Category: Blog

Being self-employed and building your confidence can be tough. It’s much tougher than you expected when you took the leap and customers are more demanding than you thought. It’s much harder to get noticed than you thought too, right? Everyone’s trying to sell you something by making you feel you’re getting it wrong if you don’t use their service or buy their thing. You don’t know if you’re making the right decisions. You’re so busy working in the business, you struggle to find time to work on it…And on and on the list goes, because ultimately the buck stops with you! In a nutshell, you can easily become stressed and overworked, get stuck in a rut and wonder how you’re ever going to get it all sorted. Now, at this stage, wouldn’t it be lovely if I could say to you: ‘Well, don’t worry: if you do all these things, this will all get sorted and you’ll become much happier and more successful’? Well, of course, but it isn’t as easy as that! But what I can say is: Don’t worry, if you do all the things in the rest of this blog, you’ll certainly feel more confident that you’re doing the right things,

A Spotlight On: Devon Cookery School After being made redundant during the pandemic, Jazzi Curley decided to create her very own cookery school. When experienced chef Jazzi Curley was made redundant from her full-time role at Exeter Cookery School during the pandemic,  she searched for a series of part-time jobs while she worked out her next steps.  Jazzi explains that when the cookery school shut; “It left me in a position with no job like many other people. I searched for a job for about two weeks and got one in a cafe near Cullumpton as I didn’t know what was going to happen.” With extensive experience teaching cooking, including a stint at the Jamie Oliver Cookery school in Notting Hill, opening up her own school was a no-brainer. When an appropriate plot of land became available at Piper’s Farm just north of Exeter, she decided it was time to take the plunge! “Peter, the owner of Piper’s Farm [where Devon Cookery School is based] got in contact with me and said he had a space where a school would work well… I got there and it was in a gorgeous farm setting. There’s cows sheep, sheepdogs and pigs. It

To say that the past few years have beenchallenging for business owners is somewhat of an understatement. Being anentrepreneur is hard enough under normal circumstances but throw into the mixBrexit, a global pandemic with enforced lockdowns, a war in Europe and theresulting cost-of-living crisis, starting and growing a business is not for thefaint of heart. Despite these monumental challenges, HMRC datashows that more new businesses were created in March 2021 than in any othermonth since records began in 1989. This shows that times of crisis, whilst theyare a struggle, also create entrepreneurial opportunities. Those willing totake these opportunities can profit from the disruption and go on to runsuccessful businesses. How many of those businesses will last though, very much depends on more than just the economic situation. During periods of economic downturn, businesses must take measures to protect themselves so that they can emerge stronger on the other side. One of the most important measures that any business can take is to build and maintain a strong brand that customers recognize and trust. Only by strengthening your brand proposition can you ensure that your customers will stick with you in bad times as well as good. What is a Brand?

IP Corner: Five Spooky Season Patents! With Spooky Season fast approaching, inventors everywhere are hard at work thinking about better ways to set up their spooky decorations, easier ways to carve their pumpkins, more creative costume designs! In the spirit of having some Halloween fun while staying safe and healthy, here are four Halloween-related patents you should know about this year. 1) Chemiluminescent illuminated costume safety mask As explained in the patent, “It is well known that masks restrict the visibility of the wearer and when the mask is worn when lighting is poor, the combination is most dangerous since safety is then dependent upon someone else, such as an automobile driver.” The inventors therefore created “a mask that can be shaped to simulate a human, robot, alien, animal or other feature such as a face, heart, kidney, spine, limb, veins, appendages,” etc. 2.) Self-standing display figure  Want to join in with the Halloween festivities but not sure about opening the front door every five minutes for Trick or Treaters? This may be the perfect solution to ensure children can get their treats without you having to leave the front room! According to the inventors, “a self-standing toy skeleton display”

IP Corner: Miley Cyrus Copyright Dispute In this week’s IP corner we’ll be focusing on the differences between US and UK copyright law, how you can protect your work and ensure you are not accidentally taking someone else’s! Most recently Miley Cyrus found has found herself in the hot-seat, and is facing a copyright infringement lawsuit for posting a picture of themselves on Instagram without the correct licensing or permissions from the photographer. On Friday, September 9, paparazzi photographer Robert Barbera filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Cyrus, claiming she reposted his 2020 photo  that showed her waving to onlookers as she exited a building in February of that year. The image was shared her 180 million followers without permission from Barbera, who had registered the photo with the U.S. Copyright Office on April 11 but didn’t notice Cyrus had posted it until a month later. According to the site Law360, Barbera claimed the photo “increased traffic” to Cyrus’ account and caused her an increase in the revenues generated through the sale of her music or associated business partnership. In the UK, copyright is an automatic right. This means you don’t need to formally register it. However, this makes it even more important to

IP Corner: The Fight for ‘Halloumi’ We all love halloumi. In fact, Britons love halloumi so much that we account for 40% of Cyprus’s exports of it. So as we approach the end of a barbecue-filled summer, let’s explore the reasons why the nation’s favourite grilled cheese was recently at the center of a long and tense battle over IP rights… First, let’s look at why stakeholders (in this case, Cyprus) might want to trademark a term like ‘halloumi’ and why it is so valuable. Trademarks are used to protect the use of the term ‘halloumi’, which is used to ensure that rival cheesemakers outside Cyprus cannot call their product by this name. Given that exports of the cheese were worth £229 million in 2020, any IP rights protecting this interest are incredibly valuable. One form of IP protection that was applied to this cheese is one for ‘origin foods’ within the EU. This limits the use of a product’s name to a group of regional producers. Sounds straightforward… but there’s a catch. Once obtained, a product must be made according to its traditional recipe. For halloumi, this means being made with 51 percent goat or sheep’s milk, making it much

September’s HighStreet Hero: The Generator Hub Each month we’ll be featuring our #HighStreetHero, Devon-based independent businesses which are thriving through a locally-focused ethos. This month we want to shout out an Exeter-based business, at the heart of their local freelancing community ‘The Generator Hub’. Having moved to Exeter with his family in 2010, Neil Finnie found it challenging to become immersed in the local business community. He’d worked in other cities and found co-working spaces to be the heart of opportunities and new connections and felt Exeter needed a place for its ecosystem to thrive. With this in mind, he found a city centre office space, invited a few connections to join him, and in 2012 launched the Generator Hub; Exeter’s first and completely independent co-work space. Like other entrepreneurs, digital nomads and freelancers, Generator Hub member Jim Strong, found the co-work space to be a ‘home from home’ workplace and loved the concept. After chatting to Neil about his own passions for building a strong community of like-minded professionals, there was little doubt that together they could grow and strengthen the community; Jim partnered in 2014. When the opportunity arose in 2016 to take on a second Generator Hub

Spotlight On: ‘That Crafty Stitch’ & ‘Her Small Biz’ Introducing a serial entrepreneur that BIPC customers may recognise! Meet Sam Webber, founder of ‘Her Small Biz’ and ‘That Crafty Stitch’. How it all Started After a hugely successful retail career, managing flagship stores for the Arcadia Group in London and the Southwest, Sam was burnt out. Retail had changed and she lacked the autonomy she craved. Realising that the life she was living didn’t align with her true values anymore, she quit! Sam worked in part-time admin roles (some of which she deliberately had to ‘dumb down’ her CV to get due to overqualification!) and focused on starting her first business. Then one Sunday evening in March 2020, Sam received a call from her employer and was let go from her lifeline job! Simultaneously Boris announced that mask-wearing would become mandatory in all indoor spaces. That night Sam made, photographed, and listed 10 different mask designs on her Etsy shop and instantly started getting orders. Covid proved to be the catalyst for her Etsy store, going from around 10 to 150 orders overnight! Sam had enormous envy for those who had been furloughed and were spending their days relaxing in

Top Tips for Writing a Business Plan:
Keep figures realistic. Don’t be over-optimistic with sales and underestimate costs.

Cross reference what you have written with your financials. If you have listed various marketing activities or purchase of equipment, the costs of these need to be shown in your cashflow forecast.

Cut the waffle. A clear, concise business plan is likely to fair far better if you apply for funding than one full of unnecessary information which the reader has to wade through.