Grassroots platforms highlight gaps in UK’s small business ecosystem

The exponential growth of two British Asian business networks, from 219 members in 2016 to over 170,000 today, signals that minority entrepreneurs are building parallel infrastructure outside mainstream business support systems.

Zamiha Desai, founder of ProfessionalAsian and RecommendAsian, will receive an MBE at Windsor Castle in November for services to the British Asian community. But the recognition comes as her networks reveal a structural problem: British Asian SMEs are creating their own ecosystems because existing ones aren’t serving them.

“We didn’t set out to build an alternative business infrastructure,” Desai explains. “But when you can’t access mentoring, when mainstream media isn’t covering your sector, when networking events don’t feel inclusive, you create what’s missing.”

The Numbers Behind the Growth

ProfessionalAsian now supports 96,000 entrepreneurs while RecommendAsian has 75,000 women members. The growth rate indicates significant demand that traditional small business support channels may not be meeting.

Desai’s twice-yearly Hey Gorgeous shopping events draw 8,000 visitors per weekend, providing physical retail opportunities for SMEs seeking direct customer access and brand visibility.

The scale reflects a gap in UK enterprise support. Nearly 200,000 small business owners and consumers are actively seeking community, visibility and commercial opportunities through grassroots networks rather than established channels.

Barriers to Visibility and Access

British Asian entrepreneurs face specific structural challenges, according to Desai, who reports that “Mainstream business media coverage of minority-owned SMEs remains limited outside venture-backed tech startups. Traditional networking organisations may lack understanding of family business structures common in British Asian communities. Mentoring programmes are often designed without considering the needs of first-generation entrepreneurs. These are some of the reasons why our communities have flourished.”

“You see coverage of the same types of businesses repeatedly,” says Desai. “Meanwhile, there are thousands of profitable, growing British Asian SMEs that never get featured, never get asked to speak at events, never get included in ‘ones to watch’ lists.”

This visibility gap has commercial consequences. Without mainstream media coverage or network access, businesses find it harder to reach customers beyond their immediate communities, which can limit growth potential.

The Hey Gorgeous events create dedicated marketplaces to address this. The need for such alternative channels indicates that existing retail and trade show opportunities aren’t fully accessible to all SMEs.

Building Alternative Infrastructure

Both networks operate on Facebook, keeping barriers to entry low. Members share business advice, make client referrals, post job opportunities, and troubleshoot operational challenges. More crucially, they provide the weak ties and bridge connections that business research shows are essential for entrepreneurial success.

“Traditional business networks often require high membership fees, operate during working hours, or assume you have spare capital for lunch meetings,” Desai notes. “That doesn’t work for a lot of small business owners, especially parents running businesses alongside caring responsibilities.”

The platforms also enable practical collaboration. Members find suppliers, form partnerships, and create customer pipelines: essentially replicating what business schools call “social capital” but doing it outside established structures.

What the Data Shows

The success of these networks offers insights for policymakers and mainstream business organisations. When nearly 200,000 entrepreneurs and consumers build grassroots alternatives, it points to gaps in existing provision rather than simple preference.

Recent government initiatives like Growth Hubs[1] have focused on diversity and improving small business access to finance[2] and reducing regulatory burden. But Desai’s networks demonstrate that capital and compliance aren’t the only factors affecting growth. Visibility, representation, and access to professional networks also matter for business development.

“Finance is important, but so is being featured in industry roundups, getting invited to speak at conferences, having your business recommended by influencers in your sector,” Desai argues. “These soft infrastructure elements drive growth, and they’re largely inaccessible to British Asian SMEs.”

There are broader economic implications too. If a significant segment of the small business economy operates through parallel networks with limited mainstream visibility, it likely underperforms its potential. Better integration could unlock additional growth and job creation.

What Success Looks Like

Desai’s MBE recognition is significant, but individual awards don’t solve structural problems. The question for the wider SME ecosystem is whether British Asian entrepreneurs will continue needing separate infrastructure, or whether mainstream organisations will adapt.

Some signs suggest change is possible. More corporate diversity initiatives now include supplier diversity components. Nestlé UK increased its spending with diverse suppliers by 39% in 2023, setting a target to reach £5 million by 2025, while Unilever has expanded its supplier inclusion programme to 25 countries, working with small and minority-owned businesses[3].

But the pace of change remains slow relative to demand, as demonstrated by the continued rapid growth of Desai’s networks. “The goal isn’t to run parallel systems forever,” Desai says. “It’s to prove our businesses exist, they’re viable, they’re growing, and then mainstream business infrastructure needs to catch up and include them properly.”

For now, the 170,000 members across both networks represent an economic opportunity and a challenge to conventional assumptions about how the UK’s small business ecosystem functions, and for whom.