Votes in Confidence
Britain is missing out on a generation of start-ups because of low financial confidence
This week, Xero published a paper as part of their Financial Confidence Taskforce, which I was delighted to chair. It argues that Britain is missing out on a generation of startups because many would-be entrepreneurs lack financial literacy. The paper is intended to feed directly into the Government’s Maple Review.
As was reported by the Daily Mail, nearly two in five small business owners say they do not know whether they were profitable last month, with more than half struggling with cash flow management. Younger entrepreneurs were most doubtful of their financial management skills and knowledge, with 35% of 18–34 year-olds agreeing that they lack the financial skills needed to manage their business.
The report reflects the collective views of the expert Taskforce and is well worth reading in full, but I want to focus on a couple of themes close to my heart.
The first is bureaucracy. As the paper makes clear, complexity does not just impose administrative costs; it actively erodes confidence. Simplifying tax and regulation should therefore be seen not only as a deregulatory exercise, but as a confidence-building intervention for Britain’s entrepreneurs.
If I were in a position of power in a Government looking for a way to make a meaningful difference — while also winning the sizeable small business vote — I would promise to go some way to dismantling the bureaucratic state. As I’ve written before, this is possible.
That said, the paper also makes clear that there are ways to support business owners even within the current levels of bureaucracy.
Crucially, confidence is not a function of information alone; it is built through repeated practice in realistic settings. This brings us back to education. Our What Applied Learning Really Looks Like report with Young Enterprise argues that abstract teaching disengages pupils when they cannot see real-world relevance, and that confidence and capability emerge only when learning is applied in realistic contexts. There is a clear through-line from applied learning in childhood to entrepreneurial confidence in adulthood. Schools should embed financial and commercial reasoning early, before attitudes towards money, risk and work become fixed.
However, there will always be those for whom schooling does not provide these skills, which means we need to ensure that support is available later on. Xero’s Unlock Your Numbers programme is one example. But I would be keen to hear about other resources you think are essential. We will soon launch a carefully curated hub of places and people where entrepreneurs in our network can get help, and so might end up recommending your suggested resources to thousands of founders. Do drop me an email.
Every Ounce
In the latest instalment of our UK AI Fieldbook series, our Research Director Eamonn Ives spoke with Benedikt Thüngen, Co-Founder of Sanome, about how AI is helping clinicians avert medical crises before they arise.
In An Ounce of Prediction, which I recommend reading in full, the pair explore how AI could enable clinicians to identify serious health deterioration earlier — shifting healthcare from reactive treatment to preventative intervention — while also unpacking the practical, regulatory and policy challenges of scaling this kind of innovation within the NHS.
These interviews matter because they sit at the intersection of policy and entrepreneurial experience. They give founders space to explain their innovations in a level of detail rarely afforded elsewhere, while also surfacing the real-world constraints they face to help policymakers understand what is actually happening on the ground.
We are grateful to OpenAI for their support of the UK AI Fieldbook series. We are keen to expand it into other sectors and themes, so if you work for an organisation interested in supporting in-depth interviews of this kind, please get in touch.
Right Place
We believe in experimentation, which is why we are trialling two new event formats.
First, on 29 January, we will host a day of co-working for around 20 tech entrepreneurs at Fora: The Jellicoe. The day will begin with a 10am meetup, coffee and short introductions, but the intention is to allow serendipity to take the lead as participants work there for the day.
While this pilot is focused on tech entrepreneurs with employees, we plan to run similar sessions with different cohorts over the course of the year. Request a place here.
Second, on 24 February we’ll host an audience with the Rt Hon Jeremy Hunt MP. There will be space for around 40 of our Patrons, Advisers and Supporters (join us here). Unlike a fireside chat where the chair gets to dominate, the bulk of the questions here will come directly from the great and the good in attendance.
You can submit your questions for Jeremy when you apply. Given he’s a successfully exited entrepreneur, I expect a few to cover business as well as politics. Request a place here.
Our Next Events
Ecosystem Builders: IDEALondon
🗓 Wednesday, 21 January 2026
🕐 9am to 10.30am
📍 Shoreditch
ℹ️ Join us for an informal morning meetup at IDEALondon for Ecosystem Builders
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Female Founders Forum Parliamentary Report
🗓 Tuesday, 27 January 2026
🕐 3.30pm to 5pm
📍 House of Lords
ℹ️ The Entrepreneurs Network and Barclays are hosting a reception in the House of Lords bringing together founders, investors and supporters to launch the new Female Founders Forum report on female-led university spinouts
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Fora Tech Founders’ Coworking Day
🗓 Thursday, 29 January 2026
🕐 9am to 5pm
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ℹ️ Join us for a relaxed day of coworking and connection at The Jellicoe, bringing founders together to work side by side, share insights and network from morning coffee through the afternoon
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An Audience with the Rt Hon Jeremy Hunt MP
🗓 Tuesday, 24 February 2026
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News and Views
We published the latest instalment in our Three Big Ideas series
Better than expected growth figures for the three months to November 2025 were released
Government plans to force businesses to check digital IDs before hiring new staff were scaled back (Paywall – The Times)
Slashing red tape for innovative robotics and defence firms was added as two new priorities for the Government’s Regulatory Innovation Office
Dan Martin takes the pulse of business owners north of the border following the unveiling of the Scottish Government’s new budget
“[T]hose who warned of the Square Mile’s demise outside the European Union have been proven quite wrong,” argues Christian May
Despite rising unemployment figures, “the UK economy is in decent if unspectacular shape, which ought to be reassuring to companies heavily exposed to it,” writes Nicholas Megaw (Paywall – Financial Times)
Enterprise Nation released the 2026 edition of their StartUp Ambition report, which finds that 41% of adults in the UK are considering launching their own business or side hustle this year
Sam Dumitriu looks into whether energy bills will come down any time soon for consumers
FORM Ventures rate how their predictions for 2025 went, while making a few more for the year ahead
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Friends of the Network
Enterprise Fellowships Introductory Webinar for Graduate Startups
🗓 Friday, 23 January 2026; Wednesday, 11 February 2026
🕐 1pm to 2pm (23 January); 9am to 10am (11 February)
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ℹ️ The Enterprise Fellowship programme provides £50,000 equity free funding, training and support from the Royal Academy of Engineering
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Practical AI: Home Sensing to Support Safer Independent Living
🗓 Thursday, 29 January 2026
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ℹ️ Hear from Medway Council, Circadacare and Kyndi about their partnership to bring person-led assistive technology into homes to support safer independent living
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ℹ️ Small Business Britain will deliver aiming to help grow small businesses with expert guidance and mentoring in partnership with Xero & ARU Peterborough
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Best wishes,
Philip
Philip Salter
Founder
The Entrepreneurs Network
The connection between bureaucratic complexity and eroded confidence is spot on. When tax/regulation becomes a maze, people stop seeing themselves as capable of navigating it, which filters out exactly the kind of scrappy problem-solvers who'd make great founders. The applied learning angle is where this gets interesting tho, back in university I watched classmates who could solve abstract finance problems freeze when asked to do basic cash flow projections. Knowldge doesn't convert to confidence without practice in realistic stakes.