The course is a two-day intensive business start-up bootcamp (10-11 September 2021), followed by ten weeks of online support, designed to:

● Support your motivation to start a business

● Provides the confidence and business skills to move to the next stage

● Develops your business idea and business plan during the course

● Help understand the importance of money;

● Ensure that you have a basic understanding of networking –and its importance and value to business;

● Establish and/or develop appropriate and practical links into regional and national business support networks;

● Provide you with detailed training/input on financial issues/decisions;

● Provide you with detailed input on practical aspects of business.

There are four components to the course:

● Pre-course online worksheets

● On-site bootcamp & printed workbook

● Post-course mentoring

● Post-course online workshops

This GREAT start-up course is designed to energisze you into developing your ideas and passions for a realistic generation of income. It is a proven model that has been delivered throughout the country over the last ten years.

Post-bootcamp activities:

Founders' Thursday

Founders' Thursday is a networking event where entrepreneurs can share lunch with other entrepreneurs and find out more about the highs, and lows, of life in a new business.

These are held each month and 2 founders from the local community, and beyond, are invited to give a short talk on their personal journey from business idea to real business followed by an informal Q&A session with the audience.

Key Outcomes

●  A social event whereby entrepreneurs meet successful local entrepreneurs

●  Creates a network of experts and entrepreneurs

●  Meet like minded people and enterprising individuals

●  Ability to share news about other workshops, seminars and networking events all supporting enterprise and entrepreneurship

 1-to-1 Business Clinic 

These are individual sessions held with professionals, such as Accountants, Solicitors, IP Specialists, Banking, Company Tax, Companies House, HMRC, ...etc. to develop the delegate and their business. Each session is 45 minutes.

 

Mentoring Session 

The support from an impartial expert for the entrepreneur is a way of learning from a different source whilst gaining advice and support in this monthly session. The core benefits for the delegate are:

●  Provides impartial advice and encouragement

●  Develops a supportive relationship

●  Assists with problem solving

●  Improves self-confidence

●  Offers professional development

●  Encourages reflection on practice

All mentoring sessions provide a set of outcomes which the delegate should act on. All mentors are provided with training to ensure we provide global best practice. Mentoring will be offered for one year.

Skills Workshop 

At least three skills development workshops will be run during the programme and will be tailored to the needs of the delegates. These may include:

●  Advanced Social Media

●  Sales Techniques

●  Presentation Skills

●  Company Accounts

●  Using Software as a Service

●  Generating a IP strategy

●  Tax, VAT and PAYE

Each session is between 45-90 minutes. Additional skills workshops will be offered throughout the year to support the growth of the entrepreneur.

Book Review 

To develop a culture of continuous learning, each delegate reviews two books from the reading list and shares this learning with the group. This is done through a communal blog and also in group discussions and events. The selected books used are available for loan free of charge online.

Learning Journal 

This is a very powerful way of developing a daily reflective session for the entrepreneur and ensure they study themselves, the business and the stakeholders to learn how to manage the situations and pathway forward in a positive way. The delegate is expected to provide five entries per week. The journal is reviewed each week to ensure that each aspect of the delegate is moving forward and support can be provided where necessary. This is an online journal.