Inside Housing | The Self Start Guru

The text below has been copied from the Inside Housing magazine.

“As the UK unemployment crisis deepens Paul Funnell of Aspire Foundation is teaching social tenants and homeless people how to start their own businesses. Simon Brandon finds out more

If jobs are hard to come by at the moment, why not invent your own? On a rain-soaked day in February, 40 people are sitting down in an east London community centre with that goal in mind. They have all been referred here by housing professionals to attend a one-day taster course on how to start their own businesses, run by course leader Paul Funnell, himself a self-made entrepreneur.

Mr Funnell is business development manager at British charity and social enterprise Aspire Foundation. It says its aims are to ‘champion the role of enterprise, entrepreneurship and employment in helping to unlock the potential of people who’ve often been written off by society’. The charity’s previous such course was for budding entrepreneurs from the homelessness sector, who were referred by homelessness organisations across the city. Mr Funnell says it was a success. ‘We had 16 attendees from the homelessness sector, and from that we are launching six or seven new businesses with a realistic chance of succeeding,’ he says proudly.

The full course is six weeks long. At today’s taster, run by Mr Funnell and his second-in-command Richard Lanning, attendees will hear a potted tour of major considerations such as business plans, cash flow, taxes and marketing. The challenge for Aspire must be to sustain entrepreneurial enthusiasm through these less glamorous aspects of becoming your own boss.

Creating a buzz

‘Every time I start a course I get really excited by the potential in the room,’ announces Mr Funnell as he takes the stage. The atmosphere is a little muted to begin with. Six hours later, at the end of the day, it’s buzzing.

‘Today has been utterly fantastic in terms of giving us motivation,’ says Farhanah Begum, a student hoping to set up a listings website for young Londoners. ‘I’m so excited. I can’t wait to get home, open my laptop and start writing my business plan. I’ll probably spend six hours on it tonight.’

In fact, the feedback from all those collared for a chat on their way out of the hall is overwhelmingly positive. A complaint or two might be good for editorial balance, but none are forthcoming today.

‘The last course I went to like this, I ended up thinking “What the heck? I’m not even going to bother – it’s too complicated”,’ says Ivell Haastrup, an Affinity Sutton tenant who was referred onto the course by her housing officer. Ms Haastrup wants to start running arts and crafts classes for children. ‘The way Paul has packaged this today is excellent,’ she adds.

Troy Jackson* lives in a squat in Hackney. He was referred to the course by homelessness charity Crisis and wants to start his own bicycle repair business. Mr Jackson also says he has been on similar courses in the past and was initially doubtful; he only agreed to attend, he says, because Crisis had suggested it might help him in his search for start-up cash.

Winning over sceptics

‘I wanted to get the money for bike tools – Crisis said if you go on a business course, there is more chance you’ll get help when you need start up money. So that’s why I came today. But after 20 minutes of being here I knew it wasn’t like the other courses I have been on.

‘Maybe it was Paul or Richard, maybe it was the setting, but it was much more inspiring. It’s not so much the information, because I know most of it already – it’s that you feel that they want you to succeed. These guys want to help you.’

And the help and support doesn’t finish when the course does. Those who take part in the full six-week programme are offered personal follow-up support after the course finishes, including monthly catch-up meetings and help with funding applications.

Enthusiasm for the course is evident from all parties – the attendees, Aspire Foundation course leaders, and the housing organisations and charities that have put people forward. The only snag is, as ever, money. The demand obviously exists to expand the programme, but who pays? An eight-week course for 20 to 30 people costs between £5,000 and £10,000 to run.

Mr Funnell says he is in talks with housing associations to see if they will inject more funds into the project, suggesting that organisations can share the costs, but this isn’t the most auspicious of economic climates.

Among the attendees today sits Jo Oxlade, employment and training partnership manager at Circle 33 Housing Trust. She is responsible for looking at ways to help residents into employment and has come to check the course out.

Future business

‘I am impressed by Aspire and their energy,’ she says afterwards. ‘At the moment [Aspire] is going to housing associations to see if they are willing to pay for courses for their residents … I think it’s a great idea and I’d love to do it. It’s something we’d like to investigate further but we haven’t got the funds or the budget at the moment to be able to say we are definitely going ahead.’

The rain hasn’t dampened any spirits today. The unanimous answer to the question ‘do you feel closer to starting your own business now than you did this morning?’ is a definitive ‘yes’ from the departing attendees.

Brazilian-born Leide Hassam, a Camden council tenant, began the day with a vague idea about importing Brazilian wines, but the course has fired her up. ‘I am so excited,’ she says. ‘I know I can do it now.’

* Not their real names”