Welcome to Business Growth Week!

What is Business Growth Week and why we are running it

Growth. It’s what entrepreneurs want. It’s what Hezza wants. And it’s what George Osborne is praying to Mammon for.

But how do businesses grow?

Over the next week we’ll be talking to the tycoons who’ve grown businesses super-fast, so we can all learn from their experiences.

We’ll look at whether venture capital and AIM are genuinely useful for high-growth. Same for M&A – it’s gone badly out of fashion lately. We’ll reveal why.

On Wednesday we’re publishing the growth secrets of Jeff Bezos. He grew Amazon into a $48 billion sales firm valued at more than $100 billion. Like so many true entrepreneurs he’s a contrarian. It’s almost as if he’s taken the normal rules of business and deliberately done the reverse. But my god, it’s worked for him. His method may work for you too.

We’ll be looking at how Sir Richard Branson got his mojo back. He won his train appeal, is revamping Virgin Money and next year he’s putting customers into space with Virgin Galactic. Beat that.

Our mission?

To remind London businesses that the nation is depending on them to drag us out of this economic hole. There are 1.5 million unemployed men and women desperate for a job, and the only way they are going to get off the dole is by our best businesses growing and hiring.

If it’s inspiration you want, we’ll offer that. And we’ll back it up with a ton of practical advice sourced from the entrepreneurs who’ve found out the best – and worst – ways to grow a business.

The UK is in a prolonged slump. There’s only one way out. And that’s for our nation’s finest tycoons to throw off the shackles of caution and grow.

Branson can’t do it all by himself.