Business & IP Centre Devon

Inspiring Stories

Every day Business & IP Centre provides support to small business owners, entrepreneurs and inventors, just like this one, helping them to grow their business.

We’ve helped 100s of individuals to move forward, through our online courses, the workshops and webinars from experts within their field, as well as providing access to our databases and IP specialists, all for free!

To start your own inspiring story, get in touch today.

FoundYou Ltd – A Boost Your Start-Up Success Story

Marcus Brown is a Devon-based entrepreneur and a Digital Making Tutor for the FabLab at Exeter Library. With his combined interests in digital processes and design, Marcus started FoundYou as a limited company and acquired a trademark for his product. However, he struggled with the financial and planning side of starting a business and needed advice moving forward. 

Marcus was made aware of BIPC Devon’s Boost Your Start-Up course through our general newsletter. From there, he attended our workshops and made good use of our extensive backlog of online recordings.  

Since then, Marcus has gone on to work with Sara Davies MBE of Dragon’s Den fame, and has launched a crowdfunding campaign for his first prototype product through FoundYou. He will be featured on BBC One’s The Big Idea Works from the 3rd of February

What have we helped you and your business with through the course? 

The course has helped me understand many aspects of running a business and planning the way ahead.  I have written a business plan including timelines and am clear about my vision and goals for each month going forward.  Initially I very much felt out of my depth starting up a business as I was originally a teacher for 18 years, but I am feeling much more confident about the road ahead.   

What have you gained by attending the workshops? 

The biggest benefit of this course was bolstering my self-belief.  The tutors were very good at explaining things throughout the course and building enthusiasm. I left every session I attended and every video I watched with renewed excitement, and it really made me think: ‘I can do this’.  If it wasn’t for attending the course, I wouldn’t be in the position I’m in now.

How have you expanded your operations and found new customers since the course? 

I have a great website and several social media feeds.  I also have a growing newsletter list for my followers and have employed an amazing programmer and product designer. Together, we have taken the prototyping in a different direction and now we’ve created the final version of our first product. 

I’m really excited for stuff coming up in the future. I’m going to be on The Big Idea Works on BBC One, hosted by Sara Davies, and will be on episode 15 on Wednesday 26th February! Just ahead of my episode, I’ve launched my Kickstarter to help raise initial funds that’ll allow us to start production!  

What are you currently doing with your business and what are your future aspirations? 

I am hoping for a surge of interest in my product once the TV series has aired! The Kickstarter will hopefully be successful and meet its goal. Depending on demand, I may be looking to employ a small team for assembly and have been starting to look at business properties in Exeter.  I have no idea how much interest there will be, but everyone who knows about the product loves it – including Sara Davies!   

Looking further into the future, we are discussing a second product, and I also have other invention ideas that I can’t wait to share! 

Visit Marcus’ website: https://foundyou.co.uk/  

Visit the Kickstarter for Marcus’ FoundYou product: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/foundyou/foundyou-how-others-find-you  

BIPC Devon are proud to continue to support small businesses with free advice, events, and coworking spaces as well as our fantastic female-focused business-boosting resources.

Ready to start your own inspiring story?

Our databases cover things like market research and statistics, finding funding, guidance on intellectual property and so much more. We provide interactive webinars throughout the year to teach you things like writing a successful business plan, ways to make an impact at networking, and how to boss social media. You can book 1-1 business surgeries with experts from a variety of fields and so much more.

All of this is available, for free, to anyone in Devon who is thinking about starting a business. Simply pop into Exeter, Barnstaple or Paignton libraries, click the “get started” button or email us at bipc@librariesunlimited.org.uk to find out how we can help you launch or grow, the business of your dreams.

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