Greater Manchester business leaders join forces to support start-up founders

Five Greater Manchester business leaders have joined forces to launch a new venture supporting founders through growing and exiting their businesses.

End Game brings together Nick Richardson, Vikas Shah, Giles Harridge, James Akrigg, and Naomi Timperley, who is also Innovation Director at Merseyway Innovation Centre where she and colleagues provide support to innovative start-ups and entrepreneurs in Stockport to thrive and grow.

The venture will give founders access to hands-on support at critical stages of their companies’ development from experienced business leaders with learnings from their own entrepreneurial journeys and challenges they have overcome.

Nick Richardson, co-founder End Game, explained:

“We all know how hard it is for founders, to not only get going, but to also navigate the challenges of scale and the often-incompatible objectives of stakeholders. Our model is to fully align with their objectives and to guide them with our operational and governance experience, inspire them with our innovation and commercialisation experience and to ultimately accelerate them on their journey.”

Fellow co-founder Giles Harridge added:

“We’ve built and exited businesses, transformed teams, delivered digital innovation, and coached hundreds of people to become extraordinary.

“Often founders don’t achieve the outcome they hoped for. 

“Every deal is different, and our mission is to close the expectations and quality gap between founders and investors, to get founders match fit for when they engage to seek investment or exit.”

End Game will tailor its business support to the four types of founders it has identified: High-Potential Start-ups, needing funding; Scale-Up Founders, looking to grow operations; Stalling Founders, in need of support to address challenges; and Lost Founders, looking for a next chapter.

Naomi Timperley, co-founder End Game, said:

“In the last few months, we have combined our formidable ecosystem of companies and contacts to build a and multi-faceted, multi-skilled network beyond the End Game Founders.  We will be creating partnerships that accelerate opportunities for businesses not only in the Greater Manchester area but across the wider Northern Powerhouse.”