Self Employment - Pre-pre-Start Up

Our unique Pre-Pre-Start Up programme incorporates a pro-active approach in seeking out individuals who don’t have a robust business idea and takes them through a series of workshops, via a tried and tested system, that enables any person to form new, embryonic, innovative businesses.   We achieve this by targeting people, assessing individual skills, aptitudes and experiences and then assisting them to generate ideas that go beyond the obvious. We hand-hold them through a basic idea assessment and initial commercial investigation of their innovative concepts.  At the end of this process people are handed over to Business Link (or the equivalent) for business planning and further soft skill development inputs.

The programme complements and enhances the approach of Business Link, thus increasing the quantity and quality of embryonic new business starts that the latter processes.  It is fully compliant with business simplification processes.  The programme can target areas or wards which are believed to be a priority target and which would benefit most from this approach – it is the “missing link” in the business start-up chain.

This programme has already been very successful in such diverse council areas as Sheffield, High Wycombe, Crewe, Burgess Hill, North Tyneside, Hull, Sunderland, and Barnsley and we have excellent references for all of them. The programme is regarded as the model of best practice for pre-pre-start programmes by the East Midlands Development Agency (EMDA) and it is currently being used by the City of Nottingham in some of their deprived wards.  The initial recent campaign in Nottingham attracted over 150 people for the first programme, from carefully targeted areas selected by the Council, with over 50% forming new businesses which have an excellent chance of success.