LAW
Setting out on the business road
Peter Robinson , partner and head of corporate and commercial at Jacksons Law Firm , says the North-East is buoyant for business start-ups
For any of you who have seen me presenting before , you will have undoubtedly heard my elevator pitch , part of which goes along the lines “ helping businesses start-up and working with them as they grow , all the way through to a major corporate finance event years later ( eg . IPO ) and pretty much everything you can do between the two ”.
Over the years , I ’ ve helped many start-ups - from setting them up to helping them exit , with a couple of these exits being by IPO . I ’ ve also helped crowd fund another couple of businesses before crowd funding was even coined as a term and generally helped many others as they grow - from dealing with the engagement of employees , option schemes and the taking on of new premises to the acquisition of other businesses and any number of establishment funding rounds from business angels and / or venture capitalists .
I ’ ve helped management teams who took the leap into independent ownership and then sold years later to multi-nationals . I ’ ve also been the head of an early-stage private equity team and I ’ ve even started up my own business and experienced first-hand all the issues I ’ d been advising clients on for years - and not all of them were easy ! I ’ ve given more talks than I could shake a stick at and I ’ ve been to retirement do ’ s and seen my clients wax lyrical about how I ’ d looked after them after they started up and then exited - and I wish I ’ d had a smart-phone for one of them : the video would never be off social media !
What perhaps I don ’ t much talk about is how satisfying it can be to act and help early-stage businesses on their journey of starting up and growing . While becoming the trusted advisor to every client is always the holy grail , there often seems to be times with early stage clients where you have to get down into the trenches with them and fight alongside them . It is that aspect , I feel , which can create a relationship and bond that is perhaps unique with clients in that early stage of a life cycle . And it is that which helps you to develop long-term commercial relationships with those clients , whether that be through advising them on successive management issues , employee leavers , major funding rounds and major contract negations , or looking after them when they decide to sell or float .
I read recently that the UK is the secondbest county in Europe ( Germany pipping us by a small margin ) for start-ups : low barriers for entry , supportive environment , favourable business climate , easy / easier access to venture capital and , dare I say it , entrepreneurial spirit all lead to a more business friendly culture in the UK than elsewhere .
The North-East is buoyant for start-ups too , with its excellent funding packages , incubator spaces and advisors who know the score and , like us , are interested in developing long-term relationships with people instead of a fast deal . And there ’ s no shortage of entrepreneurial spirit here .
Start-ups are extremely important to the UK economy generally , driving growth , opportunity , technological innovation and , certainly in our region , helping replace the traditional older industries as they have declined and disappeared . I ’ ve been very pleased to be able to help various businesses start up and grow throughout the North-East and beyond in the last 26 / 27 years or so as our region has transformed .
If you want to talk through the ins and outs of starting up a business , then please call me on 0191 232 2574 .
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