• New research from website building platform Weebly finds more than two thirds of British entrepreneurs think fear of failure prevents people launching new businesses
• One in three says launching their own business was the scariest thing they ever did, but more than half say starting a new business is actually easier than most think
• Weebly seeks to help more entrepreneurs start businesses with launch of Weebly 4, an evolved platform uniting websites, ecommerce and marketing to fuel business growth and save time for busy entrepreneurs

Fear of failure is holding British entrepreneurs back from launching new businesses, new data reveals. The research, conducted by YouGov on behalf of website building platform Weebly, has found that more than two thirds of British entrepreneurs (71 per cent) believe that fear is what’s preventing more people from taking the plunge to set up their own company.

One in three British entrepreneurs (31 per cent) also said that launching their own company was the scariest thing they ever did, and yet over half (55 per cent) say that starting a new business is easier than people think. One barrier to entry for new businesses is building a web presence, with one in four (25 per cent) of British entrepreneurs saying it can be intimidating.

To help would be entrepreneurs not only overcome this barrier by setting up a website, but to help grow that site into a successful online business, Weebly, the global service now empowering more than 40 million entrepreneurs worldwide, has launched Weebly 4, an evolved, fully-integrated platform that delivers a complete suite of tools to help any entrepreneur start, grow and succeed online. The platform now delivers the most customisable website and storefront plus enhanced ecommerce, unprecedented built-in marketing, a complete insights dashboard, unrivaled mobile management and more.

The updated platform includes advanced ecommerce features paired with integrated email marketing and built-in SEO. This auto-creates email campaigns based on store actions, collects contacts grouped by customers’ behaviour and offers the first full funnel insights of the impact of an email campaign on ecommerce sales in one platform. Weebly 4 demystifies getting found on Google with an engineered advantage on every site, expert advice with Weebly’s first Ultimate Guide to SEO plus an embedded real-time score and site-specific tips to improve. An immersive dashboard gives deep insights across the entire business including appointment scheduling, customer chat, accounting, and email marketing that can be run from anywhere on Weebly’s updated mobile app.

Created with a new layer of intelligence designed to fuel growth, Weebly 4’s full comprehensive feature set and visuals can be found here: www.weebly.com/4

Since the release of Carbon, the third generation of Weebly, the company is now boasting 10 million additional users to bring the total to 40 million, the largest third party App Center with over 200 vetted third party apps, a 5 star rated iOS app in the Apple Store and a spike of 40 per cent year over year growth in people building and managing sites on a mobile device. The Weebly Mobile App remains the only solution to create and manage an online business from a phone or tablet. Weebly 4 aims to build on this growth and empower the next wave of entrepreneurs to grow their business on Weebly across any device.

“At Weebly, our purpose as a company is to unlock people’s entrepreneurial potential by not only helping them initially launch their own business, but to take the next steps as well. When we started Weebly, the biggest challenge was building a website. Now with 40 million entrepreneurs and over 300m monthly visitors to a Weebly site or store, we’re tackling the next hurdle of growing a site into a successful online business,” says David Rusenko, Co-Founder and CEO of Weebly. “With Weebly 4, we are helping people conquer the hurdle of getting found online and reaching new customers. Right now the business of running a business is a real hassle, and our ultimate goal is to make it much easier for our customers, saving them time, helping them grow and be successful, and ultimately, helping them focus more on doing what they love.”