Richard Bearman is the Managing Director of Start Up Loans, a government-backed programme that launched in 2012 to provide loans to people who would traditionally find it difficult to secure finance. In November last year, the programme announced its new partnership with The Open University to offer a range of free business learning courses.
At a moment of significant upheaval for the UK start-up landscape, we are extremely excited to have partnered with a world-renowned organisation to give our customers ‘ and other small business owners across the UK ‘ the opportunity to take free Open University business learning courses.
The partnership provides online courses that can be easily accessed by visiting the Start Up Loans website and have been designed to suit all needs and paces of learning, from introductory to intermediate to advanced. Depending on the level of study, the courses take six, 10 or 30 hours to complete.
In partnership with experts at The Open University, we have curated a set of courses designed specifically to help entrepreneurs understand the fundamentals of running a business. Hosted on the Open University’s OpenLearn platform, these courses focus on areas such as career and leadership; finance and accounting; marketing and commercial awareness; and project management.
We built the partnership with the goal of helping give businesses the confidence and training needed to kick-start their ideas, and are pleased to have already seen the impact of the scheme on many of the small business owners we support.
In just a few months, the Open University offering has become a brilliant addition to our existing mentoring support package. We’re conscious that, during this difficult economic period, it is more vital than ever to provide longer-term support options and advice to all the UK’s small business owners, in a safe, online format.
As well as the partnership, and our pre-loan support and mentoring package we offer to all our customers as they bring their business ideas to life, we’ve also created a series of guides on important areas of business including social media, marketing and SEO. The guides, which can be downloaded free of charge from the Start Up Loans website, are designed to ensure business owners of all stripes have the resources they need to build and grow a successful business.
The offer of free ongoing support and guidance, in addition to our low-interest loans of between £5,000 and £25,000, has always been the guiding principle that separates Start Up Loans from other finance options available to aspiring small business owners.
Amid the current uncertainty small business owners face, additional advice and training is needed more urgently than ever. We are extremely proud of our partnership with The Open University to provide the UK start-up community with expert guidance to support their essential contribution to the British economy.
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