Interview


Liverpool’s Micro Businesses By Ian Scott T


he Liverpool region has thousands of little businesses each employing less than


nine people. They are called micro businesses and we buy from them every day. From hairdressers to fashion shops, cafes and plumbers, IT firms and developers then on to technicians, the list appears endless. Every business is uniquely different in some ways, yet very similar in others.


Each one began with a founder, an entrepreneur, a person who took a chance on success, yet


their start


up efforts and the businesses they run are sometimes unappreciated or dismissed as being too small to matter.


Distinct regional plans for growth presume, amongst other things, that certain parts of our economy, such as the creative and digital sectors, have better prospects for growth than other sectors. The plans propose that young people, graduate entrepreneurs and certain deprived founders will be awarded priority support for their enterprises.


Plainly, it is not “who or what people are” that is economically important, it is “what people do” that is economically important.


42 entrepreneurcountry


To be or to do? that is the question to be asked and answered.


Founders doing ordinary things, opening new shops, setting up new local services and businesses, are the most effective in creating new jobs and aiding our economic recovery, and neither university ‘spin outs’ nor creative/digital sector enterprises are currently as effective. Further, broad assumptions that


universities are


places to invest in and thereby enable technology development, have proven unfounded and ‘inappropriate.’


In fact, innovative technology by itself is no longer sufficient to deliver all that is needed. Times, needs and wants have subtly changed. What is needed is a better understanding of ordinariness, the unlocking of hidden value and the delivery of ordinary things in better ways. Most of the businesses who can change things and deliver upon those needs are little companies, those whose role and economic contribution has been grossly underestimated. Some ordinary entrepreneurs can also become extraordinary entrepreneurs.


Recent recommendations to Parliament have urged Government “to engage with others who will invest


in creating stable employment and generate new goods and services that the population needs at prices that the population can afford”.


Delivery will arguably only come about through the continued commitment, wide ranging ideas and different markets of our several million existing micro business founders, particularly in the Liverpool region. I only hope that the efforts of prospective founders and the continued emergence of those with passion and latent entrepreneurial spirit through these small companies are applauded and recognised.


In sheer numbers, micro businesses are infinitely more representative of “entrepreneurship” than entrepreneurs in any other category. Understanding micro businesses is critical for policymakers, for only their knowledge and comprehensive understanding of them can help deliver the job creation,wealth creation and social progress sought. Nascent entrepreneurs and micro businesses must be effectively recognised by our private sector led enterprise partnership, for they are simply too important to ignore.


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