The week in entrepreneurship


Your weekly summary of entrepreneurship news, comment, and features. Sent by the Centre for Entrepreneurs (home of StartUp Britain). Sign up here.

News

Michelle Mone to lead government review on supporting business startups
Entrepreneur and businesswomen, Michelle Mone has been appointed to conduct an independent review to encourage further business start-ups and entrepreneurship in disadvantaged communities, including areas of high unemployment. Read more.

Pop-up retail now worth £2.3bn to economy
Pop-up retail is now worth £2.3bn to the UK economy, according to Britain’s Pop-Up Retail Economy – the second annual report into the pop-up sector from the Centre for Economics and Business Research. Read more. Read the report.

Lambeth Council follows Camden and Kingston to finance small firms via Funding Circle
Lambeth Council and peer-to-peer business lender Funding Circle have forged a Local Business Lending Partnership, which will see the local authority finance local companies. Read more.

Opinion

Why Dragons’ Den rejection didn’t mean defeat
Colum McLornan of Rule of Crumb writes about why not getting investment on Dragons’ Den didn’t mean defeat for the gluten-free enterprise. Read more.

Is it crunch time for capitalism?
“With its audacious and promising title, there was never any doubt that Paul Mason’s new book would cause a stir”. Ben Dellot (senior researcher, RSA) reviews Paul Mason’s book, Postcapitalism. Read more.

Europe, it’s time we built out own Silicon Valley
“Two years after authoring the European Startup Manifesto, despite the positive response, we’re no closer to the answer”. “Despite its impressive ranking, London is the least appropriate city of the bunch for a European Mecca a la Silicon Valley”, writes Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten (co-founder & CEO, The Next Web). Read more.

Features

Duane Jackson went from DEA drug bus to million-pound entrepreneur
Duane Jackson founded Kash Flow accounting software, which he sold to IRIS in 2013. However, Jackson had a difficult route to entrepreneurship, which he recounts in his newly published book Four Thousand Days.

The first chapter is being serialised on BusinessZone. Read the first installment.

Meet the small craft producers serving up vodka with a twist
New family-owned brands using single-estate ingredients are creating a stir among exclusive cocktail bars and stockists. Read more.

Passionpreneurs?
From ‘pastorpreneurs’ and ‘doctorpreneurs’ to ‘mumpreneurs’, ‘fempreneurs’ and even ‘lipstickpreneurs’, misuse of the entrepreneur title is abound.

The latest? ‘Passionpreneurs‘. Please, no more.