‘Start a Business’ support from HBV Enterprise

Important Notice: This support offer is available to Hackney residents who have not yet started a business and are not receiving enterprise support from any other government funded programme. The offer, its terms and conditions may change at any time, so please check with us before you rely on any of this information.

"I really enjoyed and learned a lot from this course" - Mr AB
"Thank you - a very good service!" - Mr RB
"Very grateful to HBV for the assistance, helped me keep on track" - Ms LC

Living in the London Borough of Hackney? Want to start a business here? Then our professional, confidential 4-step business start-up service, which has been running since 1984, is what you need.

Step 1: Call in to HBV Enterprise Centre and Register

Before you access our support, you must come in to our Centre and register in person. This means fully completing our registration form. Most people can do this in less than 15 minutes. Unfortunately, this form can't be taken away, so please make sure have enough time to complete the form when you visit us.

Registration for “Start a Business” is FREE if you live in the London Borough of Hackney. If you live outside Hackney and need start up support, click here to find where you can get it!

Step 2: Book your place on a Seminar to find out what's involved in running a business

We’ve won a national enterprise award as well as some great customer feedback for our work on this seminar, so this is THE place where you should start. All the experts and evidence say that the best businesses are planned properly before they start trading, and we agree.

So, we’ll take you through how to plan, what to plan and you’ll soon have a good idea of what you need to do next. Our ‘Start It!’ seminar is FREE to anyone living in the London Borough of Hackney.

Click here for our useful downloads, including our Business Plan Guidelines.

Step 3: Develop your knowledge and skills with our range of ‘Start a Business’ workshops

Writing a business plan can be a big task that often raises some good questions. Our workshops are designed to help with these, such as:

How do I find and keep customers?
How do I make a profit?
What about finance? How should I manage my money?
What skills do I need to have to be successful?
What do I need to know about tax?

Our ‘Start a Business’ workshops are FREE to anyone living in the London Borough of Hackney for up to 3 months after attendance on our 'Step 2' Seminar. For more information on our ‘Start A Business’ seminars and workshops, click here.

Step 4: Book a one-to-one meeting with one of our Business Advisors

Most people really value confidential, one-to-one support from an expert when they are planning to start up on their own. It’s a great way of getting a business plan checked over, your questions answered, and your confidence built. At the end of the meeting your adviser will also give you a short action plan to take away.

A 45-minute session with an accredited Business Advisor costs just £12 (including vat) for anyone living in the London Borough of Hackney. This is a special rate subsidised by HBV Enterprise, and is not available to residents of other boroughs.

You can also use one of these meetings to get advice on forming a limited company. More here.

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If you need finance, click to read more about our Loan Fund and, once you have started trading, Understanding Finance for Business, our service to help you raise the funds that you need to grow.

'Start a Business' is funded by HBV Enterprise