Case Studies

Katie had a genuine interest and passion for art, carpentry and upholstery. To enhance her talents she took a number of relevant courses at Glasgow College in 2013 and 2014 to secure a series of industry-recognised qualifications. This led to her submitting a piece into the Trades House Craftex competition in 2015 and was presented with the Marie Haring Prize for exceptional work and effort. Katie leveraged her customer service experience and years of various work experience to go solo, and launched The Krooked Kat in Perth, Scotland.

Almudena and Claudia, two childhood friends from Southern Spain, set up Bilingual Beats in October 2013. Bilingual Beats provides music language classes to children in London schools and nurseries, as well as hosting parties and family classes.

Michelle Forsbrey is a keen surfer, skier and swimmer. When she’s not working as a flight attendant she is drawn to the ocean, beach and water; a true Mermaid at heart.

Daniel launched his business, Escapism Manchester, in August 2016 and works full-time at the premises with six members of staff.

The Poptata story began in May 2015 with a temporary gazebo set up at London’s Portobello Road market over the weekend. Marco and Luca wanted to share their passion for Fries with Londoners, they knew they would love them.

Joel Griggs grew up fascinated with all things crime related. After spotting some abandoned caves along the Hastings waterfront -caves which turned out to have previously housed everything from hotel generators to druid groups at the turn of the 19th century- he immediately saw their potential.

EMA Training Ltd are a specialist Accountancy training provider based in Heanor on the border of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire. They also run other office based qualifications such as Business Administration and Social Media and Digital Marketing.

Diana Parkes is the founder of social enterprise The Women’s Sat Nav to Success Ltd.

William Ferrieira and his business partner, William Niven started up their independent creative agency, Unbxd in September 2015.

Christian Wilse launched Seniors Helping Seniors, and started trading officially in January 2014.

Inga Irvine opened her art gallery, North 55 Falmouth, with the help of a £6,500 Start up Loan.

Emma Evelyn Stone worked as a Transport Secretary before deciding to return to university and study a science degree.

Rumbi Serima-Fowler started her business Mimi’s Organics in 2014 after struggling to find products to suit the skin of her son, who suffers from numerous allergies.

Providing two state of the art i-sopods, a therapy room, quiet room and space for yoga and pilates, Floating Point Float Centre is Berkshire’s only dedicated floatation therapy centre.

Goji Hair is an exclusive, organic hair salon in the Pontcanna suburb of Cardiff, started by Victoria Griffin.

Niall Greenan, CEO of Greenans Products, was inspired to set up his business based on an innovative idea initially designed to help his arthritic mother fill a coal bucket from a coal bunker.

Former steelworker Mark Fairley has launched his own traditional American BBQ business in a bright yellow high school bus.

Upon returning to his childhood home of Nottingham Matt Hinton, having developed a strong passion in real ale and all things hoppy soon discovered that unlike Sheffield, where he had moved from, there was a real gap in the market for a serious beer retailer.