Develop your business acumen with resources tailored for creative freelancers in the West of England. This section provides insights and tools to help you manage and grow your creative business effectively. Explore topics such as business planning, financial management, marketing strategies, and legal considerations. Turn your creative passion into a thriving business with the right knowledge and resources.
The Growth Hub provides tailored support, expert guidance and access to finance and support programmes to small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs). Growth Hub - Growth Hub (westofengland-ca.gov.uk)
Cool Ventures operates in Bath & North East Somerset (BANES) and South Gloucestershire. They have a range of online workshops coming up which cover social media strategy, starting your own business and how to improve your website’s ranking on Google, Marketing, finance and growth. Home - Business Support - Cool Ventures
Business Support Unlocked - Delivered through the hive, the Business Support Unlocked programme is a free at the point of access pre-start, early growth, and business resilience programme that provides North Somerset businesses with a package of flexible and accessible support to help them overcome challenges and succeed well into the future. Business Support Unlocked | the hive (hivebusinesssupport.org)
Business West offer a range of services for Businesses depending on where the Business is in it’s development and the need that business has.
Under the theme of a business starting out these are things that are available but would have to be paid for to access them:
Bristol Business and Enterprise Support (BrisBES) – Bristol Inclusive & Sustainable Business and Enterprise Support (BrisBES) is a new programme designed to deliver high quality, inclusive and sustainable support to Bristol’s entrepreneurs and business.
Through BrisBES, you can take your small business to the next level with the support of 1:1 coaching, training workshops, e-learning, networking events, grants and more!
Bristol Business & Enterprise Support - West of England (ytko.com)
START is a new and exciting pilot programme for the West of England region and will be delivered by a consortium of four universities: The University of the West of England, Bristol (UWE Bristol), The University of Bristol, The University of Bath, and Bath Spa University.
Led by UWE Bristol partnered with techSPARK, the programme is funded by the West of England Combined Authority, and will provide a package of support and development for 150 pre-start and early formation tech/ digital businesses across Bristol, South Gloucestershire, Bath and North East Somerset.
We will support founders at the very earliest stages of their journey to give them a better chance of success, and through inclusive and equitable recruitment processes and programme design, we will seek to address the underrepresentation of tech founders who are women, disabled, and/or from the Global Majority. About - techSPARK
As the Visit England accredited Local Visitor Economy Partnership (LVEP) for the West of England, Visit West provides specialist support, insights, and routes to market for businesses wanting to work with inbound, domestic, and local visitors, travel trade, groups and the business events market. The visitor economy is worth more than £2.3bn to the region and is one of the UK’s strongest inbound markets.
Visual Arts South West have a fantastic resource page which highlights resources to develop your business.