Entrepreneurs - the risk takers and visionary’s - have more support than ever if they want to sow start-up seeds.
It seems like entrepreneurs are everywhere – from the BBC’s Dragons’ Den to the world’s richest man appearing in a baseball cap in the Oval Office.
It wasn’t always that way – particularly in the UK, where the second half of the 20th century saw a focus on ‘a steady job and a solid pension’. Back then, starting your own business was seen as the province of a small cabal of industrialists. But as the gig economy has expanded, enterprise has become the fashion. It seems everyone wants to be their own boss.
It’s become particularly prevalent in deep tech: if you have a good idea, then go for it.
Rupert Baines, most recently CEO of UK tech start-ups UltraSoC and QPT and entrepreneur in residence at CIC, says: “My first start-up, back in the 1980s, was based on my university thesis – straight out of university. At that time it was incredibly rare. Hardly anyone did tech start-ups...