Britain must do far more to support its entrepreneurs if it wants to produce the next generation of world-leading companies, according to Sir Richard Branson.
Writing in a national publication, Branson said the country needs to go beyond celebrating individual success stories and champion anyone willing to start a business.
He recalled that when he began his entrepreneurial journey more than 50 years ago, hardly anyone in Britain even used the word “entrepreneur.”
“There were really only two of us in Britain,” Branson wrote, citing Anita Roddick, who founded The Body Shop, as a fellow pioneer of the era.
He argued that entrepreneurs are simply creative people who come up with ideas to improve lives, and that success or failure usually follows from whether the idea genuinely does so.
Branson acknowledged that entrepreneurship is inherently risky, saying it is “really tough trying to build a business from scratch,” with many growing pains along the way.
He stressed the importance of building an economic environment where innovators with imagination can be helped to survive and thrive, rather than left to struggle alone.
London, he said, has always been a city brimming with possibility, fuelled by its diversity, creativity and willingness to embrace new ideas, a spirit that inspired Virgin’s first record shop on Oxford Street in the 1970s.
However, new research from Virgin StartUp, the philanthropic organisation that supports thousands of UK founders, found that a majority of entrepreneurs are worried their projects may not survive the next 12 months.
An even larger majority of those surveyed said they do not believe Westminster listens to their concerns, a finding Branson described as something that “cannot be ignored.”
He called for the gap between those who fail and those who succeed to be widened so that the majority of people starting businesses are ultimately successful.
Branson pointed to encouraging signs in wider society, noting that when Virgin StartUp asked 1,000 British parents about their hopes for their children, 85 per cent said they would support their child in starting a business.
A majority of those parents said they were already fostering an entrepreneurial spirit in their children at home, a trend Branson welcomed warmly.
He credited his own entrepreneurial mindset to his parents, who encouraged his curiosity from a young age, whether he was selling Christmas trees at nine, breeding budgies at ten, or launching a national student magazine at fifteen.
Branson concluded with a clear ambition: “We must give every founder the best chance to flourish, so the future Virgins, Microsofts and Googles of the world are also built by British entrepreneurs.”