PROFESSOR DYLAN JONES-EVANS

Earlier this week, I chaired the final judging panels for the 2022 National Startup of the Year awards. Comprising of over 100 entrepreneurs and business supporters who had given their time to support the recognition of the best new businesses in the UK, it was a difficult process given the quality of so many of the entries. Having initially started the Wales Start-up Awards back in 2016 as a way of celebrating the best new Welsh businesses, I took what seems like a crazy decision last year to extend them to every region and nation of the UK.  Fortunately, I haven’t had to do this myself after partnering with Cardiff-based Ideas Forums, who organise the Great British Entrepreneur Awards, to manage the expansion across the nation.  Despite the hard work, it is has been an amazing journey with over 2,500 entries being whittled down to 900 finalists that have a collective turnover of £300 million and are employing over 5000 people across the UK.  Reading those stories of ent...

Earlier this week, the judging for the 2020 Wales Start-Up Awards was completed. As a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, the normal face-to-face interviews with the finalists did not take place. Instead, all of those shortlisted had to produce a short ten minute video about how they had set up their business, the challenges they faced and plans for the future.  Whilst it was something we would never have contemplated previously, the concept worked brilliantly well and enabled those entrepreneurs who had spotted the opportunity and taken the risk to turn an idea into a business to show how they had done that in their own way. What was even more interesting was that out of 108 finalists that were competing across 26 categories, none had actually closed down and only a couple had stopped their operations during the Covid pandemic.  In fact, the vast majority had thrived during this period despite some considerable challenges with a number having to pivot into new products, services...

The Centre for Entrepreneurs (CFE) thinktank recently published their 2019 Business Start-Up index dataset which was produced using the Companies House register of live UK limited companies.  According to the index, a record 681,704 new business formations took place across the UK in 2019, a 2.8% increase on the previous year.  With the growth of tech firms being a particular focus for policymakers, it is worth noting that over 45,000 tech startups were launched across the UK in 2019, representing 6.6% of all new businesses. Not surprisingly, 17,401 of these were registered in London with other hotspots being Bournemouth, Brighton, Winchester and Cambridge. In Wales, there were 17,758 new businesses created in 2019 (or 2.6% of the UK total) which represented an increase of only 0.4% on the previous year and the lowest growth of any part of the UK apart from the North West of England. Of these, 4.3% were tech start-ups with the highest proportion to be found along the M4 corrid...

With just over two weeks to go, it must be the time to again watch one of the best Christmas movies ever made, namely “It’s a Wonderful Life”. Starring James Stewart and Donna Reid, this 1946 film is the story of George Bailey, a man who gives up his dreams of building skyscrapers and exploring the world for the good of his small town of Bedford Falls. The film starts on Christmas Eve when George is contemplating taking his own life after an $8000 loan is misplaced and he and his family are threatened with jail and ruin. As George stands on a bridge ready to jump, Clarence – his guardian angel – falls to earth to show him what life would have been like if he had never been born. The story of George’s journey is one that has held audiences spellbound down the years as he goes from falling in love with his future wife by promising to throw a lasso around the moon to pull it down, to the despair that he can only save his family from ruin by killing himself to get the life insur...

A question which is I am regularly asked is how entrepreneurs develop their innovative ideas for starting a business? Whether the idea is original, borrowed, or bought, the idea is the heart of any                              business through all stages if its life. If there's no idea, there's no business. An entrepreneur can come up with a number of ideas for a new business based just on their own experiences. These will include skills (such as being good with your hands), hobbies (gardening) or interests (cooking). These could lead to business ideas such as craft workshops, gardening centres or even owning their own restaurant. However, more often than, it is their own personal experiences and work which help generate ideas. Ideas are also often based on experiences in the workplace. In fact, it has been estimated that 90 per cent of all new high-potential businesses are founded in industries that ar...

One of my most enjoyable roles in business is as a trustee of PRIME Cymru, the Prince’s Initiative for Mature Enterprise in Wales. This is the only organisation in Wales dedicated to providing practical support to people aged 50 and over who want to become (and remain) economically active. PRIME Cymru was founded by HRH The Prince of Wales fifteen years ago in response to letters he had received from many people saying that they felt that after the age of 50 they were on the scrapheap and they had faced insurmountable problems in securing paid employment because of their age. Indeed, economic activity amongst the over 50s is a critical problem in Wales with nearly a quarter of a million people not working (or 38 per cent of the total number of people in this age group). That is why the work of PRIME Cymru is so important and through its staff, trained mentors and associates, the organisation provides clients throughout Wales with free tailored one to one support whether they ...

Last week, the latest data was published on the number of new businesses being created in Wales and showed that there were 8,270 enterprise births during 2012. As a proportion of all Welsh businesses, this equates to a birthrate of 9.4 per cent as compared to a UK birth rate of 11.4 per cent. Only Northern Ireland was ranked lower out of the twelve UK regions. Whilst there is a growing commitment by the Welsh Government towards developing greater entrepreneurship across Wales, there remain considerable challenges in ensuring that more people start their own businesses, especially in high growth sectors. Therefore, should we be looking elsewhere for inspiration? As a regular visitor to Singapore in recent years, I have become aware that the government of this small island economy has, for the past decade, been promoting entrepreneurship as a viable career choice and cultivating an enterprising mindset among its citizens. More relevantly, much of this entrepreneurial focus ...