Why Now is The Time for Small Businesses

Welcome to the November edition of Finance Tech AI. This newsletter is dedicated to exploring the evolving intersection of finance and technology, with a special focus on how Artificial Intelligence is shaping the future. Whether you’re a founder, finance professional, SME leader, or someone curious about how these changes are impacting businesses, this newsletter will provide practical insights and takeaways to help you navigate the rapidly changing landscape.

In today’s newsletter:

Web Summit Highlights

Why Now is The Time for Small Businesses

Spotlight on Tech for Good

On the Horizon

Web Summit Highlights

Web Summit is a major annual European tech conference in Lisbon, Portugal with over 70,000 attendees and 3,000 startups. This year’s event highlighted how AI is reshaping industries, with startups and corporations alike showcasing innovations that integrate AI into daily workflows from video generation to embedded finance to marketing and creativity, and many more. Leaders emphasised the need for companies to develop unique, defensible datasets and holistic solutions in order to remain competitive in a rapidly evolving tech landscape. Sustainability was a key topic, including discussions on powering AI data centres through nuclear and hybrid energy innovations, reflecting the growing urgency to align technological growth with environmental responsibility.

The Summit also showcased the rise of social commerce, which is the integration of shopping features directly into social media platforms, allowing users to discover and purchase products without leaving the app, such as Instagram Shopping. This trend is driven by an increased preference for seamless, authentic, customer-focused experiences. There were debates on the potential implications of the EU AI Act’s regulatory landscape, and whether it helps or hinders innovation in Europe in comparison to other regions. There is one takeaway that I found most exciting! It is the sentiment that 2025 is shaping up to be the "Year of the Startup," with anticipated funding rebounds and significant technological advancements. Fingers crossed! If so, the importance of fostering innovation and adapting to a new AI-driven reality has never been clearer.

Why Now is The Time for Small Businesses

In recent months, one thing has become abundantly clear to me: now is the time for budding entrepreneurs, founders, and small businesses to step forward. When I say small business, I’m referring to businesses with less than 50 employees and annual turnover under £10 million, and I’m also including startups in this definition.

Barriers to entry have never been lower. With access to cutting-edge tools, shifting customer needs, and a wealth of digital resources available, the stage is set for smaller ventures to make a big impact. But, there are opportunities for larger companies also.

Highly accelerated technological advancement and enablement continues to transform the entrepreneurial landscape. Founders and small business owners now have access to AI-powered tools, automation platforms, and affordable resources to scale operations faster and smarter. You may recall Sam Altman (OpenAI CEO) commenting that it’s only a matter of time before we have the first one-person startup valued at $1 billion. Many will instinctively think ‘huh?’, but is he wrong…? The revolution is well under way with solutions built with GenAI handling customer engagement and streamlining processes, while AI-powered tech already helps entrepreneurs to automate financial workflows and manage risk. Food for thought.

Platforms like Instagram, Shopify and TikTok make it easier than ever to reach a global audience, allowing small businesses to compete with larger corporations on visibility and customer reach. Meanwhile, no-code platforms enable businesses to develop custom workflows and apps without needing a technical background. There are, of course, risks involved with this that must be addressed, but you can see the direction of travel. Entrepreneurs and small business owners are now better able to focus their energy on revenue generation and creating impactful, customer-focused solutions.

The modern customer’s expectations have shifted dramatically, shaped in part by evolving ways of working and how people consume content and purchase products and services. Some examples of these expectations:

Hyper-Personalisation: Customers expect products and services tailored to their unique needs and preferences.

Amazing user experience (UX) is the standard: Maybe it’s the Apple effect, but businesses are expected to prioritise intuitive, user-friendly design across all customer touch points.

Social Media Commerce: Platforms like Instagram and TikTok have become critical for driving engagement and sales.

E-commerce Innovation: Linked to the earlier UX point, consumers want seamless shopping experiences, from intuitive online stores to fast, reliable delivery.

Although meeting these expectations is a challenge, for small businesses, it’s also an opportunity to stand out and build loyal customer bases.

Economic uncertainty can be daunting, but it also provides fertile ground for innovation and new ventures as businesses and individuals alike are forced to find new ways to grow or even survive. Many individuals are rethinking their career paths due to recent trends in corporate restructuring and layoffs. Often, it’s out of necessity that skilled individuals embrace entrepreneurship as a means of creating new opportunities for themselves. I have no doubt that this has also fuelled an increase in the creator economy and the ‘side-hustle’ trend, striving for quick access to new revenue streams. Interestingly, the gaps left by larger companies struggling to adapt to changing customer demands also offer room for SMEs to step in with creative, agile solutions.

Success in today’s environment requires more than a good idea. It takes strong, adaptive leadership. Faith Ruto (MBA) ’s recent keynote at the Energy 2024 Conference highlighted several key skills for today’s leaders, including: strategic agility and resilience, data-driven decision-making and technological literacy. These leadership qualities (amongst others) are vital for navigating the challenges of building and scaling a startup or small business.

How to Get Started

If you’re ready to turn your business idea into reality, here are some actionable tips:

1 - Define Your Niche: Identify a clear problem or market gap you’re passionate about solving. Do market research and talk to potential customers.

2 - Start Lean: Test your idea with a small pilot program and iterate based on feedback.

3 - Mitigate Resource Gaps: Yes, funding and access to capital does remain a problem. Although this will continue to be an issue, we are slowly seeing more funding and resource support becoming available for new ventures. However, technology does enable you to do more with less. From low-cost marketing tools and no-code e-commerce platforms, to AI-powered finance and planning solutions, entrepreneurs today can stretch limited resources further than ever before.

This opportunity isn’t limited to small businesses. Large corporations, including banks and financial institutions, stand to benefit significantly by supporting small businesses. By offering tailored solutions to suit their finance and other needs, corporates can tap into a growing market segment while driving their own economic interests. Moreover, collaborations between corporates and small businesses open doors to co-innovation, enabling companies to accelerate customer satisfaction and deliver added value. Leveraging the agility of small businesses and startups, larger organisations can explore emerging markets and develop products or services tailored to niche customer needs.

This era marks a transformative moment for both entrepreneurs and larger corporations. Whether you’re building your own venture or collaborating to support one, now is the time to harness innovation, embrace agility, and create a meaningful impact.

Spotlight on Tech for Good: D-Carbonize

Climate-Tech startup D-Carbonize, offers carbon accounting solutions that integrate all essential aspects of carbon footprint assessment, covering measurement, planning, reduction and reporting. Through its innovative digital platform, businesses are able to measure their carbon footprint and identify the best decarbonisation actions to achieve their reduction target. They're on a mission to make decarbonisation more accessible and empower sustainability through autonomous carbon management. This is a fantastic use case for small businesses to take practical, impactful action on their sustainability journey.

On the Horizon

Exciting news! Our new Podcast goes Live in early December! Whether you’re in the ideation stage, launching or scaling a business, this series will give you the tools, insights, and strategies you need to push boundaries and embrace innovation. We’ll explore the world of founders, finance, tech, and AI, with a special focus on the people behind it all. We’ll also feature conversations with guest speakers who are industry leaders, innovators and every day changemakers. Our first episode focusses on AI for SMEs - don’t miss it! 👉🏾 Subscribe to this newsletter to receive an update when we launch!

In Summary

As we look ahead, one thing is clear: small businesses, budding entrepreneurs, and visionary founders are stepping into an unprecedented era of possibility. AI, automation, and social commerce are not just transforming how businesses operate but are empowering smaller players to compete, innovate, and scale faster than ever before.

Customer expectations are also evolving, demanding hyper-personalised products, seamless user experiences, and socially connected commerce. These shifts are creating new opportunities for those ready to innovate and adapt.

For founders, small business leaders, and even larger corporations, this is a pivotal moment to act. Whether you're harnessing technology to launch your venture, scaling to meet demand, or partnering with agile businesses to co-create value, now is the time to embrace opportunity. The result: products and services that are impactful, customer-focused, and drive sustainable growth.

I’m Dhosjan, a Startup Advisor, Business Consultant and Fractional CFO at Bia Innovate .

🚀 We support entrepreneurs and finance teams to launch, scale, and grow sustainably.

🔗 Learn more about our work at biainnovate.com

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