Entrepreneurs accept they will be hit with taxes in the autumn statement tomorrow but expect them to be temporary, according to a leading entrepreneur who has just acquired a stake in the creative agency behind the Ready4Rishi Conservative Party leadership campaign.
Brent Hoberman, co-founder of the travel website lastminute.com and the furniture retailer Made.com, said entrepreneurs valued economic stability above anything else. “The greater fear was the uncertainty of the entire economy, the precipice that we were on with Liz Truss’s budget,” he said. “We would far rather see stability first, and then pro-entrepreneur policies can come after that.
“A bit more tax on entrepreneurs, while it might make us globally less competitive for a while, I would hope is short term until we can afford to cut it back. I think that would be acceptable for entrepreneurs.”
Hoberman, 53, who left lastminute.com in 2007 after selling it for £577 million and stepped down from the board of Made.com a month before its ill-fated public listing last year, is executive chairman of Founders Forum Group, which supports more than 450 tech start-ups. He publicly backed Rishi Sunak’s campaign to become leader of the Conservative Party over the summer, having previously supported David Cameron.
“I thought Rishi Sunak would be better for the country than Liz Truss,” he said. “If you believe entrepreneurship is good for the country it’s also OK to support politicians that you think are going to support entrepreneurs better than others.”
He said that unlike Boris Johnson, Sunak had attended several Founders Forum events and hosted a Treasury conference for the tech community in east London when he was chancellor. “He listened very carefully to everyone. You could tell he got it. He understood it,” Hoberman said.
Hoberman was speaking as Founders Forum Group acquired a minority stake in the Clerkenwell Brothers, a digital marketing agency, for an undisclosed sum. The agency has been rebranded as Founders Makers and joins a suite of services run by Hoberman’s group, including the solicitors Founders Law.
The Clerkenwell Brothers was co-founded in 2016 by Nick and Cass Horowitz, who are now 33 and 31 respectively, and Faraz Aghaei, 31. It employs 23 people and its clients include L’Oreal and the 24-hour grocery delivery business Zapp. Its first client was Little Moons, a popular ice cream mochi dessert brand.
Cass Horowitz has been seconded to No 10 to be Sunak’s head of strategic communications and digital, having helped to run the Ready4Rishi leadership campaign over the summer.
Nick Horowitz said: “Rishi as a brand was a challenger and we work with challenger brands. We played a very small part… in getting him to where he is now. It was a bit of a feat to get an Asian-heritage prime minister for the UK.”
He said the plan now was to tap the “crazy global ecosystem” of entrepreneurs that Founders Forum had built to accelerate its own growth. “It would super-charge anyone,” he said.
Hoberman said start-ups increasingly needed help to bring their ideas to the attention of potential customers: “We knew that lots of founders in our network struggled with the cut-through, guerrilla branding issue and wanted to find the right partner to help us.”
He added that Silicon Valley Bank’s recent minority investment in Founders Forum would help to fund the launch of further services related to start-ups. “There are other businesses that you could imagine we could launch to help entrepreneurs with Silicon Valley Bank,” he said. “We are working on those.”
The chaos IS THE POINT.
Right libertarians want to utterly destroy the state and all organised power except their own kleptocratic wealth.
Poor old Brent (and I’ve met him a few times) still thinks he is dealing with rational and sane people …
The problem is not tax buy level playing field. Currently Tories give big multinational corporations competitive advantage over domestic business.
Prime example are their IR35 changes (also supported by Labour) that ensure companies like Sunak’s Infosys pay less tax than small British business.
If you want British business to pay more tax, fine! Just make sure Indian business pays the same amount.
Currently small UK IT company can pay 54% tax on their contract’s invoice, whereas Infosys doesn’t.
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Entrepreneurs accept they will be hit with taxes in the autumn statement tomorrow but expect them to be temporary, according to a leading entrepreneur who has just acquired a stake in the creative agency behind the Ready4Rishi Conservative Party leadership campaign.
Brent Hoberman, co-founder of the travel website lastminute.com and the furniture retailer Made.com, said entrepreneurs valued economic stability above anything else. “The greater fear was the uncertainty of the entire economy, the precipice that we were on with Liz Truss’s budget,” he said. “We would far rather see stability first, and then pro-entrepreneur policies can come after that.
“A bit more tax on entrepreneurs, while it might make us globally less competitive for a while, I would hope is short term until we can afford to cut it back. I think that would be acceptable for entrepreneurs.”
Hoberman, 53, who left lastminute.com in 2007 after selling it for £577 million and stepped down from the board of Made.com a month before its ill-fated public listing last year, is executive chairman of Founders Forum Group, which supports more than 450 tech start-ups. He publicly backed Rishi Sunak’s campaign to become leader of the Conservative Party over the summer, having previously supported David Cameron.
“I thought Rishi Sunak would be better for the country than Liz Truss,” he said. “If you believe entrepreneurship is good for the country it’s also OK to support politicians that you think are going to support entrepreneurs better than others.”
He said that unlike Boris Johnson, Sunak had attended several Founders Forum events and hosted a Treasury conference for the tech community in east London when he was chancellor. “He listened very carefully to everyone. You could tell he got it. He understood it,” Hoberman said.
Hoberman was speaking as Founders Forum Group acquired a minority stake in the Clerkenwell Brothers, a digital marketing agency, for an undisclosed sum. The agency has been rebranded as Founders Makers and joins a suite of services run by Hoberman’s group, including the solicitors Founders Law.
The Clerkenwell Brothers was co-founded in 2016 by Nick and Cass Horowitz, who are now 33 and 31 respectively, and Faraz Aghaei, 31. It employs 23 people and its clients include L’Oreal and the 24-hour grocery delivery business Zapp. Its first client was Little Moons, a popular ice cream mochi dessert brand.
Cass Horowitz has been seconded to No 10 to be Sunak’s head of strategic communications and digital, having helped to run the Ready4Rishi leadership campaign over the summer.
Nick Horowitz said: “Rishi as a brand was a challenger and we work with challenger brands. We played a very small part… in getting him to where he is now. It was a bit of a feat to get an Asian-heritage prime minister for the UK.”
He said the plan now was to tap the “crazy global ecosystem” of entrepreneurs that Founders Forum had built to accelerate its own growth. “It would super-charge anyone,” he said.
Hoberman said start-ups increasingly needed help to bring their ideas to the attention of potential customers: “We knew that lots of founders in our network struggled with the cut-through, guerrilla branding issue and wanted to find the right partner to help us.”
He added that Silicon Valley Bank’s recent minority investment in Founders Forum would help to fund the launch of further services related to start-ups. “There are other businesses that you could imagine we could launch to help entrepreneurs with Silicon Valley Bank,” he said. “We are working on those.”
The chaos IS THE POINT.
Right libertarians want to utterly destroy the state and all organised power except their own kleptocratic wealth.
Poor old Brent (and I’ve met him a few times) still thinks he is dealing with rational and sane people …
The problem is not tax buy level playing field. Currently Tories give big multinational corporations competitive advantage over domestic business.
Prime example are their IR35 changes (also supported by Labour) that ensure companies like Sunak’s Infosys pay less tax than small British business.
If you want British business to pay more tax, fine! Just make sure Indian business pays the same amount.
Currently small UK IT company can pay 54% tax on their contract’s invoice, whereas Infosys doesn’t.