Entrepreneurs in Britain are the X Factor contestants of business today. We all sing for our supper, going to market via a series of judges who help or hinder us on the way (think of Simon Cowell’s crucial “yes” or “no” as a metaphor for the banks extending credit or an investor pulling the plug).

Entrepreneurs know one thing — business life is all about gambling and calculated risk. Our fragile but roaring egos get stroked by one thing above all — sales and growth. As well as a prodigious appetite for hard work and constant reinvention, you need pride, tenacity, luck and the right support from the right people at the right time to make it through.

The good news is that more businesses than ever start up. The bad news? The percentage that fails within five years — about 80 per cent — doesn’t seem to budge.

Given our dominance as providers of employment, this should cause serious concern. According to government figures released last month by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) account for 99.9 per cent of all enterprises, 60 per cent of private sector employment and half of all private sector turnover.

This may explain why we are heralded as the saviours of the recession, the golden children of the business family, the plucky ones who will pull Britain through. No doubt Lord Mandelson and fellow ministers will be lining up this week — Global Entrepreneurship Week UK — to repeat previous warm words. “The Government’s vision is to make the UK the most enterprising economy in the world and the best place to start and grow a business,” they say.

On the website, Gordon Brown says that this week is “a shining example of Britain leading the world in enterprise and innovation”. But do governments actually help start-ups to succeed? In nearly two decades of running small businesses, I have received no direct communication from any department other than to collect taxes — unless you include a laughable series of invitations to join VAT “open days”. One of our investors, Neil Stewart, of Policy Review TV, tells me that in the decade it took his business to grow from nothing to £6 million: “I had been missed all the way up by almost every official support mechanism.”

A lot of emphasis is being placed on encouraging entrepreneurial spirit among young people. Campaigns such as Oli Barratt’s energetic “make your mark” campaign to give teenagers a tenner and ask them to start something interesting are great. But the vast majority in enterprise are not teenagers. We are already turned on to enterprise — we just need hard, not soft, support.

Entrepreneurs shoulder risk that much larger enterprises, banks included, do not bear equally. The Government’s regrettable choice of enterprise czar, Lord Sugar, decided to cast small businesses that are not good risks as “moaners” instead of working out how to turn struggling SMEs round. Even the usually reserved Federation of Small Businesses wants his resignation.

The average experience of an entrepreneur seeking direct support or engagement from the State is little more in practice than a series of website-based services, providing endless links-within-links to something called Business Link, that provides a patchy, faceless and uninspiring national service. There appears no distinction between businesses that need help to grow and thrive, and those fighting to survive.

Trying to find detailed data on how the entrepreneurial sector is really doing is hard. The Bank of England’s quarterly report on small business was dropped five years ago.

It is encouraging to hear George Osborne pledge to lift the national insurance burden on start-ups with fewer than 10 staff in their first two years, as it signals that what business needs is not rhetoric, but reality.

I have a wishlist of five things I would like for entrepreneurs over the next five years:

• Create a business levy to invest directly back into the entrepreneur economy by lowering corporation tax but ring-fence it for reducing the business failure rate among start-ups by 10 per cent every five years.

• Create a national networking service to match businesses with potential customers and use the BBC and Channel 4 to run more programmes about entrepreneurship and to publicise initiatives.

• Create go-between “business matrons” to join up the dots in person, not just online. Work with private initiatives such as the Coutts & Co entrepreneurs’ forum to identify groups of entrepreneurs.

• Create a magazine, website and TV channel, similar to Teachers’ TV, for entrepreneurs. Have SMEs compete to be featured, as iTunes features the best apps. Showcase real talent and create a live community.

• Make entrepreneurship and workplace mentoring a key part of the curriculum in schools and further education, with tax breaks for businesses that invest in well-run work placements, and an entrepreneur council that will reports to government and the country at large each year on how well the entrepreneur economy is doing.

Entrepreneurs want to be loved — but with actions not words. I hope X Factor contestants sing from musicals soon. As Eliza Doolittle sang to Freddy in My Fair Lady: “Don’t talk of love, burning above, if you’re in love, show me ... show me now.”

Julia Hobsbawm is the founder of Editorial Intelligence, the media, analysis and networking company. Its next event is on entrepreneurship and the recession with Coutt’s & Co, Cass Business School and Somerset House Trust. www.editorialintelligence.com

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