Gold medal effort

Date 28th January 2016 //
Author Adam Tavener

Transparency, choice and collaboration are three important themes that will become increasingly significant as the SME finance market changes, with the triple effects of attitudinal shifts, government intervention and technology advances.

As a result of our ground-breaking initiative to promote alternative business funding through the web portal, alternativebusinessfunding.co.uk, I have come to understand that the positive effects of collaboration cannot be ignored.

There are plenty of corny motivational slogans extolling the virtues of "pulling together" and informing us that we are "stronger together", but the conversation needn't be hi-jacked by the fluffy, feel-good connotations of collaboration.

No, this is really about sound business logic and good commercial outcomes.

If you want to grow your business, then you have to think seriously about these three themes. You want to make sure you approach a lender who is transparent about fees and charges from the outset, gives you a choice that you perhaps had not previously thought about and is able to work collaboratively with both you and possibly other types of financing.

I, of course, think that pensionledfunding.com fits with all these themes and more - but alternativebusinessfunding.co.uk is a great way to check out the alternative finance market as a whole.

Remember, you can mix and match different forms of alternative finance and even combine them with a bank loan. We have a client who is using Seedrs and pensionledfunding.com to raise money for a new business venture, but will also use short term funding until his revenue streams settle down.

This is a sign of collaboration at its best. Distributing risk and reward, sharing due-diligence and providing creative choices to clients are not promises for the future. This is happening now.

The hegemony of the late 20th century banking system is being dismantled by regulation and commercial necessity. Such has been the dominance of this model that an inevitable vacuum has been created.

Nature abhors a vacuum.

It is my opinion that this vacuum will be filled by an array of options, some not even developed yet, and initiatives such as the alternativebusinessfinding.co.uk portal will enable the transparency and choice I believe business owners crave.