Funding to get started
For many new business owners (and indeed, business owners full stop!) the word ‘finance’ makes them shiver with fear. Managing and accessing finance are both well documented barriers to starting a new business, and that’s why we strive to ensure we can provide access to two key types of support.
Our first goal is to help you overcome your fears of finance by building your understanding and knowledge about how to manage your finances successfully and create strong financial plans. We’ve got various sections on our online learning platform, Outset Online, which explain the key terminology, walk you through the best way of costing and pricing your products and services, and provide you with tips for planning your budgets. We’ve also got some very user-friendly business calculators and other financial tools that take the pain out of trying to figure out how to make spreadsheets and formulas do what you need!
The second element of our support is focused on helping our clients to access finance. Our Outset Finance service is a national delivery partner of the government Start Up Loan scheme and can offers loans to anyone who has been refused by a bank or is struggling to secure mainstream finance. We can give some support as you prepare your loan application and help ensure you’ve got the right plans in place to improve your chances of success.
If you are successful in securing a Start Up Loan, we then organise for you to receive 12-months of free support from a suitable mentor (whether in person, over Skype, on telephone or via email – whatever works for you) to ensure that you have all the help you need as you go about building your business.