Coming on the 19th of June, 2024, at The Shard in London (or online if you prefer!), is this year’s Enterprise Research Centre (ERC) State of Small Business Britain Conference. While this is the 9th time the event is running, it’s the first that Gripsure will be involved in, and we are excited for the opportunities this dynamic event presents!
We are delighted to be representing small businesses across the UK, giving talks and sharing our story for those seeking support on overcoming the challenges of the modern small business environment – showing how we’ve used various means of funding to help us grow and develop over the years.

Find out more about us and our services by getting in touch, or read on to discover more about our journey and the upcoming ERC event!

What’s our story?

Born from a rainy-day conversation in 2005 between founders Mike and Ross, Gripsure has grown from a local Cornish enterprise into a global brand providing quality non-slip decking to people, places, and projects all around the world. Our range of products has grown as well – still with the timber non-slip decking that’s at our heart, but with added options in the form of eco-friendly bamboo decking and even cladding!
This all wouldn’t be possible without our dedicated team, our loyal repeat customers, and our no-nonsense attitude to bringing customers – both new and old – unparalleled service throughout every interaction.

What Does It Mean to Participate in the ERC?

The ERC focuses on growing and supporting small businesses – a goal which runs in parallel with our own story. With such a vast collection of insights, research, dialogue, and perspectives on the situation and needs of small businesses in the UK, it offers a valuable resource for all those looking to realise new business opportunities.

Our participation means we can attend the event, share our thoughts and experiences, and hopefully inspire other small businesses to find a path that’ll help them refine and exceed at their craft.

How Finance Can Support SMEs

SMEs, or small to medium sized enterprises, refer to any organisation with less than 250 employees and a turnover below €50 million (£42.6 million). The UK government released an action plan in May 2023 for how they’d deal with SMEs, mostly relating to the understanding of available resources and interactions with the FCDO. While this action plan is helpful for SMEs, it doesn’t provide them with the financial advice or support they need to truly succeed.
SMEs can find it hard to secure finances, especially when they have a limited track record for sales and a limited amount of capital or tangible assets available at any given moment. However, to grow and build a reputation, finance is needed. As such, many SMEs find themselves in a spiral which is incredibly hard to break free of.

One of the pivotal moments in our personal history was a loan we received from Multify, which enabled us to complete an important project we had with a large distributor customer and pushed us to new heights as a business.

Some methods used by SMEs to finance their operations include:

• Independent investors or equity funds
• Increased trade credit with suppliers
• Loan finance with lenders
• Asset finance for investment in capital assets
• Crowdfunding
• Government grants

The slow and steady process of growing your customer base, expanding on your service offering, and growing your business from there is also a way for SMEs to expand – though it can take longer, and a lot more work, than many of the other finance options.

Effectively, finance is a way to boost your business and achieve its full potential now, rather than in the distant future. In our talk at the ERC, we’ll discuss why we needed our funding, hopefully inspiring others to achieve their vision of their business.

Get Involved with Gripsure and the ERC

For SMEs both old and new, the ERC presents an opportunity to learn, make new connections, and find out ways to finance and grow your business. We’ll be giving our own take on how finance can support your business, and hopefully you’ll find it helpful – we hope to see you there!

Find out more about the event by visiting the ERC website or checking out the event programme. Or, if you want to find out more about the quality decking that got us to where we are, you can visit our products page or contact our team directly!

This funding will allow us to upgrade our current system to a more modern and efficient one that will help us streamline our business processes and improve our overall performance.

Our new ERP system will enable us to better manage our resources, automate routine tasks, and provide more accurate and timely data to help us make informed decisions. We believe that this investment will help us achieve our long-term goals and remain competitive in our industry.

We’re excited to get started on this projectand look forward to sharing updates as we progress. Thank you again to the European Union for their support and investment in our company’s future.

This project is part-funded by the European Regional Development Fund.

Little Harbour is one of three hospices run by the charity Children’s Hospice South West, providing care for children and young people with life-limiting conditions, as well as support for their families.

Based in St. Austell, Little Harbour offers a home-from-home where children and young people with life-limiting conditions and their families can take a short break away from home to recharge their batteries in a homely, warm and welcoming environment. This respite service provides a much-needed break from the ongoing strains of caring for their children at home, juggling professional and medical appointments as well as maintaining family life and employment.

In addition, Little Harbour also provides specialist palliative care, a sibling service for brothers and sisters, emergency support, end of life care and a bereavement service for as long as is needed.

We have 20 tee times available, starting at 10am, and once they’re gone, they’re gone! Included in your ticket:

   18 holes of golf in teams of four
   Prizes for the nearest pin, longest drive, team Stableford
   Raffle entry
   Tea/coffee and bacon bap on arrival

I particularly enjoy the variety in my work and the fact that I always meet new customers, suppliers and businesses across different regions and always learn something new.

I’m also a fan of natural timber and have always enjoyed working with wood, so I’m naturally interested in the wide range of applications for our products and finding out about the different projects where our decking is used.

Getting enjoyment from dealing with people, always wanting to learn something new and being reliable. I rather promise less and then deliver more than the other way round. This way you build trust and place your customers at the centre and if you do that consistently, success for the business will come almost as a side effect.

The ability to deal with a multitude of tasks and to prioritise them effectively without getting stressed is also important in my role, particularly at this stage where we are building the Gripsure brand in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Fortunately, I have two great teams supporting me from both France and the UK.

I’ve been working in business development and sales for more than 25 years across a range of industries ranging from publishing to software development, fine foods, media production & broadcast to building supplies. I’ve been providing consultancy services in the UK for many years, mostly with a focus on business development and sales as well as export strategies.

Having spent a lot of time working closely with business owners of SMEs as well as some startups does not only help us, but in particular our customers, since I have learnt to view requirements through their eyes in order to understand what’s really important to them. This often helps to turn customers into long-term business partners. So for me it’s not simply about selling a product, but finding the best solution for our customers.

Nature. If you take the time to observe nature you can learn so much, it provides me with constant inspiration. With people, I’m inspired by those who have achieved a high degree of skill in a particular discipline. I’m not talking about intellect here, but about an intelligence to overcome your own ego in order to “flow” from a natural state, without limiting thoughts.

In my late teenage years I had the good fortune to train under Dan Inosanto, one of Bruce Lee’s teachers and later also to train with a couple of Muay Thai champions in Thailand. That was really inspirational and has influenced me to this day.

In my twenties I spent some time on retreats in Buddhist monasteries, some of the monks who I met there have also been an inspiration to me.

Working in a business development and sales environment has always provided me with the opportunity to have a major impact on a business’ growth. In general, I have always felt a sense of achievement when successfully completing a new business launch in a new market for one of my clients, or proving the viability of their concept or a new product. Seeing a company grow and take on new staff because of new business I had generated for them has always provided me with a sense of achievement.

On a personal level I was quite committed to my favourite sport in the late eighties and managed to win several Kickboxing competitions including German Kickboxing Champion and European Contact Karate Champion, I was quite proud of that.

I also spent nearly three years travelling across South and Southeast Asia and Australasia in the early to mid-nineties to satisfy my curiosity about foreign landscapes, cultures and their people. It was a great experience helping me gain lots of insights, the achievement for me was my “degree in the university of life”, something I treasure to this day.

By far my greatest achievement though is a well-balanced and active lifestyle with a happy family living in one of the most beautiful coastal areas in the Southwest of England, this is priceless to me.