'Lean' Start-Up loans for North East and Cumbria

A new form of Start-Up has been launched in the North East and Cumbria to help young entrepreneurs.

The ‘Lean Start-Up Loan’ is designed to cater for 18-30 year olds who require up to £1000 to start trading.

Richard Clark, director of Workspace at Project North East (PNE), explained: “As a delivery partner of the Start-Up Loans initiative, we come across a lot of individuals at different stages of their business journey and have received a number of enquiries from young people keen to explore the idea of setting up on their own, but maybe aren’t quite ready to take the plunge.

“For those who only want to borrow a small amount of money to test the market, or set up a small starter business before they can really get motoring, we’ve created the new Lean Start-Up Loan. It is aimed at those who need only that small amount of cash and a bit of guidance to explore whether their business idea is really going to work. It also allows time for them to develop their ideas and produce a full business plan at a later date if they want to apply for a more substantial Start-Up Loan.”

A maximum personal loan of £500 is available to those who want to test out their business idea to see if there’s a market for it and £1,000 is available for those who need a small loan to start trading. And if the business begins to take off, a full Start-Up Loan of up to £25,000 may also be available to expand further.

The Start-Up Loans scheme in the North East and Cumbria is delivered through a consortium including Virgin Money, Virgin Unite, The Northern Rock Foundation (NRF) and PNE – with PNE being the consortium partner responsible for arranging and making the loan.

With around £600,000 of funding still to be awarded in the North East and Cumbria during 2013, all successful applicants will receive access to a host of free resources including an individual expert business mentor, online business courses and local training courses, a virtual office from Regus, reduced transaction fees from Paypal for six months, three months’ free eBay store access and no insertion fees, an e-commerce package for six months and Sage One Accounts software for 12 months.