100 Stories of Growth - Insights from Entrepreneurs

65 64 THE CLUBHOUSE The Chancellor announced £20m of investment in business networks at the Conservative Party Conference ‘to enable small businesses to learn from each other and from world-leading firms’. He also recognised the need for mentoring and management training for SMEs, pledging another £11m to help 10,000 businesses by 2025 and calling upon 100 corporate mentors to support it. It will be really interesting to see exactly how the Chancellor intends to spend this money because it could help to address a paralysing obstacle to growth – making the right decision at the right time. According to The ScaleUp Institute’s 2017 Review, 70% of scaleups cite the ability to better access peer networks, effective leadership development programmes and mentorship schemes as essential. Executive education and mentoring from corporates are valued, but they often lack authentic entrepreneurial insight. We have seen the impact of entrepreneur- led peer learning on scale-ups for 15 years (the average sales growth of our members is 34%). Our members use their network and peer learning to understand the problems they need to solve and how to solve them. We know from talking to over 1500 members since our foundation that leadership and management are make or break factors. We know that a strong management team enables founders to work on the business, not in it. What is very clear is that entrepreneurs are much more receptive to learning from peers who have started and scaled THE POWER OF PEER LEARNING: WHY FOUNDERS NEED CRITICAL FRIENDS WORDS BY EMMA-JANE PACKE Managing Director, The Supper Club THOUGHT LEADERSHIP businesses – because they understand the pressures and pitfalls. When entrepreneurs get together, they are very open and honest about their successes and failures; what they’re excited about and what they’re worried about. In this circle of trust they share meaningful, practical advice that helps them sleep better at night knowing what they are going to do the next day. Founders need critical friends and radical candour from entrepreneurs and investors who understand their challenges. They need to feel accountable to peers to help them make better and more timely decisions that lead to breakthroughs. Founders also need regular prompts to act on advice and insight from their network. Active management of this process, live and online, has the most impact and it’s where investment should be deployed. In our Way To Grow report this year, we called upon the UK’s SME finance community to help founders understand different funding solutions and the value that comes with them. Some of our members, who have also contributed to 100 Stories of Growth, shared their insight and hindsight to give founders more confidence in using finance to scale. We want fewer businesses to fail and more to scale. We believe that entrepreneur-led learning can help more business owners to thrive in the SME investment community. It’s important that the Chancellor, and those who fund scale-ups, understand how entrepreneurs can help each other make better decisions for themselves and their businesses. www.thesupperclub.com For further information or to understand how The Supper Club team can help you and your business, please contact: ALEX EVANS a.evans@thesupperclub.com