Be brave, ex-Dragon Linney urges entrepreneurs

FORMER Dragon and founder of Manchester cloud computing firm Outsourcery Piers Linney has urged budding entrepreneurs not be afraid of failure.

The 44-year-old businessman was addressing attendees at the national launch of Global Entrepreneurship Week at the Barclays’ Rise hub on Deansgate in Manchester.

“Don’t be afraid of getting out there, making a difference and making it happen,” he said in his keynote speech.

“A job for life does not exist any more. Entrepreneurship is now a real option for everyone. My advice it at least give it a go for once in your life. Our economy depends on it because entrepreneurs built it.”

Linney – a self-confessed history enthusiast – said the business world was currently undergoing a “third industrial revolution”.

“The internet and software development is changing our world,” he said. “It is an enormous change that we are right in the midst of and there are huge opportunities and it should not be under-estimated.”

Minister of State for Small Business, Industry and Entrprise Anna Soubry, meanwhile, promised to cut red tape for companies.

“For example, one of the things that hacks me off is that it takes so much time and effort to open an account,” she said. “We are looking at ways that time can be reduced.”

She also pledged the Government would do more to make sure access to superfast broadband was quickened up for business.

“It’s outrageous that people are struggling to get access to high speed access,” he said. “It’s a huge challenge that we’ve got to sort out.”

She also said banks were providing better services is small businesses and there were other ways of funding, like peer-to-peer funding, crowdfunding and angel finance and the ‘fin-tech’ – financial technology – sector was also growing rapidly.

“I’ve been inspired by the number of people I have met who are entrepreneurs who have started their own businesses – people not frightened to reach for the stars. My jhob is to make sure we get the climate and framework right.”

Michael Hartig, who lead the Barclays Corporate Banking teams across the North West and North Wales, said emphasised that the theme of Global Entrepreneurs Week was to “make it happen”.

He said Manchester was an appropriate location for the launch of the event because it was the birthplace inventions and innovations.

“There is the invention of Graphene and  the building of the National Graphene Institute just down the road, which is just one example,” he said. “There really is an eco-system here of people who want to do business.

“There is MediaCityUK in Salford and the area has some truly world class universities, but more importantly there is a thriving business community.
“This City Region is trying to reinvent the way we do things and if you’re at the forefront of setting up a business this a great place to be.”