{"id":21530,"date":"2026-09-03T12:02:03","date_gmt":"2026-09-03T12:02:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/welshice.org\/?p=21530"},"modified":"2026-09-03T12:02:05","modified_gmt":"2026-09-03T12:02:05","slug":"what-if-we-stopped-funding-entrepreneurship-as-a-series-of-programmes-and-started-building-the-pathway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/welshice.org\/cy\/what-if-we-stopped-funding-entrepreneurship-as-a-series-of-programmes-and-started-building-the-pathway\/","title":{"rendered":"What if we stopped funding entrepreneurship as a series of programmes – and started building the pathway?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Wales doesn\u2019t need to choose between its brilliant entrepreneurship organisations. We need to get better at connecting entrepreneurship support in Wales and investing in the infrastructure that makes that possible.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the past few months, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how we support entrepreneurship in Wales.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the more conversations I have, the more I come back to the same thing: there is already a huge amount of brilliant work happening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have councils, universities, colleges, accelerators, incubators, investors, mentors, national organisations and specialist communities – all helping entrepreneurs to start, survive and grow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’ve had partners from outside Wales tell me how exceptional the amount of support available here looks from the outside. Which makes me wonder whether our challenge isn’t the amount of support at all, but how easily people can navigate it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Can an entrepreneur in Wales actually find their way through all the brilliant support we have?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because I’m not convinced they always can.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And as Wales thinks about its next generation of economic and local growth investment, that feels like a real opportunity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What if, rather than simply funding another collection of good programmes, we set ourselves a bigger ambition?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What if we tried to build the best entrepreneurial pathway in the UK?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Entrepreneurship starts much earlier than we think<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Think about someone sitting somewhere in one of our communities with the beginnings of an idea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They might be unemployed, raising children, leaving education or facing redundancy. They might be in a job that doesn’t make the most of what they can do. They might be a tradesperson wondering whether they could go out on their own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or they might simply have spotted a problem and thought of a better way to solve it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chances are, they don’t call themselves an entrepreneur – and that matters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because if entrepreneurship only becomes visible once somebody starts searching for \u201cbusiness support\u201d, we’ve probably already missed a lot of people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We rightly help people understand routes into employment, apprenticeships, further education and university. I’d love self employment and entrepreneurship to feel like another credible option alongside them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not for everyone, and certainly not as an easier alternative to employment, but just a real option people know could be possible for them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’d love more young people, jobseekers, parents, career changers and people in our communities to encounter entrepreneurship before they’ve decided it’s something \u201cpeople like them\u201d don’t do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that doesn’t necessarily mean teaching them how to write a business plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It could more simply be a meeting with someone who’s done it. Trying something. Solving a real problem. Seeing somebody from their own community running a business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sometimes it’s just giving someone permission to wonder:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCould I do that?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For me, that’s where an entrepreneurial ecosystem really begins and the point where the door needs to be visible and open to wander into.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then we need somewhere for that spark to go<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

This is the bit that makes me optimistic, because Wales already has so many of the pieces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The King’s Trust<\/a><\/strong> helps young people explore enterprise and imagine possibilities they may never previously have considered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At Welsh ICE<\/a><\/strong>, we often meet people around that crucial \u201cI wonder if I could?\u201d stage. We help them explore the idea, build confidence and skills, start trading and then, importantly, give them a community, mentoring, workspace and support around them as they figure out what running a business actually involves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tramshed Tech<\/a><\/strong> has particular strength around technology and innovation, supporting tech founders through validation, acceleration, investment readiness and scaling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

FinTech Wales<\/a><\/strong> shows what a strong sector ecosystem can look like, connecting fintech founders with established industry, skills, talent and opportunities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alacrity Foundation<\/a><\/strong> develops technology entrepreneurs and ambitious ventures through intensive entrepreneurship, innovation and company-building support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Social Firms Wales<\/a><\/strong> brings deep expertise in using enterprise to create employment, inclusion and social impact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mentera<\/a><\/strong> and Antur Cymru<\/a><\/strong> have huge experience supporting businesses and communities across Wales, including businesses rooted in rural and local economies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And I love what Urban Foundry<\/a><\/strong> has demonstrated through initiatives such as PopUp Wales: sometimes what an entrepreneur needs is simply the chance to put an idea into the real world and find out whether people will buy it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then organisations such as FSB<\/a><\/strong> give small businesses a collective voice – making sure the people actually building businesses aren’t simply beneficiaries of economic policy, but help shape the environment in which they operate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course – there are so many brilliant people and organisations I’ve missed in this list – and there’s also overlap between many of us. And actually, I think that’s OK.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A healthy ecosystem should have choice. Different organisations will suit different people. We bring different networks, specialisms, personalities and ways of working. And yes, sometimes we compete, but the problem isn’t the overlap\u2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The problem is when the entrepreneur has to understand all of it.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

They shouldn’t need to know whose funding covers what, which programme sits under which contract or where one organisation’s remit ends and another begins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We should be able to start with much simpler questions:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where is this person now? What do they need next? And who is best placed to help?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sometimes the answer will be Welsh ICE, sometimes it absolutely won’t be, and sometimes several of us should be around the same table.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For me, the measure of a great entrepreneurial ecosystem isn’t whether one organisation can support somebody from beginning to end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s whether the entrepreneur experiences the handover between us at all.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Real entrepreneurial journeys are messy<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

We can make them look lovely on a diagram:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

INSPIRE – EXPLORE – START – SURVIVE – GROW – GIVE BACK<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But nobody I’ve ever met has actually built a business like that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Someone might need confidence before they need business planning. They might join a programme, realise they’re not quite ready and come back six months later. We see that so often on our 5-9 Clubs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They might start trading and suddenly discover that the thing keeping them awake at night isn’t sales at all. It’s cashflow, or premises, or employing somebody for the first time. Or just the terrifying feeling that everyone else seems to know what they’re doing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then, eventually, something rather lovely starts to happen – the person who needed the ecosystem begins contributing to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They employ somebody. Mentor a new founder. Buy from another Welsh business. Speak at an event. Make an introduction. Invest. Become the person somebody else looks at and thinks, maybe I could do that too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That’s when investment begins to compound.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But none of this happens neatly between the start and end dates on a funding agreement\u2026 Entrepreneurs don’t develop in funding cycles – they need the right help at the right time, and an easy way of finding and accessing it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Exactly as we preach – know your customer and do the heavy lifting for them. Be in the right place at the right time with the solution to their pain point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The challenge is doing that consistently when the entrepreneur’s journey doesn’t neatly match the funding cycle.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

So what’s actually missing?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I don’t think Wales needs another organisation to solve this, and I’m not convinced it needs another programme either.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What I think we could get much better at is the connective tissue between them – the invisible infrastructure.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The relationships, communities, knowledge and infrastructure that turn lots of individually good things into something that actually feels like a pathway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However \u2026 Who is responsible for the pathway?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’ve sat in rooms with people from across the ecosystem – from conversations focused on individual places to much bigger ones across Cardiff Capital Region – where there’s been enormous agreement about what needs to happen.

And actually, I think we already know what much of it is: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We need to be more connected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We need better handovers\/referral processes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We need to stop duplicating things unnecessarily.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We need to understand where the gaps are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We need to work together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Everyone leaves energised and genuinely wanting to make it happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then something completely understandable happens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We all go back to our day jobs.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The council officer has their priorities. The university has theirs. The funder, incubator, accelerator, membership organisation and delivery partner all have their own responsibilities, contracts and outcomes to deliver.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Everyone can care about the ecosystem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But caring about it isn’t quite the same as somebody being responsible for making it work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And now I wonder whether that’s one of the gaps we’ve underestimated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not another organisation sitting above everybody else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not somebody controlling where entrepreneurs go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But clear ownership of the connective work<\/strong>: bringing people together, understanding the whole pathway, spotting gaps and duplication, making connections, following through on what we’ve collectively agreed and asking whether things are actually getting better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because collaboration doesn’t sustain itself just because everyone believes in it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Someone has to hold the whole picture while each of us gets on with delivering our part of it.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

That doesn’t mean controlling the ecosystem. It means creating enough shared direction, accountability and momentum that collaboration survives beyond the meeting where everyone agreed it was a good idea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And this isn’t only a conversation happening amongst organisations delivering entrepreneurship support. FSB Wales has recently made a similar point from the perspective of small businesses themselves: businesses shouldn’t simply be beneficiaries of economic policy, but partners in building prosperity – and good intentions ultimately have to translate into practical delivery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps the same is true of the ecosystem around them.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have a lot of good intent. The opportunity now is to build the relationships, mechanisms and accountability that turn that intent into something an entrepreneur can actually experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’d love us to be able to look at any place in Wales and answer some fairly simple questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who is inspiring people to consider entrepreneurship in the first place?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who are we not reaching at all?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where can someone safely explore and test an idea?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who helps them start?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where do they find their people afterwards?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What happens when the programme ends?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where do they go when they need specialist expertise, finance or somewhere to grow?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And where, right now, are people simply falling through the gaps?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That feels like a much more useful place to start than:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat programme should we commission this year?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead, let\u2019s ask:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat does the entrepreneurial pathway in this place actually need?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWho is going to take responsibility for joining it up?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that changes what we invest in<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Programmes matter. I’ve seen them change people’s lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I’ve also seen all the things around the programme that are much harder to put on an output spreadsheet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At Welsh ICE, we’ve now supported more than 2,000 people, and 77% of businesses supported through ICE survive beyond their first three years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’m incredibly proud of that – But one of the questions I keep coming back to is why?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, some of it is the formal support, but that’s not the whole story. Our success stories also come from:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The peer who says, \u201cI struggled with that too.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The mentor who asks the uncomfortable question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The introduction made at exactly the right moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having somewhere to work to create professional and personal boundaries between work and home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The specialist organisation somebody points you towards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Someone noticing you haven’t been around for a while.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And having a community you still belong to after the programme you joined has officially finished.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those things are much harder to count. But that doesn’t make them incidental to the outcome.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

They’re part of the entrepreneurial infrastructure that helps someone explore, test, start and thrive – and, for some, eventually scale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that’s why I think there’s a difference between buying an entrepreneurship programme and investing in entrepreneurial capacity – We need both.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bring us the place, not just the programme<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

This is probably the conversation I’d most like Welsh ICE to have with councils, government and partners over the next few years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead of starting with:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCan you deliver us an entrepreneurship programme?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Come to us with the place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tell us about the community. The economic challenge. The people you’re struggling to reach. The businesses that aren’t surviving. The opportunity you think isn’t being realised.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or simply the thing you want to be different in five years’ time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then let’s work backwards together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What already exists?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who’s doing it brilliantly?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who’s engaging – and who isn’t?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where are people dropping out?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What could we connect rather than recreate?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What needs strengthening?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And what’s genuinely missing?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then let’s bring the right people around the table, agree who is best placed to do what – and importantly, keep coming back to whether the pathway is actually working.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sometimes the delivery will be Welsh ICE – Often it’ll be a combination of partners including us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I want partners to invest in Welsh ICE because I want us to do more of what we know works: reaching people who haven’t yet seen entrepreneurship as an option, helping people turn ideas into businesses and surrounding those businesses with the community and expertise that gives them a better chance of surviving.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I also think we have something valuable to contribute before anybody decides what the programme should be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We’ve spent years sitting alongside entrepreneurs before, during and after funded interventions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We see where they arrive, where they get stuck, we hear what they ask for next and we know which introductions make a difference. And we’re still there when the programme has finished.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That gives us a perspective that I think can be useful not just in delivering entrepreneurship support, but in helping places design, connect and strengthen the pathway around it – and in understanding what we can learn across places too.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

That knowledge – and the capacity to act on it – is worth investing in too.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because this is about more than business starts<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Obviously I want Wales to create more sustainable businesses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They create jobs. Buy from other businesses. Fill premises. Bring investment into communities and contribute to our economy, But there’s something else I care about just as much.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Agency.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If somebody believes their only economic option is to find a job somebody else has created, their choices are limited by the opportunities around them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Knowing they could potentially create something themselves gives them another door.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A parent might create work that fits around their family; a tradesperson might build something of their own; a graduate might stay in Wales to develop an idea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Someone who’s never quite found their place in conventional employment might discover that the way they think is actually incredibly valuable when building a business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A community facing a local problem might create an enterprise to solve it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And somebody who starts a tiny business today might employ somebody else a few years from now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don’t think everyone should become an entrepreneur. But I do think everyone should have the opportunity to discover whether they could be one.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe we need to change the investment question<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Councils and government understandably need outcomes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Businesses started. Jobs created. People supported. Investment raised. Survival rates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We should absolutely be accountable for those things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I’d love us to ask another question alongside them:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat entrepreneurial capacity do we want this place to have in five years – and what do we need to invest in now to build it?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The timing of that question feels particularly important.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wales is already thinking about what the next chapter of economic development should look like, including plans for a new national economic development agency. We don’t yet know exactly what that will mean for the wider business support landscape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But perhaps that’s exactly why now is a good time to ask what we want the next version to do differently.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whatever structures we create, how do we make sure we’re investing not only in programmes and individual organisations, but in the connections between them too?<\/p>\n\n\n\n


And perhaps that means thinking differently about what we fund.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What if some of our investment wasn’t attached to a new programme at all?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What if organisations that form part of our entrepreneurial infrastructure could rely on a baseline level of investment each year – in return for a clear commitment to maintain access, demonstrate impact and actively contribute to the wider ecosystem?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

That shouldn’t mean protecting organisations simply because they’ve always been there. The investment should follow evidence of need, impact and genuine contribution to the pathway. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That investment could maintain the things entrepreneurs need all year round: community, relationships, outreach, mentoring, places people can walk into, the ability to make a referral, knowledge of what’s happening elsewhere and, crucially, the capacity to stay connected to the rest of the ecosystem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That wouldn’t replace programme funding. It would create the foundation underneath it.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

At Welsh ICE, for example, our membership income, corporate partnerships, sponsorship and commissioned programmes could build on that foundation. Other organisations would have their own models, income streams and specialisms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But underneath them would be something more consistent: investment in maintaining the entrepreneurial infrastructure itself.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that investment would come with a responsibility. If we’re receiving public investment to be part of that infrastructure, we should commit to behaving like part of an ecosystem – sharing what we’re learning, making good referrals, connecting additional funded programmes back into the wider pathway and making sure an entrepreneur’s next step matters more than whose organisation provides it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then every additional programme can make that baseline investment work harder.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A programme funded to reach a particular community doesn’t have to exist as an island. It becomes another doorway into the wider ecosystem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Specialist support becomes part of the pathway. Outreach reaches new people and brings them into it. And when somebody finishes a funded programme, they don’t simply disappear when the contract ends – they’re already connected to somewhere they can go next.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The baseline investment holds the infrastructure together. Everything else extends its reach.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And importantly, it means the work of connecting the ecosystem is no longer something we all agree is important but have to squeeze in around the work we’re actually funded to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That baseline could come from the Welsh Government, regional bodies and local authorities, investing in the entrepreneurial capacity they want their places to have – with private and corporate investment adding to, rather than replacing, that public foundation.

And so, I don’t think the public sector needs to be the only investor. Some of Wales’s biggest businesses employ thousands of people here and have a real stake in the strength of the economy that comes after them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’d love to see more of them investing directly in the entrepreneurial pipeline too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That might mean contributing to a shared fund, sponsoring access in particular communities, backing entrepreneurial spaces or investing in parts of the pathway aligned with the impact they want to make.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And of course those businesses should be able to demonstrate the impact of that investment – the entrepreneurs they’ve helped reach, businesses they’ve helped create, communities they’ve invested in and opportunities they’ve helped open for the next generation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not JUST sponsorship of another event, but investment in the next generation of the Welsh economy.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And Wales already has a framework that encourages us to think this way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Wellbeing of Future Generations (Wales) Act asks our public bodies to think long term, prevent problems, integrate what they do and collaborate rather than operate in isolation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps entrepreneurial infrastructure is one very practical way of putting that into practice – because the question isn’t only what outputs we can buy this year. It’s what capability we want Wales and its communities to still have in five, ten or twenty years’ time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And ultimately, the goal isn’t for entrepreneurs to need publicly funded support forever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The greatest return on that investment could be helping more people reach the point where they don’t need it.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

They create their own income. Employ somebody. Buy from another Welsh business. Take a shop or workspace. Raise private investment. Solve a problem in their community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And, hopefully, some eventually turn around and help the next person.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That’s an ecosystem beginning to sustain itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think Wales could be exceptionally good at this<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

We’re small enough to know one another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our councils know their communities. Our universities and colleges are full of talent. We have brilliant specialist organisations, investors, accelerators, incubators, workspaces, social enterprises and entrepreneurs who are incredibly generous with what they’ve learned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And despite the occasional bit of healthy competition, we’re actually pretty good at picking up the phone to each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I don’t think we need to build an entrepreneurial ecosystem from scratch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We already have one.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But making it work as one requires more than goodwill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It needs attention, accountability and leadership that can work across organisational boundaries without needing to own everything on the other side of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And crucially, we need to start funding that connective work as though we actually value it.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Welsh ICE wants to play a serious role in making that happen. Not by owning the ecosystem, and certainly not by delivering everything within it, but by helping places understand their entrepreneurial pipeline, connect what’s already working, identify what’s missing and turn shared ambition into action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We’d really like to help make sure it works as one.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because if we get this right, that’s bigger than business support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That’s economic infrastructure worth investing in.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I’ll finish with the question I’ve been asking myself for a while now – and I’d genuinely love to know what others across local government, Welsh Government, education, employability and the entrepreneurial ecosystem think:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If we designed entrepreneurship support around the journey of the entrepreneur, rather than the lifespan of the funding, what would we do differently as a collective?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And perhaps there’s a second question we need to ask too:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who holds the whole picture – and takes responsibility for making sure all those brilliant pieces actually connect?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because I think the next big innovation in the Welsh ecosystem may not be creating something new.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It may be just making what we already have work like one.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wales doesn\u2019t need to choose between its brilliant entrepreneurship organisations. We need to get better at connecting entrepreneurship support in Wales and investing in the infrastructure that makes that possible. Over the past few months, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how we support entrepreneurship in Wales. And the more conversations I have, … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":21531,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[49,125,126,124],"class_list":["post-21530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-business-support","tag-economic-development","tag-entrepreneurial-ecosystem","tag-entrepreneurship-in-wales"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nBuilding Better Entrepreneurship Support in Wales | Welsh ICE<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Wales has great entrepreneurship support. 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