One thing we’ve learned at Upstart Enterprise is that ‘one size doesn’t fit all’ when it comes to supporting business owners at the start of their business journey’s. CLLD and Lottery funding enabled us to reach harder to reach people across Newcastle and deliver hands-on, personal support in their own communities. 65% of the start-ups we supported were on benefits, 65% were female, 21% of our start-ups have a disability or are Neurodiverse and 12% are registered carers of a relative.

These people face even more barriers to starting up than others, but with Upstart’s personal support we have helped many get over what’s stopping them and ‘around the edges’ advice and connections from our facilitators proved to be valuable in boosting their opportunities.

Our award winners for 2022 were: Diane Smith, Mel Tyson, John Crow & Tony Kendall

We celebrated the end of the year with an awards and Christmas party at Newcastle City Library on Thursday 8^th December, which was well attended by CLLD-funded service users.

Feedback from our service users has been amazing so far including “I feel more confident about my business when I’ve attended”, “Not all superheroes wear capes – thanks for your support!”, to “Without Upstart I’d not be here today”.

Director, Vicki Stone says – “This is just the start for us with our own business journey in the voluntary sector. It is already leading to us new skills and business support projects in 2023 and beyond, so we are very grateful to have been selected to offer our services as part of the CLLD project”.