Breaking the myths around entrepreneurship

Posted on: 27 March 2026 by Olga Chatzidaki in News, Awards & Insights

Alison Pountneyon confidence, community and why entrepreneurship should feel possible for more students

Alison leads the University’s extracurricular start-up support, including Design Your Future, working with students and graduates who want to test ideas, freelance, start businesses, or simply explore different ways of working. But as she explains, the work is often much more about confidence, access and community than business plans.

Tell us a bit about yourself and the work you do

I’m the Entrepreneurship and Start-up Consultant at the University of Liverpool, and I lead the extracurricular offer for start-up activity within Careers and Employability. That’s for students who are looking to start a business, start trading as a freelancer, or just explore that kind of path.

I’ve worked at the University for nearly ten years now. I started in the Liverpool Bioinnovation Hub, which supported entrepreneurial spin-outs from the University within health and life sciences. Then I realised I wanted to work with more businesses and more students across different subjects, not just science-focused ones, and that led into the work I do now.

One of the things I’m most proud of is that the support doesn’t stop when students graduate. We’re still in touch with students from the programmes we developed five years ago. They come back in and become part of the ecosystem — they mentor students, sit on panels, set challenges, sometimes even become employers themselves. Many of those businesses are University of Liverpool alumni businesses, so it really becomes a cycle where students become graduates, graduates become mentors, and then employers.

So it’s not just a programme, it’s an ecosystem that keeps growing. And after nearly ten years working in this space, I’ve realised there are still a lot of myths around entrepreneurship that can put students off before they even start.

Why does entrepreneurship feel so relevant right now?

Especially in the Liverpool City Region, there are more graduates than there are highly skilled jobs. So being entrepreneurial gives students another option — it allows them to create opportunities for themselves instead of just waiting for opportunities.

Technology has also changed everything. Students might think they don’t have the skills or the ability to start a business, but now with AI and technology it can almost feel like working with a co-founder. The barriers are lower than they used to be.

And culturally, it’s more visible now. Everyone seems to have a side hustle, a personal brand, or another income stream. People want more independence, more control over what they do. So entrepreneurship feels much more relevant to students now than it did even five years ago.

What do students think entrepreneurship looks like, and how different is the reality?

Most students think of an entrepreneur and they picture someone in a suit pitching in front of investors or standing in front of a panel like Dragons’ Den. They think it’s very formal and very high pressure.

In reality, it’s usually much slower and much more organic than that.

A lot of people are accidental entrepreneurs. They start with an idea, or they’re making something, or doing something for people, and they don’t even think of it as a business. Then someone says, you could sell that, or you could make money doing that, and that’s when things start to change.

A big part of my role is actually cheerleading students a bit — helping them see that what they’re doing has value and that they are capable of doing more than they think.

How do programmes like Design Your Future actually support students through that journey?

Design Your Future is really structured to break things down and make entrepreneurship feel accessible. Students get expert advice each week — things like finance, legal, IP — but it’s broken down into manageable pieces so it doesn’t feel overwhelming.

They get mentoring, drop-in sessions, networking, and they can meet the speakers each week. They also meet our Entrepreneurs in Residence, who help demystify the language and the process and show students that entrepreneurship is not this mysterious world that only some people understand.

It’s a bit like an accelerator but designed for students who might be at a much earlier stage — sometimes they don’t even know what their idea is yet. It’s about helping them explore, test, and build confidence step by step.

You mentioned confidence — does imposter syndrome come into this a lot?

All the time. As soon as you tell someone what they’re doing is entrepreneurial, they often say, oh no, that’s not me. They don’t see themselves as that kind of person. They think entrepreneurs are different, more confident, more business-minded, more experienced.

But confidence usually comes after you start, not before. Students need to try things, speak to people, get small wins, and then they start believing in themselves and in what they’re doing.

Your own story is really interesting in this space — how much has that shaped your work?

A lot. I’m from a single-parent family. Nobody went to university. I was a first-generation student and a carer as well. I remember going to university and feeling like I didn’t fit in, especially in business. I remember actually crying to a professor saying I didn’t want to do business — I thought that world wasn’t for people like me.

But over time I realised I was naturally interested in the business side of music, and that led me into social enterprise, and then I set up a music school for underprivileged children. Looking back, I was always entrepreneurial, I just didn’t use that word at the time.

So I understand where the imposter syndrome comes from, and I understand why some students think this world isn’t for them. That’s probably why I care so much about making entrepreneurship accessible and helping students believe in themselves.

What are some of the biggest barriers students face when starting something?

Risk is a big one. If you’re a student from a deprived background, a commuting student, someone with caring responsibilities, or someone working part-time to support yourself, you don’t have the same freedom to take risks as someone with more financial support.

So we try to break down those barriers through funding. We have the Enterprise Fund, seed funding, and Enterprise Awards, where students can receive bursaries from £500 to £5,000. That can help them buy equipment, register a company, or just give them some time away from paid work to focus on their idea.

Even a small amount of funding can make a big difference, not just financially but psychologically. It tells a student that someone believes in them and their idea. Sometimes that belief is just as important as the money.

You often talk about the ecosystem and what happens after students start developing their ideas. What are the next steps for students as they grow?

Once students reach a certain stage with us, we start connecting them with the wider ecosystem beyond the University. That might be across the Liverpool City Region or even nationally.
Some students go on to external accelerator programmes to move from being pitch-ready to investment-ready. We’ve had students go on to programmes like Live Labs, Baltic Ventures, the NHS Clinical Entrepreneurs Programme, Sci-Tech Daresbury Future Club and others. These are very competitive programmes, but our students often do really well and get accepted onto them.

So I see our programmes as a kind of feeder system into those accelerators and wider innovation programmes. The next step for us is probably developing more alumni mentoring and potentially building an investor network where investors come into the University and students can pitch directly to them. That would be a really exciting next stage for the ecosystem.

You’ve seen many student businesses over the years — do the winners always go on to be the most successful?

Not always, which is really interesting. Sometimes the winners have brilliant ideas but they’re very complex or difficult to launch. Some of the runners-up, the ones who came second or third, are the ones who actually go on to survive longer because they just have the determination and the drive to make it happen.

I always think about talent shows on TV — it’s often the runners-up who go on to have the biggest careers.

What trends are you seeing in the types of businesses students are starting?

We’re seeing a lot more social enterprises and community-focused businesses, especially after COVID. Students are really interested in community building, sustainability and purpose-driven work. They want to build businesses that do good, not just make money.

That’s actually really positive to see — students are thinking about environmental impact, social impact and community impact much more than before.

What role do academics and the wider University play in building this entrepreneurial culture?

Academics play a really important role because they can start introducing entrepreneurial thinking into the curriculum. In some subjects there simply aren’t enough traditional jobs for the number of students graduating, so students need to think differently about how they use their degree and create their own opportunities.

We’ve worked with different departments where enterprise modules have been introduced, and that creates a pipeline. Students might first encounter enterprise through their degree, then join Design Your Future, then apply for funding, then move into accelerators or external programmes. So it becomes a journey rather than a one-off activity.

It’s also important that the University itself thinks entrepreneurially. For example, through Design Your Future we use student businesses as suppliers for things like catering and services, where many universities wouldn’t take that risk. But we want to lead by example and support our student and graduate businesses wherever we can.

If someone — student or academic — wanted to get involved, what are the next steps?

Pop in and speak to the team. Come for a coffee, come to networking events, invite us to speak to your students. If you want consultancy on how to bring enterprise into your curriculum, we’re happy to help.

, read The Entrepreneur magazine, come to events at the Sir Peter Rigby Centre for Enterprise. The door is always open — people don’t need to arrive with a business plan, they just need to start the conversation.

Attend Design Your Future; Read The Entrepreneur magazine, come to events at the Sir Peter Rigby Centre for Enterprise. The door is always open — people don’t need to arrive with a business plan, they just need to start the conversation.