“My advice would be to take people up on their assistance when it is offered.” That’s the opinion of one business leader when asked what it takes to build a successful start-up.
Jeremy Gaisie, co-director at Pump n Grind Coffee Roasters in Leeds, was speaking in the context of a new survey which reveals how fear of failure is putting aspiring entrepreneurs off starting their own business.
Four in 10 of the 1,000 respondents quizzed by self-storage provider Space Station gave that as a reason for not having yet fulfilled their dream of becoming their own boss, second only to financial risks (54%).
There are a myriad of reasons why you might want to start out on you own. The top reasons cited in the survey included flexible location (27%) and working hours (58%), self-achievement (54%) and the ability to choose the people you work with (35%).
However, it can seem a pretty daunting decision to make, to go it alone, when you don’t have the support network around you to get the necessary advice and guidance.
That’s where Agnentis Partners has a role to play. We support business owners, old and new, to create the environment to achieve results through advice, strategy and operational implementation.
Having ‘been there, done it’, we can see things through our customers’ eyes and empathise with the pressures of being a business owner. Every Agnentis Partner has 20 years’ experience in both large corporate and business ownership.
We’re as much about helping you grow personally as we are supporting the growth of your business – the two go aspects of your life go hand in hand. We believe in long-term relationships that ebb and flow, much like business itself.
It’s relationships like this which can prove vital for business owners lacking an obvious mentor, suggests Kevin Hall, LEGO brick artist and designer.
He said: “Building a big network of people you work with and creating new relationships is very important. Over the years I’ve built some great relationships with companies, from helping us shipping our models to storing them. These relationships are crucial to my business.”
Some relationships will materialise organically, some less so. It doesn’t matter how they come about, as long as they are serving you and your business.
