ADVICE
STRONG MIND -
STRONG BUSINESS
Entrepreneur Penny Power’s latest project aims
to tackle a dilemma with self-employment that’s
seldom discussed. Linda Whitney reports
T
here’s a problem with self-
employment that’s rarely
addressed. Over nine million
people in the UK suffer from
loneliness - and if you’re running your
own business, especially at home on
your own, you may recognise it.
Penny Power OBE, co-founder of
The Business Cafe, says: “We found
that 85 per cent of sole traders that we
surveyed reported feeling lonely.”FEELING OF ISOLATION
She points out that even if you have a
family and plenty of friends, you can
still feel isolated in your business life.
“I have experienced the feeling
of isolation and rejection and
friendlessness in business,” Penny says.
“Despite having many people I callfriends, my business needs are different
to my social needs.
“Many, many times I have hit the
brick wall of achievement, been
rejected by a client, felt disappointed
in myself for a poor performance or
looked around me at a networking
event or online and felt: ‘I must be crap,
everyone else seems to be thriving,
except me’.
“I never knew who to turn to with
these emotions, so they stayed inside
me like a demon and isolated me.”
Given Penny’s background - she and
husband Thomas founded the online
networking community Ecademy
in 1998 to help entrepreneurs use
digital skills effectively and Penny
wrote the government’s Manifesto For
Digital Business Britain - you mightimagine she sees online networking
and social media as the way to tackle
entrepreneurial loneliness.
But in fact she also sees live, personal
contact between business owners as
central to solving the problem.THE BUSINESS CAFE
“That’s how I came up with the concept
for The Business Cafe,” she says. “We
all like to go out for a coffee, but what
if business people could go to a coffee
shop with their particular needs in
mind?
“The Business Cafe is about having
a place where business owners can
network, share problems and help
each other over a coffee. It will offer a
home away from home, but with a more
business lounge experience that gets a
lot more ‘down to business’.”
As well as offering business owners
a place to meet and work, conduct
meetings and perhaps go to more
formal business networking events,
the cafes would offer users the chance
to develop digital skills to boost their
business.
Penny and business partner
Gail Thomas aim to open a chain
of these cafes, starting with one in
Peterborough.
“The cafes will employ young people
as ‘digital friends’, who can help cafe
users to choose and use software, such
as accounting or receipt expenses
systems, or to use social media such as
LinkedIn to improve their business,”
Penny says.
“We have around 5.5 million self-
employed people in the UK who don’t
know how to fully utilise digital. Our
cafes aim to help bridge that gap.”
The digital friends could be students
from local colleges, who will get the