93. How to start a business: The step by step guide | Emma Jones

0:00Welcome to All About Business with me, James Reed, the podcast that covers everything about business, management and leadership. Every episode, I sit down with different guests who bootstrap companies, masterminded investment models or built a business empire. They're leaders in their field and they're here to give you top insights and actionable advice so that you can apply their ideas to your own career or business venture.

0:28Welcome to a special Summer Shorts edition of All About Business. Over the next three episodes, we're doing something a little different. Rather than hearing from founders about how they built their businesses, we're focusing on how you can start one yourself. Today, we're joined by Emma Jones, entrepreneur, founder of Enterprise Nation and the UK's Small Business Commissioner. In this first episode, we'll explore why more young people than ever are considering entrepreneurship, the skills and commitment required to succeed, and how to come up with a business idea that's worth pursuing.

1:10Well, today on All About Business, I couldn't be more delighted than to welcome Emma Jones to the studio. She's really kindly agreed to do not one, but three podcasts in a series of what we're calling summer shorts. We're not talking about short trousers here. We're talking about short episodes. And we're going to look at the really key elements and aspects of what it takes to set up a successful business. Emma is the ideal person to talk to about this because Emma is the small business commissioner and herself a serial entrepreneur. Emma helps firms resolve issues such as late payments and issues they might face in business, and is also through her own experience and what she's doing now, very well placed to help us advise and think about starting businesses.

2:01You started your own business, Tech Locate. You then started another, Enterprise Nation, and you co-founded a really important enterprise campaign called Startup Britain. So I'm really looking forward to this conversation. Thank you so much for coming in and agreeing to do it, Emma. Welcome to the studio. The first thing I wanted to cover is the kind of question, what problem can I solve? You know, what's it all about being an entrepreneur and starting a business? Well, thank you, first of all, for having me on. And I guess the first thing, James, is kind of three for the price of one in terms of these programmes.

2:35The first thing you've got to do as an entrepreneur is always say yes to opportunities. Yeah, we love a good deal here. So three for the price of one sounds positive. So when invitations come in, I was delighted to say yes to this one. So lovely to be here. So yes, lots of people fortunately are still starting businesses in the UK. You mentioned that one of my businesses was called Enterprise Nation. So I still truly believe in the concept of an Enterprise Nation of people taking an idea, turning it into a way of making a living and I don't need to say this to you but some of the benefits that people feel when they do that is freedom flexibility and of course hopefully some financial reward as well but I think one of the main reasons people strive to become an entrepreneur and say actually maybe I won't get a day job I feel very dangerous saying that to you in view of No, you can love Mondays as an entrepreneur.

3:29But sometimes when people choose self-employment over employment, they get all the benefits that that brings. So a pleasure to be here to offer some tips to your listeners on how to go about doing it. Freedom, flexibility and hopefully a good living. That's what we're talking about. Absolutely. That's what's on the table. So where do good business ideas actually come from? Well, it's a great question. And of course, it's a question that everyone starts with when they think, can I become my own boss? So I always used to say to people, when you're thinking of starting a business, ask yourself three questions.

4:03First one, what is your passion, your hobby, your skill? And can it be turned into a way of making a living? Second one, have you spotted a gap in the market? So have you tried to look for a product or service that you maybe can't find? In which case there could be a gap in that market that you could fill. And then the third thing to ask yourself is, have you seen somebody do something and you think, well, actually, I think I can do it better. I can do it cheaper, faster, in a better way. If you ask yourself those three questions, that will help you come up with an idea for a business. And just another bit of advice for people is when you start a business, of course, you're very tempted and rightly so to say yes to every opportunity.

4:46So you take on all the work, you hopefully win contracts, but the best businesses over time are the businesses that become quite niche businesses. So if you can think of that from the outset, so maybe your great passion in life is digital marketing. So maybe you start a business in digital marketing. You take customers from the corporate world, you take customers from the personal world. But over time, if you could niche that down to say, maybe all I do is marketing for employment agencies. then of course you very quickly become the expert in that field. So start out with an idea based on something you love, or having spotted a gap in the market, or something on which you feel you can improve, and over time, if you can, niche that idea down.

5:31So become an expert in a niche or a segment, so you're the solution to a particular problem. Absolutely, because it's a great way to get customer loyalty. So if you're the only person, go back to our digital marketeer who's only working for employment agencies, you build up lots of knowledge about that particular sector. So then employment agencies are coming to you, of course, for your digital marketing prowess, but actually they're also coming because you're super connected to other people that they want to know. I've got to push back in you a little bit here, because I'd be worried that my good ideas would go to other employment agencies if I use someone who just did employment agencies.

6:07Ah, well, this is where you have to... So how do you mitigate against that? Well, this is where you have to build client confidentiality, trust and loyalty, But it does build where customers say you're the person we want to come to. And also, hopefully, it keeps your marketing costs low. Because this is the other thing that we'll talk about is when you're starting a business, again, the tendency is you want to be everywhere. But of course, if you've got a niche idea, you may only need to appeal to a niche audience. So it keeps your marketing costs under control. I can see that. So that's a good sort of overview about how you might start moving forwards.

6:40but how do you really sort of make sure it's an opportunity? I mean, what other things can you do to make sure the way you're headed really is an opportunity? Well, the great thing to do is market research. So hopefully once you've come up with your idea, lots of people then test it out on friends and family. So the great friends and family focus group. Of course, one thing you want to be a little bit careful of there is friends and family will always tell you that what you're doing is great. So then you've got to go a little bit wider than just asking your mum. You've always got nice friends and nice family.

7:12That's not what happens to me. Well, maybe it was good that you had the constructive criticism from the outset. But market research, I think, is something that can get overlooked when people are starting out in business. But there's great assets available. Of course, we have AI now. When I think back, James, to when I started my very first business when I was 27. So it's quite a long time ago. and I was based in Manchester at the time and to do my market research I went to Manchester Library and you had to queue to get access to the computer terminals and so I would queue you had an hour on the computer terminal I'd do all my market research and then go back and queue again anyway of course now people starting businesses have Google so many people who are starting a business are using AI they're using you know whichever tool is their preference to say this is the business I'm thinking of starting, tell me what the competition looks like.

8:07But I would say there's also a great asset across the UK and funnily enough talking about libraries and the British Library in London but there's also libraries across the UK have amazing market information knowledge where you for free can walk in and get access to this. So it's called Business and IP Centres, they're in lots of libraries across the UK so as a budding entrepreneur you can go and access all of that information. That's really interesting. I didn't know that. You said something that struck me that you started your first business at the age of 27. I think a lot of young people maybe don't realize that so many businesses have been started by people in their 20s, really successful businesses.

8:53But when you're at that stage in life, if you've got an idea, how do you know whether it's sort of commercially viable? How do you find out what's the secret? Well, you just have to test it. You have to get it out there. You have to just do it. So you have to just do it. You have to get started. You have to get started. And this is always my advice. And actually, just back to young people, and so many of us give advice based on our own personal experience. And whenever I'm speaking to young people, I do give them advice to try and get a job first just so that they can get some training. So before starting my first business, I was very blessed to have five years at a firm called Arthur Anderson, which at the time, I mean, it's sadly gone bust now.

9:35But at the time, it was a big American professional services firm. So for me, it helped me build confidence, a client network, I was taught how to deal with clients. And so of course, having that kind of foundation then helped me start my first business. So for young people, if you can go out and start building a network on somebody else's payroll, that can be beneficial. But when it comes to testing, will my idea work? You know, I'm seeing amazing, well, enterprising ideas from young people who, of course, are brilliant. and I shouldn't make generalisations, but young people tend to be very good at promoting themselves and their products and services online.

10:14So they get their ideas out online, they get feedback from the crowd, from their community. But of course, if you're selling something that's kind of a product, food, drink, wellness, which are big sectors that are taking off with young people, just go out to events, pitch it, sell it, hustle. You know, I love this word hustle. And this is what young people are brilliant at doing, is getting out there and saying, do you like my product? Do you like the colour? Will you pay for this price? And it's only through getting that customer interaction and reaction that you can keep on improving and know if you've got a business idea.

10:47I think it's good advice to have a job first, to learn. I mean, you're going to learn about a sector and industry. Also, you learn a bit about how businesses work, what's good and what's not so good, and how important colleagues are, and hiring the right people, I might stress. So what's the biggest mistake people make at this stage? You know, asking themselves, is this a real business? What are some of the common mistakes you might see that people can be careful of? I'd say one mistake is people who give up too early, actually. So, you know, one of the things is to just kind of keep on going.

11:21But what is too early? Well, good question. Too early is if say you've been trading for six months, and you still haven't made a sale. Maybe there's something you can do. But this is another word that's come into the business vernacular, which never used to exist, is the word pivot. And this is what young people, again, are brilliant at doing. I was with a young entrepreneur a couple of weeks ago called Johnny Grubin, who started a business called Soapost. And he pivoted. And even when he tells the story of his business, he said, I started out with one idea that didn't work. I pivoted. I've done this.

11:53And he's now found the thing that commercially works. One other thing I feel, and years ago when I was running Enterprise Nation, I used to run Startup Saturday events. So on a Saturday, I'd gather 20, 25 people and we'd all start a business in the space of a day. And a couple of things that always used to come out and I used to think, you know, this is almost what not to do, is at the beginning of the session, we'd go round and I'd say to everyone, share with me the idea that you're thinking of starting for your business and the odd person would say I'm not sharing my idea and I'd say why are you not sharing it and they say well because what about if the person next to me steals my idea and I think that can be a mistake early on is not sharing what it is that you're looking to do with others now I understand if it's something that no one's ever done before and you have patents pending you have to be very careful in in terms of who you tell.

12:47But actually, the more that you socialise your idea, the more you'll get feedback on it. So don't be nervous about telling people what it is that you're thinking about doing mistake number one. And the second one I'll just add was another experience that came from start Saturday is, I will never forget, a young lady came in and again, everyone had gone around saying their ideas. And this young lady said to me, she said, I know I want to start in the food and drink business. She said, but can you tell me what is going to be the most profitable thing for me to do? Because I have no particular passion in any particular category.

13:22And I think what you have to do when starting a business, and again, James, this will be well known to you, if you can build a business on your passion or doing what you love, it really helps in the hard times. Because when you've got to put in the long hours, when you have to get up every day and put that commitment, if it's something that is a mission or a social purpose or something that you feel passionate about that's the thing that helps keep you going so I would say base the business on doing what you love share that idea with people as early as you can and then what we've just said which is get it out there and start selling I mean if you love something you're likely to be good at it aren't you because being good at it helps you to love it even more so that's becomes a sort of circular positive, I think.

14:07So I would agree with that. It also shows when you're with customers, they can tell that you love doing what you're doing and therefore it makes it easier for them to buy. Yeah, and enthusiasm is infectious. So totally agree. What other questions should you ask yourself before investing time and money into starting a business? What other things should be on someone's mind if they're thinking of becoming an entrepreneur? Well, I guess it is the commitment and one of the things that we have seen which I've loved to see over the past kind of decade is people testing things first. So the side hustle, the rise of the side hustle, people holding on to the day job or even young people who are studying college or university.

14:48So they're doing this by day and then they're testing this entrepreneurial idea at nights and weekends. And this is one of the great things about starting a business now. You can leverage technology, your business can be running whilst you're doing something else. So it's a great way to test it. So other questions that I guess business owners should be asking themselves is, do I want to commit to this full time? So is it something that I want to turn from a side hustle into a full time business? But this is where it comes back to the freedom and flexibility that we mentioned at the beginning. I've seen many business owners start small businesses.

15:23I hate this term but they call it a lifestyle business where the businesses just run around their life particularly relating to women actually so when women start businesses around young children they might start it as a lifestyle business but of course then as the children grow they've got more time to invest they may have more money to invest in the business and you've got the freedom and flexibility to scale the business according to your life. Why do you hate the term lifestyle business because it connotates that it's just a hobby and i think anyone who's starting a business clearly takes it seriously enough to take it into commercial reality it's not used so much anymore but it used to be and dare i say i now work for the government it used to be an oft used government term oh really but not so much anymore slightly dismissive because the other way i'm thinking of it is if you've got a business that supports a good lifestyle what's wrong with that absolutely And of course, this is the thing.

16:17What you enjoy doing. I mean, you don't have to build BP or something. And it's the majority of businesses in the UK. And you'll know these stats. 5.6 million businesses operating, the huge majority of them, less than five employees. It is the founder. And of course, again, incredible how technology has enabled this to happen. But quite often now, business owners, again, I feel bad saying this to James Reid, but business owners are not necessarily employing full-time stuff, but they're looking for contractors and a flexible workforce. We can help with all of that as well. We can help with a flexible workforce, temporaries, contractors, permanent hires.

16:51I could go through the whole list. And we do so very well. So what does it actually take? What skills matter the most for an embryonic entrepreneur? Well, I guess the first thing to say is absolutely skills are required, but anyone can be an entrepreneur is really kind of like a message I want to land because some people, and again, when I'm interviewed on my entrepreneurial journey, I was very fortunate to have a mum who ran restaurants. So I had self-employment in my family. But anyone can be an entrepreneur. You don't have to have self-employment. You don't have to have genes given to you to be entrepreneurial.

17:28So I do feel that anyone can pick up the skills. And what's required is coming up with that good idea, continuing to refine that idea, the ability to go out and pitch it to others and this is the thing life as an entrepreneur or a business owner you're always hustling you're pitching to either hire people into your business you're pitching for clients so that's a good skill to have and by the way if it's not your skill this is why we're seeing lots of businesses start with co-founders because lots of people have said to me I'm an introvert you know the idea of going out and pitching anything terrifies me to which I would say, well, either try and learn those skills or find a co-founder who's got them, because then you'd hopefully be the perfect complement.

18:12So have a great idea, the ability to get out there. And then I think this is where it comes into, again, an oft used word at the moment is resilience. So the ability to get up each day. I spoke last week at an amazing event called the Business of Pets Conference, which was for lots of businesses in the pet industry. and before I spoke I turned up where there were a panel of pet businesses talking and one of the owners said something brilliant which is so true she said she said as a small business owner you have to learn to bend like bamboo and I think this is very true is small businesses operating now have moved from kind of one crisis to the next over the past decade and you've got to have flexibility you've got to have resilience to just weather those storms and keep on trading.

19:01reeds are quite good at bending there you go bamboos yeah um so you you said a few things that i was very interested in you i mean i think it all begins with an idea but i mean you said that i would agree you've got to have an idea um you then said that you might want to get a co-founder alongside did you do that yourself so i did for my first business So not for your second. Well, I have a very big take on this. So my first business was myself and a guy called Adam Breeze. And we had a very quick business because we sold it within two years. And I then had an 18-month lock-in with the company that bought us.

19:41And over that 18-month period, I would go back to my co-founder. We were based in Manchester. And virtually every week, I would pitch him a new idea and say, right, this can be our next venture. And every time he said, no, that's not what I want to do. so Enterprise Nation which was my next business essentially I founded on my own because he didn't want to come in with me and so again for those I have lots of advice whether you're a co-founder it can be amazing to find someone who has got complementary skills because as a sole founder you know all of the questions are going around in your own head and therefore for sole founders I think it's really important to get a mentor to get some kind of advisors an advisory board because potentially you're giving up a lot of equity i mean if you if you're you have a really good idea and it becomes a really good business if you if you don't have a co-founder that's entirely yours isn't it but lots of people say that if you have a co-founder you'll grow quicker and better so good question so is there evidence for that um i would not well i think the the only evidence you can say is if you look at a lot of businesses that are starting these days the sunday times just uh profiled the firstest growing companies in 2026.

20:52What I don't think anyone's done, but I think it would be really interesting if they could, is how many of those businesses are co-founders. Yeah, it'd be interesting to research. I mean, quite a lot of siblings go into business together. Because obviously, there's a sort of strong bond of trust. Trust. Which I think is interesting. So can entrepreneurship be learned? It can. And in fact, I think entrepreneurs are always learning, but learning on the job, whether it can be learnt in an academic setting I'm not so sure I think entrepreneurship is the best way of learning it is just by getting out there and doing it so if you want to learn how to be an entrepreneur get started you have to be one well I would say and the government has a really good program called help to grow management if you're a business owner and you've started out by doing all the things in your business but then you say I need to become an expert in certain areas becoming a better manager or leader i think you can learn and there is a great course called help to grow management that small businesses can go on uh but i think the the brass tactics of starting and growing a business and the cmi of course supports people moving from what they call accidental managers into conscious leaders which is really good too so yes management i'm sure can be learned but i think you're right entrepreneurship is probably learned on the job so um what's more important passion or resilience oh is it uh well now can i say both no oh you have i have to choose one oh you can try and say i mean obviously both important but if you had to if you could only have one which would it be oh i'd have to go with the passion mainly because i think it's the passion that keeps you going okay i'll go with resilience The thing is to keep going though, isn't it?

22:35Whichever of those it is that keeps you going, that's the key. You've got to keep going. You've got to keep going. And how much commitment does it really require to be an entrepreneur? As much or as little as you want to put in as the founder. So if you're a founder with employees, it takes a lot of commitment. You've got salaries to pay, you've got a product to refine, you've got customers to keep happy. So it's a big commitment, which is why and Enterprise Nation, so kind of my last company, was very much set up on the basis of how do you surround founders with the support they need? Because, you know, you're in it every day, seven days a week, it is constant improvement in the business.

23:17And so you need support around you to do that. So yeah, it's no light task starting and growing your own business. No, I mean, I've had guests on the podcast of sort of mortgaged their homes, worked for years without making sales, sort of taken no salary. I mean, they've made huge sacrifices. So this, one of the things, one of the things that I've started since coming into my government role is every month I run what's called an SME safari. So I take a group of civil servants to meet entrepreneurs in their real life trading setting. So that's why it's called a safari. And last month. Is that what the civil servants think of us?

23:55well this thing i'm going into the serengeti i am getting i am getting told off for this term um so we may have to change it i know i know quite a few regions have said do you think we're animals and i said no that's not the case it's more the principle of civil servants getting out of white hall and an office building i think it's a good initiative i like the term to actually meet them so last month we were in newcastle and this is exactly what we heard of the four entrepreneurs we met, three had remortgaged their homes. And so we are incredibly aware the risk taking that goes on. But what really astonishes, not astonishes me, but what really drives me is entrepreneurs will tell us their story.

24:38They've had their ups and downs, you know, they're feeling challenges at the moment. They've remortgaged homes, they've taken risk. And at the end of the day, if you say to them. So tomorrow, will you give it up and go and get a job? And they will say, no, I'm going to keep going. So this is where it comes back to, whatever the sacrifice is, these people put in the hard work and they just keep going. And that's what the UK has got to be grateful for. So that's very interesting. Do you think first time founders underestimate that? I mean it's a I think you can I remember so when I started my first business at 2027 I distinctly remember a really experienced businessman saying to me I'm happy to become your mentor and I'm quite embarrassed about this but I remember saying to him oh no no I don't need one of those this is going to be really straightforward and so of course and when you're starting a business you do go into it with rose tinted glasses of I've got a great idea you get some early wins so you're delighted but scaling a business is tougher than probably you think but again this is why it's super helpful and when I was scaling Enterprise Nation I read a huge amount of books of people who've been there and done it because of course now we've got the benefit of people who have done this and are sharing their experience.

25:57I surrounded myself with good people and a board of advisors who could help. I took on angel investment from someone who also kind of came into support so it is tough and the growing reality of that, you know, comes to pulse and you realise that as the founder, but there is so much support available to help get you through it. Thank you very much, Emma. That concludes our first short, which is all about what does it take to be an entrepreneur? I think that's excellent advice. Thank you for sharing. Thank you, Emma, for joining me on this special Summer Shorts edition of All About Business. I'm your host James Reid Chairman and CEO of Reid a family-run recruitment and philanthropy company If you'd like to find out more about Enterprise Nation the Small Business Commissioner or some of the resources mentioned in today's episode you'll find all the links in the show notes Thank you for listening and see you next time

27:03Thank you.