patron, Steve Rigby, writes in his foreword for the report:
“The problem is not a lack of public money. Each year, local and central government backs hundreds of incubators, accelerators and regional growth hubs. What is missing is coherence. Too much funding is awarded on short grant cycles with scant evaluation, leading to a long tail of well-intentioned but underperforming programmes.”
We conclude the report with four requests. First, the creation of a taxonomy and accreditation scheme for support programmes, tying public funding eligibility to minimum standards. Second, the adoption of a dual-track assessment that captures both company performance and entrepreneurs’ development.
Third, we’d like to see short-term grants replaced with 3-5 year outcome-linked support plus rolling reviews and bridging finance. And fourth, we’d like to see demand-led funding vouchers piloted, redeemable with accredited providers.
In essence, we want to put the interests of the founder front and centre. As Anastasia argues over on our Substack, the way we measure success is central to this:
“As impressive as charts showing ‘total investment raised by alumni’ may look, they only reveal which companies were visible at the end, not whether the support system helped people progress as individual entrepreneurs. Founders often move through multiple programmes, so attribution blurs and long-term capability building disappears from view. Adding the entrepreneur as an additional unit of analysis and tracking progression over time – skills gained, roles taken, ventures started or joined – and linking those trajectories back to the support they used, would shed more light on what works.”
This is how entrepreneurial ecosystems learn and improve:
“It then becomes easier to check how the funnel is behaving: are enough founders with the right competencies emerging at pre-seed? Are they progressing to seed and Series A on schedule? Where are they stalling? What kind of intervention helps them move again? Getting clarity on questions like these would be invaluable for a better understanding of progression, and enable adjustments to support accordingly.”
But here, we should tread carefully. As Goodhart's Law and Campbell’s Law remind us: “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.” In other words, if we focus too narrowly on metrics like investment raised or survival rates as proxies for impact, we risk distorting behaviours and overlooking what really matters: long-term entrepreneurial development.
While the media coverage is welcome, we’ve been overwhelmed with the support and insightful reflections from the business support community in the UK and across the world. For those wanting to take part in the debate, I’ll point you in the direction of the many comments on my LinkedIn post, the post and article by Rachel Stockey of King’s College London, as well as Steve’s post.
While we obviously take responsibility for the policy, the ideas came about from deep engagement with those on the frontline. Whether that’s Jonathon Clark of Capital Enterprise, Hamish McAlpine and Fabio Bianchi of Oxentia, Neil Marshall of Change School, Chris Fellingham of Kindling Ventures, David Herbada of Zinc Ventures, Steve Aicheler of Enterprise Educators UK, Laura Bennett of the Enterprise Hub at the Royal Academy of Engineering, Tom Forth of The Data City, independent adviser Jamie Clyde, James Phipps of the Innovation Growth Lab, Gareth Jones of Townsq, as well as the many more we’ve spoken with over recent months.
The Government should take the reaction to our report as a strong signal that this is an area of policy that is ripe for reform. Ours isn’t the first or last word on this, but with your help, it looks likely to be the catalyst for change.
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News and Views
Britain and India finally inked a trade agreement, which will see tariffs on UK exports fall from an average of 15% to 3%
Dan Neidle explains why wealth taxes are doomed to fail
Steve Bates OBE was unveiled as the new Executive Chair of the Office for Life Sciences
An agreement between OpenAI and the Government was reached, which will seek to use artificial intelligence to improve public sector productivity
Research from the Public Accounts Committee said that more progress is required from UKRI if Britain is to remain an innovation leader
Rachel Reeves has made the strongest indication yet that she has no plans to introduce a wealth tax (Paywall – The Times)
Meanwhile, City A.M. reported that if wealth taxes are off the table, ‘exit taxes’ could be looked at instead
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Best wishes,
Philip
Philip Salter
Founder
The Entrepreneurs Network