Daisy White, director of Pop Up Horsham, explains why the business should win the home business category of the Guardian Small Business Showcase competition.
Pop Up Horsham offers retail space and education for up to seven entrepreneurs per month. We work with local businesses to rejuvenate the local high streets through pop ups. Although we only formally launched in August this year, we have already fulfilled our promise of taking our entrepreneurs from ‘startup to stay up’,with one small business owner striking out with his own shop after a month of education and confidence boosting in the shared Pop Up Horsham shop.
As we are a rural community, the directors use either a local independent cake shop or a cowshed for board meetings. Both serve our purpose very well.
All three directors work from home in a shed or using a worktop. I work from my cowshed, where I also run a pop-up bookshop and write for two US publishers.
Pop Up Horsham gives small businesses a chance to dip their toe into high street trading without massive overheads.
By also providing advice to entrepreneurs while they’re in the pop-up shop, we can increase their chances of business survival. Pop Up Horsham has been so popular we have teamed up with Enterprise Nation to run ‘Biz Wednesday’. As well as mentoring our in store entrepreneurs, handpicked business advisors chat and take questionsfrom the local community.
All entries which meet the competition criteria are published and our judging panel select a shortlist of the top three for each category. Winners are announced at an awards ceremony in summer 2016.
