What a year we've had at Enterprise Nation! From taking over 200 small business owners to five countries on trade missions to three groups of entrepreneurs...

Blog

Enterprise Nation has helped thousands of people start and grow their businesses. Led by founder, Emma Jones CBE, Enterprise Nation connects you to the resources and expertise to help you succeed.

Enterprise Nation's advent calendar: Celebrating our amazing members

What a year we've had at Enterprise Nation! From taking over 200 small business owners to five countries on trade missions to three groups of entrepreneurs pitching their products to buyers at Sainsbury's, Boots and Heathrow Airport, we've worked hard to help our members grow their businesses.

To celebrate their successes and to give you the chance to grab some bargains for the festive season with some exclusive offers, we're celebrating one member every day over on our Instagram account.

 and see which amazing small business is our focus today!

If you're not a member and you fancy benefiting from all the things our members have enjoyed in 2016, 

<p>As Enterprise Nation's small business community manager, my role is to guide our members through every stage of their user journey, developing and improving their experience within the Enterprise Nation community, and arming them with the knowledge and resources they need to start and grow their business.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>

<p>I have over 20 years of experience working in customer and B2B support. Having also managed a small business for many years, I understand the struggles that they face am passionate about helping them grow. I love to hear member success stories, particularly those in the food and drink sector.&nbsp;</p>

Small Business Community Manager

Yum Yum Sushi Desserts founder John Hines talks through his truly remarkable start-up story

The former TV cooking show host has overcome real personal tragedy.

&lt;p&gt;My motto in life and work is 'Meet people, make friends, and help them.'&amp;nbsp;Getting to know people is the best way of finding out what makes them tick in terms of goals, ambitions, dreams, interests and life in general. I help people by listening to what they need, suggesting ideas, sending links, making introductions, adding value, and offering relevant products and services, where appropriate. When friends have a problem, I love to help them fix it.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;My varied portfolio career means I have knowledge, experience and contacts in many fields. I am an expert in book publishing, media, mentoring, writing, editing, marketing, crowdfunding, sponsorship, social enterprise and commercial start-ups.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I'd love to get to know you better, so I can help you get to where you want to be.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Career highlights:&lt;br /&gt;
• Book trade professional since 1990&lt;br /&gt;
• Consultant Producer, YOU'RE BOOKED! (ITV book series)&lt;br /&gt;
• Pioneer, World Book Day UK&lt;br /&gt;
• Research Director, StoryCode (online recommendation engine for fiction, featured on BBC TV’s DRAGONS’ DEN)&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Current roles:&lt;br /&gt;
• Founder, CopyGhosting Publishing Services (editorial, marketing, PR &amp;amp; digital agency)&amp;nbsp;&lt;br /&gt;
• Editor &amp;amp; Development Executive, Insight Film Festival&lt;br /&gt;
• Founder, Jolabokaflod CIC (promoting Icelandic 'Christmas book flood' tradition)&amp;nbsp;&lt;br /&gt;
• Director of Crowdfunding, CrowdPatch CIC: free crowdfunding platform for social enterprise&lt;br /&gt;
• Founder, The Wisdom of Coffee: a network for Meetup gatherings &amp;amp; a community that shares best practice about business, enterprise &amp;amp; alternative finance)&lt;br /&gt;
• Founder, Smart Crowd Productions: integrated arts, media, business &amp;amp; alternative finance production consultancy&lt;br /&gt;
• Director: Corporative Sponsorship, SMGlobal Catwalk, Inc: global fashion events brand&lt;br /&gt;
• Social entrepreneur, 12R Prizes: solving social issues and commercial problems via sponsored cash-prize comptetions&lt;br /&gt;
• Mentor, Founders and Mentors: networking platform, comprising forum, communities and courses for mentors to help pre-launch founders launch start-ups successfully&lt;br /&gt;
• Social entrepreneur, 12Ronnies: hub that provides founders, inventors and creatives a toolkit for launching a startup successfully&lt;br /&gt;
• Co-founder, CrowdMall: virtual shopping centre for ideas that do not yet exist&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Charities:&lt;br /&gt;
• Chairman, Seeds Creatives (charity): runs the ‘Artist in Your Own Residence’ collaborative network mentoring scheme for creatives in all disciplines&lt;br /&gt;
• Director, Arts Centre Group (charity): membership organisation for arts &amp;amp; media professionals&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Committees:&lt;br /&gt;
• All-Party Parliamentary Committee for Crowdfunding (chair: Barry Sheerman MP): meets quarterly at the House of Commons&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Author:&lt;br /&gt;
• Six published books&lt;br /&gt;
• Two books in progress&lt;/p&gt;

Serial entrepreneur

Pre-launch founders, inventors & creatives

Signposting for advice, tools and resources for members wanting to start turning an idea into a business.

&lt;p&gt;I left the City in 2016 when it became clear that life with small children and a full-time executive career wasn’t for me. &amp;nbsp;I wanted to create something that really helped people, like me, who were forging a way forward, balancing work with family life.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;When my children went to school I realised there were many highly talented individuals unable to return to work due to the limitations of childcare. &amp;nbsp;I also started to meet a number of exciting small&amp;nbsp;businesses in need of support but were struggling to find an appropriate level of flexibility, quality and knowledge for their growing businesses.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;This developed into a passion for building a solution for both sides. &amp;nbsp;A truly supportive working environment where people can thrive outside a classic 9-5 office structure whist providing reliable, high calibre support to businesses and individuals looking to achieve more productivity and peace of mind.&amp;nbsp;&lt;b&gt;&lt;i&gt;SpareMyTime was born!&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

Founder

Bespoke Virtual administrative support for you and your business

&lt;p&gt;At SpareMyTime,&amp;nbsp;&lt;strong&gt;we&amp;rsquo;re passionate about balance&lt;/strong&gt;. From time-consuming life admin to business tasks, outsource your to-do list to a trusted pair of hands and focus on what&amp;rsquo;s important.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Our team of professional UK based virtual assistants offer admin support, bookkeeping, marketing and social media services so you can bid overwhelm goodbye and find peace of mind.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;From diary and inbox 

&lt;p&gt;Accounting is our superpower. We are your new secret weapon in the battle to evolve your business. With our team of experts at your fingertips, all your accounting worries, from receipts to compliance and advisory, are a thing of the past. The team at Finance Box are able to take on whatever it is that you need. We can take on the simple bill processing through to all the compliance and further still to advisory services. Each service can be switched on or off as you need. Our pricing is super-transparent and you only pay for what you need at each service level.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I'm Steve, CEO - but more commonly known as 'The Mechanic' as I am often building automations to make busines easier.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;

Steven Case

&lt;p&gt;Accounting is our superpower. We are your new secret weapon in the battle to evolve your business. With our team of experts at your fingertips, all your accounting worries, from receipts to compliance and advisory, are a thing of the past. The team at Finance Box are able to take on whatever it is that you need. We can take on the simple bill processing through to all the compliance and further still to advisory services. Each service can be switched on or off as you need. Our pricing i

Enterprise Nation's advent calendar: Celebrating our amazing members

You might also like…

Get business support right to your inbox