Adviser Paul Grant on funding, focus and the future for UK small businesses

Congratulations to our Adviser of the Month for July, Paul Grant, founder of The Funding Game.

Paul has spent the last two decades helping early-stage entrepreneurs find clarity, traction and the right investors. As founder of The Funding Game and an Enterprise Nation adviser, he’s worked across incubators, accelerators, group coaching programmes and one-to-one support.

We spoke with him to discuss common pitfalls, equity crowdfunding, government policy and the key ingredient every small business needs to succeed – focus.

He says:

"I realised that the power of focus is the single most important thing. It is getting crystal clear on your message, who the target customer is and what the major pain point is that needs solving. What's the clearest way you could articulate the message?"

How did you first get involved in helping entrepreneurs with funding?

My entrepreneurial background got me started. I ran businesses myself and eventually began managing a London-based angel investment network. At the time, there were only a few networks like it and we received hundreds of enquiries from entrepreneurs each month.

What I noticed was a pattern – many of them didn’t really understand how funding works. They’d send over business plans that were completely misaligned with investor expectations. Even good deals would get passed over because of how poorly they were presented. It was frustrating for them and investors. That’s when I realised entrepreneurs needed help to “play the funding game” properly.  

I started running free events to teach entrepreneurs how to structure their deals, pitch more effectively and understand the psychology and process of investors. It helped both sides. The good deals stopped getting buried under bad presentations. Eventually, I made this my full-time mission.

Watch this webinar to discover the main funding options available for small businesses:

When did The Funding Game officially launch and what services do you now offer?

I formalised The Funding Game around 2006, although I’d been hosting free events and coaching before that. Now, I work in multiple ways: one-to-one coaching, group programmes, partnerships with accelerators and incubators and specialised support for equity crowdfunding campaigns. My focus is on helping early-stage businesses identify the quickest, smartest path to growth and, of course, secure the right type of funding.

About half of my clients come for strategic guidance – how to get from point A to point B faster and smarter. The other half is primarily focused on funding. They’re confused about the options, overwhelmed or stuck. I help them navigate everything from angel funding to crowdfunding.

What’s the biggest misconception entrepreneurs have about raising funds?

The overwhelming majority think venture capital is the answer. It’s not.

VCs are looking for high-growth start-ups with huge potential, usually in tech or AI and often with founders from elite institutions or proven track records. Maybe 2% of start-ups actually fit that profile. Yet about 80% of the founders I meet chase VCs anyway.

The problem is that VCs rarely say no. They’ll keep the door open with vague encouragement: “Come back when you’ve got more traction.” Entrepreneurs mistake this for genuine interest and waste months – even a year – chasing money that was never really available to them.

Equity crowdfunding is something you’re well-known for. What makes a start-up a good fit for it?

Equity crowdfunding isn’t suitable for most businesses. I’d estimate that only one in 10 companies that approach me are genuinely ready for it.

The key ingredient is a community or customer base you can activate. If you've got over 15,000 people on your email list or a strong following of loyal customers, you have something to work with. You can potentially convert customers into investors and their early investment helps you reach your minimum funding target – usually around 70% of the total – before opening it up to the wider crowd.

You also need:

• A consumer product that’s easy to understand and get excited about

• A compelling, emotional founder story

• A solid 10x growth narrative for investors

• A simple pitch – if it’s too complicated, people tune out

If you don’t have these things, equity crowdfunding can be a painful experience.

What’s the one piece of advice you wish every new entrepreneur heard?

Focus. That might sound simple, but it’s the most powerful and most overlooked thing a founder can do. Be crystal clear about what you do, who it’s for and what problem you solve. If you’re vague, you’ll lose potential customers, investors and team members.

One of the first exercises I run with new clients is to craft a ‘one-sentence business’. If you can’t boil down what you do to one powerful sentence, you’re not ready to scale.

Then, get traction. Don’t wait for the perfect pitch deck or funding round; start testing your product or service in the real world. Talk to customers. Run £10 Facebook ads. Launch a simple landing page. Every micro-test brings learning and momentum.

How did you get involved with Enterprise Nation and what impact has it had?

I first discovered Emma Jones, Enterprise Nation’s founder, through her writing and policy work – she was everywhere! I liked her energy and the way she brought structure and community to the chaos of entrepreneurship.

Enterprise Nation provides a trusted ecosystem where founders can find qualified, experienced advisers. That’s so important. When you're early-stage, one great adviser can save you months of wasted time. I’ve received meaningful enquiries through the platform and have supported many founders, sometimes just with a message exchange, sometimes with full engagements.

What would you like to see in the government’s upcoming small business strategy?

There are four key changes I’d recommend:

• Expand the Start Up Loans scheme. It’s one of the best things the government has done for small businesses. But it’s capped at £25,000 and hasn’t evolved in years. Speaking to a lot of entrepreneurs, it has helped bridge the gap a lot in their businesses. So when they are in the early stages and don't know how to get from pre-product to post-product and pay themselves anything, then the loans often help them a lot.
  
  But the gap continues from having the product to then getting it to market. At that point, they run out of money but still have to pay the loan off. Here is where a second-stage loan – an additional £25,000 for businesses that hit certain milestones – would help founders bridge the gap between MVP and market traction.

• Increase investor tax incentives. SEIS and EIS are great schemes too, but they could be even stronger. Say, 60% relief instead of 50%, especially for high-risk, high-innovation sectors. This would spark more investor activity, which is currently flat or declining. There's just not enough money for too many propositions in the market.

• Introduce match-funding for equity crowdfunding. If the government matched 20% to 30% of successful equity crowdfunding campaigns, it would lower the entry bar and encourage more grassroots investing. It’s a powerful way to energise the ecosystem.

• Reintroduce local grants and soft loans. When LEPs (Local Enterprise Partnerships) were active, they offered meaningful support through grants. That’s mostly gone now. I know they got a replacement, but it’s not the same because it doesn't have hard cash grants in there, which used to be useful for people or even soft loans. The government needs to do more grants in this space, particularly for early-stage businesses with good ideas, because innovation is super key in any economy.

How can policymakers better include small business voices in government policy?

Right now, policy conversations tend to skew toward larger SMEs, companies with over £10 million turnover. The truly early-stage founders are underrepresented.

We need a dedicated council or advisory board made up of real grassroots or early-stage entrepreneurs, people who’ve built something from scratch and have achieved some level of success, people who know what it’s like to struggle with bootstrapping and fundraising. It would also be movers and shakers in the industry who really understand the problems that these businesses are going through.

Someone like Emmie Faust from Female Founders Rise would be an ideal voice on such a council. People like her are close to the real issues and communities the government needs to hear from.

Finally, what metrics should the government use to measure the success of its strategy?

We need clear, trackable KPIs. Things like:

• Percentage of start-ups successfully raising funding at each stage (pre-seed, seed, Series A, etc)

• Benchmark comparisons with ecosystems like the US or top-performing European countries

• A national start-up funding index: total early-stage investment divided by the number of active start-ups

It doesn't need to be complicated. A simple, consistent metric would go a long way in showing whether we’re actually moving the needle.

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