12 Weeks of Business Funding Available from January 2025
We chatted to Tony Marks owner of Starfish and Coffee and Kyriakos Baxevanis owner of Nostos restaurant in Hove about taking the Help to Grow course and how it has helped them evaluate their business and discover new areas for growth.
Help to Grow is the 90% Government funded programme for leaders of businesses with 5+ staff from the University of Brighton.
Over 200 people have taken the course and we spoke to two local hospitality owners about how the course has helped them.
We asked Tony what made him sign up for Help to Grow
“I started my café business with no knowledge of how to run a business and virtually no hospitality experience and ran everything on gut instinct. I felt very isolated and alone and never had time to stop and plan so the course seemed like a good idea.”
What changes are you planning to make in the business?
I didn’t have a business plan or goals I was just working towards my final goal to have 5 cafes but Help to Grow has helped me to set smaller achievable goals and see more clearly how I can get there. I now realise if my overall goal changes on the way that’s fine too – Ive changed my goals a few times over the course of the programme.
Working on my action plan I am going to be refocusing on local trade and be more community focused as we now have a lot of trade from tourists, expanding our space and do some research around the interest in us opening for food in the evening. This would be an expansion of our service to our existing audience rather than focusing on a new customer type, I learnt this is smarter targeting.
Another local business leader Kyriakos Baxevanis benefited from Help to Grow. He told us:
This is an incredible programme, delivered by a very talented team. I had the opportunity to review and refresh all our key business elements and worked with an amazing mentor that helped me set the next steps for our business. Its compact format ensures that it fits around my busy work schedule but does not cut corners.
What business changes have you made because of the programme?
I launched 2 new services inspired by the programmes guidance – one was a new catering business which is going really well.
Restaurant Brighton are sponsoring a place on the January cohort of Help to Grow so you can sign up for 12 weeks of business management training at no cost to you.
Quote Restaurant Brighton under Other when asked where you heard about Help to Grow on sign up. Help to Grow (brighton.ac.uk)
