250,000 small businesses supported: it takes an army

This week Enterprise Nation reached a milestone of supporting a quarter of a million small businesses since 1st January 2020. A total of 269,477 small businesses have visited the platform to access support in the past 7 months.

Our aim in 2020 was to support this number of businesses across the entire year. But a global crisis means small businesses need support more than ever.

With questions on access to cash, future trading viability, and how to do more online, founders flocked to the site to activate a support package. Our job in the past four months has been to connect small businesses to practical advice and resource, but also hopefully offer friendly companionship at a time when the community has faced such a challenge.

This milestone could not have been met without the support of a cast of many. Here’s who really stepped up to help when small businesses needed it most:

• Large corporates: Salesforce contacted us in March with a desire to distribute cash grants to small firms. Thanks to them, we’ve been able to distribute greatly needed funds to businesses in all parts of the UK. Amazon has been a close partner for years and wanted to act in response to a demand we were hearing from small businesses on ‘how to do more online’ – the result is the Amazon Small Business Accelerator which will support 200,000 small businesses in the next 12 months. Existing campaigns launched in January with backing from brands including UPS, Facebook, Xero, O2, TSB, Dell and Mercedes rapidly pivoted online to support ever increasing traffic volumes.
• Government: as well as doing a considerable job in handing out cash, government wanted to ensure small businesses got access to support to deal with immediate questions on finance/HR/sales/tech etc. This thinking delivered the Recovery Advice for Business programme which sees businesses connected to advisers for free advice calls. The programme is supported by BEIS (the government’s business department) and has seen professional bodies including ICAEW, The Law Society, Ad Association and CIPD get involved through encouraging their members to offer the advice. 
• Advisers: a separate shout-out to the thousands of existing advisers on the Enterprise Nation platform who have shared their expertise via events, posts, videos, zooms and calls. We salute you.
• Local leaders: a national network of 30 passionate small business champions have committed time and energy each month to host local meet-ups which, for many attendees, has been opportunity to share feelings and hopefully become emboldened that others are feeling the same.
• ALLEN! This is the abbreviation I use for the team that powers the company. We may not have been in the same office for months but this team of which I’m so proud has worked at full pace and passion to deliver on the job in hand. Thank you, ALLEN – you’ve been amazing.

This post, of course, doesn’t capture everyone and everything. There have been local councils, enterprise agencies, Growth Hubs and many other large corporates who have responded fast, but above is representation of those with whom we have worked most closely at Enterprise Nation.

There is still much to do. We may have supported 250,000+ small firms to date but there are more than 5 million operating in the UK.

But, for now, thanks to partners, advisers, Local Leaders, and members of the Enterprise Nation community for supporting each other and welcoming so many new businesses who came looking for that support too.

We will work to play back the stories we’re hearing of those who’ve been helped. I promise it will provide you the motivation to continue the support effort.