Ahead of our Student Entrepreneurs Question Time party conferences we interviewed a series of enterprising students/graduate entrepreneurs. We asked them about what they were looking forward to most ahead of the three party conferences.
We spoke to Peter Bailey, 23, Management Sciences graduate from Loughborough University. He is currently working on two main projects: Fail Forward and the South Africa Challenge.
Fail Forward is a campaign to celebrate individual learning from failures. The South Africa Challenge is a leadership programme focused on bringing young people together to help them fulfil their leadership capacity. Peter has been involved with NACUE for four years through Loughborough’s Enactus society.
Peter attended our Conservative Student Entrepreneurs Question Time in Birmingham. Ahead of our event he spoke to us about his opinions on the current state of youth enterprise.
Peter had been looking forward to hearing the government’s attitudes towards failing businesses and changing the funding structure for start-ups. He continued: “I want to find out answers to questions on the governments attitudes towards failure in the UK’s business scene. And I also want to question funding. How do you change the current funding structure for startup loans? Essentially if you keep giving out loans [without helping existing startups] it causes more businesses to fail.”
Peter believes entrepreneurship is something that cannot be taught, but instead facilitated with the help of politicians. He criticised enterprise educators for being focused on theory rather than having an attitude of going out and taking charged. He explained: “I don’t believe you can learn [all] the skills and techniques of being an entrepreneur. Get out there and do it!”
“In my opinion the way [it’s going] start-up loans are not producing a good environment. A lot of startups don’t need loans but advice. That’s why many fail.”
Peter was part of the packed audience that came out to our Conservative SEQT to join in on the discussion about enterprise/business. We also covered our SEQT from a Labour and Liberal Democrats point of view.
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