A basically sound idea
smothered in bullshit.
*sigh*
A pot of £1m has been promised to 10 UK start-ups as part of a "business accelerator" plan managed by Creative England. Funding for the venture has been partly provided by the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills, whose Regional Growth Fund poured £500k in loan capital into the pot. The other £500k is equity …
It's for PR - all they need is a flash lappy, a suit and a phone. Maybe a posh pair of retro glasses, too. Going to the "Collider" site (are they trying to use the LHC?) you get a load of gibberish:
"Startups wishing to apply to Collider12 should be a creative technology that helps the big brands – you will be ‘B2Brand’. You will ideally have an MVP with some proof or traction but the most important factor is the Management Team – why are you the ones to win? Offers will be made to successful applicants by 14th November with the programme beginning on 7th January 2013 with the ‘Collision Phase’. During the ‘Collision Phase’ the 10 startups will be ‘collided’ with the brands and intensively coached through a 13-week phase from being accepted and receiving loan capital from Creative England, plus external investment, through to the ‘Execution Phase’, the delivery on a robust plan and approach from week 14 onwards in order that they meet their goals."
And the sweetener is £50K of equity (i.e. they grab a chunk of shares in the company) and £50K of loan capital (i.e. you have to repay it). And all you're getting in return is a "collision" with a brand and 13-weeks of coaching into doing your job. All very well if the brand decides on a very large marketing campaign with you at its' head, but suspect this is less than likely.
Are we enabling anyone here or just trying to pick winners with taxpayers' money? And you're right to ask who is defining 'worthwhile'.
If you want to make it easier to hire employees without affecting their employment protection then the government could do worse than abolishing Employers' NI. It's an 11% tax on giving someone a job. Scrap it, and you cut labour costs at a stroke. I'm not a fan of finding single simple solutions to fix big problems but ISTM that this is an obvious target.
Well, you have to remember that working as a PR knob is the nearest that our pasty faced, spineless twat of a prime minister has ever got to a real job. So when somebody in cabinet said "let's support creation of some real jobs", the first thought in the cold, hard vacuum of the PM's head was "Yes, let's support some PR jobs.
Had they asked Chucky Osbourne then he'd have suggested that the loans go to towel folding startups. And Millitwat has even less experience of real work than these two, so were he in power, lord knows what they'd support.
Sounds great, but sounds like too little too late. and +enigmatix is right, who gets to decided on the lucky 10?
And the headline seems to suggest it's just related to PR businesses, wonderful. About as useful in the real world as a chocolate teapot.
This is probably some government idea that's filtered down in some form or another because lord knows the only people that really need help with public relations are either those who have cocked up in a monumental way or(and) those sitting in Westminster towers.
Come up with some positive spin on the government burning £250 million on a one off hand out because our energy intensive industries 20% powered by wind mills will never be competitive with the same industries in France 80% powered by nukes.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/10/10/energy_subsidy/
Which may have to be spent on the marketing types and consultants that put you in touch with the other companies.
So who wins: your company, now 100K in debt, the consultants, or the governments image for helping small businesses?
But lets hope it works out for those companies that put themselves forward for selection.
Dear Anna,
Please can I ask that you don't use "spunks" in this context. It's a really, really horrible choice of words for the serious topic you are writing about and it means I will never forward an otherwise intersting article on. I appreciate this might sound petty in this fast-moving macho world, but it's really unpleasant.
Ta!