This will be the last Friday Newsletter of the year, so I hope you don’t mind indulging me in looking back at the year through our reports, events and webinars.

As regular readers will know, it only scrapes the surface of the work we do, but I hope it offers a useful snapshot that inspires you to get even more involved with The Entrepreneurs Network in 2021.

January
We started the year by launching Cashing Out – a report by Fred de Fossard looking at the rise of cashless commerce and its implications for SMEs. It concluded that the decline of cash offered opportunities for SMEs and argued that rather than banning cashless retail as some US cities have, there are better ways for the government to solve the challenge of the unbanked. The report turned out to be prescient, with many businesses switching to cashless to help reduce the spread of the virus.

February
We held an informal meetup of the Female Founders Forum at The Office Group in February to discuss plans for the year, and later in the month relaunched the APPG for Entrepreneurship on the Terrace of the House of Commons with Andrew Griffith MP. We also held an Entrepreneurs Dinner with Chris Philp MP with support from Mishcon de Reya.

March
In March, we released the first of our two 2020 reports with the Enterprise Trust. In Unlocking Growth Sam Dumitriu and I evaluated the funding options open to SMEs from Start-Up Loans and grants to equity crowdfunding and peer-to-peer lending, identifying key reforms to boost SME access to capital.

The APPG for Entrepreneurship also held a Parliamentary Reception with Lord Howard Flight and the Enterprise Investment Scheme Association on the role that EIS and Seed EIS plays in providing access to finance for UK start-ups, scale-ups, and would-be unicorns.

April
Like many organisations, we moved to webinars in April. The first was on what businesses should know regarding HR & COVID-19 with the Department of International Trade.

May
I think one of the best webinars of the year we undertook looked at how Covid was impacting entrepreneurs with disabilities, featuring Dr Lisa Cameron MP, Liz Johnson (gold-medal winning Paralympic swimmer) and Kush Kanodia (social entrepreneur) (video). A lot of the attendees would have been prevented from joining the event if we had held it in Parliament, proving the advantages of the technologies like Zoom – advantages that will remain even after the vaccine.

We also undertook an event with John Penrose MP, Baroness Kramer and Gary Richards (Mishcon de Reya )on the impact of Coronavirus on the economy and business (video).

June
In June we hosted Andrew Griffith MP again for a webinar on innovation, international trade and the economic recovery, alongside Chris Hulatt (co-founder of Octopus), and Katherine Fletcher MP (video).

July
We released Upgrade over the summer – supported by Xero and written by Sam Dumitriu. It argues that small firms should make better use of digital technologies to tackle the sluggish productivity which characterised the pre-Covid economy. We launched it at an event with Paul Scully, the Small Business Minister, Irene Graham (ScaleUp Institute), Gary Turner, (co-founder of Xero UK) and Dom Hallas (Coadec) (launch video).

We also hosted Gagan Mohindra MP for a webinar on supporting local economic growth, with Mark Bretton (Chair of the LEP Network) and Tom Forth (co-founder of TheDataCity.com). Later in the month we hosted a webinar on supporting employment during Covid with Seema Malhotra MP, Sharon Tan (Mischon de Reya) and Julia Rouse (Manchester Metropolitan University).

September
With support from ABE Global, Educating Future Founders reviewed the evidence for early interventions in entrepreneurship education, making the case for teaching children as young as eleven the basics of running a business. We had Rt Hon. the Baroness D'Souza CMG, Dr Lisa Cameron, Shadow MP, Rob May (ABE) and Mark Watson-Gandy (founder of KidsMBA) for the launch (launch video). Sam Dumtriu’s report built on his previous one in 2019 with Octopus on Future Founders.

In September we undertook a webinar with the Female Founders Forum. The speakers were Alexandra Daly (founder of AA Advisors), Julia Elliott Brown (founder of Enter the Arena) and Juliet Rogan (Barclays). We also hosted an event with Lord Leigh (co-founder of Cavendish Corporate Finance) and Kevin McCarthy (Mishcon de Reya) on the future of funding, floating and selling your business (video).

October
In October we released The Case for Remote Work by US economist Matt Clancy. It makes the case for policymakers supporting the switch to remote work. To mark the launch of the report, we recorded a launch discussion between the paper’s author Matt Clancy, Oglivy’s Rory Sutherland and Upwork’s Adam Ozimek (launch video).

October also saw the release of this year’s Female Founders Forum report authored by Aria Babu. Using data from Beauhurst, Resilience and Recovery found that female-led, high-growth companies were disproportionately impacted throughout the pandemic. The Female Founders Forum is joint project with Barclays and we have big plans for it in 2021. To find out more about the project and sign up to the newsletter, check out this dedicated page on our website. We also hosted an event on attracting and retaining talent with Tugce Bulut (founder of Streetbees), Aimee Bateman (founder of Careercake), and Eugenia Migliori (Confederation of British Industry).

It was a busy month for webinars, with another one with Holly Lynch MP, Shadow Minister for Immigration, on the future of visas and immigration and Nicolas Rollason (Kingsley Napley). This was followed by an event on supporting diversity with Kemi Badenoch MP, the Exchequer Secretary and Minister for Equalities, and Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones (aka The Black Farmer), Melanie Eusebe (founder of the Black British Business Awards), and Professor Monder Ram OBE (Director of CREME).

November
Last month we released Green Entrepreneurship by Eamonn Ives. Once again we were supported by the Enterprise Trust to examine how entrepreneurs, and their innovative technologies and ideas, can help deliver not only a more sustainable tomorrow, but also economic growth, exports, and jobs. I’ve just written a blog on the role of entrepreneurs in tackling climate change, which includes an overview of four of the 20 recommendations.

We hosted another Female Founders event in November on building business resilience, with Anna Sofat (previous founder of Addidi Wealth), Anne-Laure Le Cunff (founder of Ness Labs), and Juliet Rogan (Barclays). We also hosted Kevin Foster MP, Minister for Future Borders and Immigration, for another event with Kingsley Napley looking at the future of visas and immigration.

December
We undertook a launch of the Green Entrepreneurship report with Luke Pollard MP, the Shadow Environment Secretary in December. Also speaking at the launch were Alex Fisher (founder of Saturn Bioponics) and Helen Booth and Liz Slee (Enterprise Trust). These followed launches earlier in the year with Bim Afolami MP and JoJo Hubbard (co-founder of Electron) and Jo Bamford (founder of Ryse Hydrogen).

We also hosted a webinar with the Female Founders Forum on how entrepreneurs can better tell their story, with Dana Denis-Smith (founder of Obelisk Support), Cordelia Meacher (founder of FieldHouse Associates), Juliet Rogan (Barclays) and Ruth Saunders (author of Female Entrepreneurs – The Secrets of Their Success)

We hosted Nahim Zahawi, Minister for Business & Industry and COVID Vaccine Deployment, for our second Entrepreneurs’ Drinks. The first was with Dr Alan Whitehead MP, Shadow Minister for Energy and the Green New Deal and last of the year was earlier this week with George Freeman MP. These are for our Advisers and we have plenty more planned for 2021 – the first is with Chi Onwurah MP, Shadow Minister for Digital, Science and Tech.

We have lots of exciting plans for 2021, but even before then we are launching a new monthly newsletter next week focused on eduction policy with our new Research Adviser James Croft. You can sign up here. And if you haven't already signed up as a Member, please do so here (it's free) to make sure we know what issues you're interested in.