Shropshire Enterprise Partnership supports home-based entrepreneurs

The Enterprise HQ (EHQ) project provides support for home-based entrepreneurs, helping them to set up and grow their own businesses. As a result of the initiative, it is predicted that over the next five years 1,500 new businesses and 600 jobs will be created. Success is already evident; in 2008 Shropshire recorded a 13.5% increase in economic activity in the self employed sector, against a regional figure of 8.4% and a national rate of 9.4%.

Launched in the county town of Shrewsbury in 2006 and now with a landmark presence within The Birthplace of Industry in Ironbridge,, the project was founded with public sector investment, which has been matched by private and in-kind support. EHQ now comprises a dynamic entrepreneurial network of almost 500 business owners and provides services to a growing number of home-based entrepreneurs and mobile professionals. Members of the EHQ network can access luxury business meeting venues, AV resources, flexible hot desks, business addresses and powerful new routes to market. EHQ provides them with a vital connection to Government led support programmes, links with the wider local entrepreneurial community and commercial professionalism for their home enterprises. Tailored support and well researched facilities enable their onward growth and development.

Background

National research shows that 2.5million businesses are based within UK homes, and this figure is increasing at a rate of 18% per annum. The EHQ project has capitalised on the growing number of home-based enterprises to meet challenges posed by declining local economies head-on. The Enterprise HQ project has been so successful that Shropshire is deemed as the most advanced area in the UK in terms of supporting home enterprise. The county is currently the location for a home business pilot research study by the Local Government Association and EHQ won European Commission funding in 2008 to expand the £1million project. With two state of the art Business Hub venues in Shrewsbury and Ironbridge, the project provides ‘business incubation services’ across a 250sq mile rural area.

Enterprise HQ business Hubs provide vital services to thousands of isolated enterprises. A unique concept in the public and private world, the operators of this project encourage mass ‘individual’ innovation, and position increased productivity and self employment as the answer to economic declines.

Helping young people

New products are also under development to target young people who are leaving school or college and face a declining jobs market. ‘Business in a Box’ is an EHQ product, developed jointly with a young entrepreneurial design agency. It gives young people all the tools they need to convert skills and ideas into workable businesses within a day. Follow-on motivational events under the banner, ‘Business Rocks!’ have also been set up to help young entrepreneurs develop their business skills and ideas. In tune with the collaborative nature of this project, Louis Barnett, a high profile young member of the community, is the Business Rocks! Ambassador.

Founding his own business at home, teenage Shropshire entrepreneur, Louis, began his chocolate empire at the kitchen table and now controls local factory production of his own brand of chocolate – Chokolit. Supplying Sainsbury’s and Waitrose and exporting to four international outlets, Louis was this year awarded the Lord Carter Memorial Award for his services to the UK Food Industry. At just 18 years of age Louis is a perfect example of a Shropshire based EHQ member. He uses his own journey from kitchen table tycoon to nationally recognised industry guru to inspire younger members of EHQ.

The work of the EHQ project communicates a message of hope and recovery from the current financial crisis. The scheme assists businesses to launch new products, gain new custom, increase sales and ultimately create new jobs and more start-up businesses. In a country facing 3.2 million talented people being underutilised and unemployed, Enterprise HQ focuses on self employment, self reliance and self sufficiency as a way of tackling these universal problems.

Find out more about the Enterprising Britain competition, and read about the other regional winners.