Lighting a “beacon” for new Dundee businesses

Start-ups: Most new ventures fatl to row because owners stop learntn

A venture is being developed to give Dundeea“beaconofentrepreneurship”.

Elevator, which delivers Business Gateway services in Grampian and Tayside, is seeking to spark off the creation of more successful businesses in the city.

It aims to achieve its objective through a centre where ambitious enterprises with potential to grow can work closely with the city’s two universities.

Dundee and Abertay can play a vital role in delivering entrepreneurial learning – expertise from which businesses can benefit.

Professor Pete Downes, Dundee’s principal, wants Dundee to be seen as the most entrepreneurial university in Scotland.

Elevator chief executive Gary McEwan, professor of entrepreneurship at Dundee, wants that aspiration to help his initiative produce more successful entrepreneurs in the city.

He said: “A problem with entrepreneurship in Scotland is the crisis of ambition in terms of the number of successful start-ups.

“Only 7% of new businesses in Scotland grow to any extent. One of the reasons for the high number that don’t prosper is that the people who run them think the businesses will just grow themselves.

“The people involved think their energy and passion will see them through, but it doesn’t work that way.

“They stop learning and you need to learn to grow a business.”

A common denominator with areas boasting high levels of successful start-ups is access to a centre offering concentrated help and support – a beacon of entrepreneurship.

One such facility exists in Aberdeen, and Elevator’s focus is to set up a similar centre in Dundee this year.

In addition to its existing facility at City Quay, Professor McEwan wants to establish Elevator Dundee in a new location combining entrepreneurial education within the universities of Dundee and Abertay.

“It will be a beacon of entrepreneurship, with an energised and inspiring accelerator which will launchmanymorehighgrowthventures into the city,” he stated.

It will have a 20-week accelerator programme for early stage businesses with ambition, immersing entrepreneurs in education in