Self-employment service Outset Bristol, which has helped create nearly 300 businesses in three years, has secured funding from the city council and Europe Union to continue for another 12 months.
The award-winning organisation has proved a success since its launch in 2011, advising and mentoring hundreds of people looking to set up in business by themselves. 
So far the 288 businesses it has helped launch have, in turn, created 300-plus jobs and added more than £2.9m to the city’s economy.
Some of the businesses and individuals to have benefited from the Outset service joined forces with budding Bristol entrepreneurs, local community leaders and councillors to lobby for an extension in its funding.
The result is that Bristol City Council has pledged to pay for it for another year with match funding from the European Regional Development Fund.
The programme has also been expanded to include access for users to Government-funded start-up loans through Outset Bristol’s sister company Outset Finance.
Bristol City Council director of the futures group Stephen Hilton said: “We are delighted that Outset will be continuing to support people, particularly from our deprived areas, to start their own businesses.
“Bristol is a city made up of entrepreneurs and with Outset’s support, people from all parts of the city and all walks of life will have the opportunity to become self-employed, creating jobs and strengthening the local economy.”
Outset Bristol programme director Andy Dean said offering start-up loans was one more step towards delivering an end-to-end service for Bristol’s start-up community.
“Outset Bristol has achieved some exceptional results over the last three years – transforming the lives of many of our clients,” he said. “Offering this support for accessing finance is yet another example of how we remove barriers to setting up local businesses.”
The Outset Bristol team, based on Prince Street in the city centre, offers free advice, help and workshop sessions to anyone, but particularly targets those from disadvantaged sectors, including the long-term unemployed, women, people from black and minority-ethnic communities and disabled people. Some 57% of people helped by Outset Bristol are women and more than a quarter have been long-term unemployed.
Among those recently launching a business through Outset Bristol is Christopher Driscoll. His Face In Space aerial photography business was set up in partnership with another Outset Bristol client, David Curtis. Both reckon Outset’s support made a real difference.
Christopher said: “Outset not only answers the many questions you have when you start a business, but they show you things you never would have thought about.
“Outset gave us the confidence and the knowledge to take the steps needed to start Face In Space. It would have been bad for the future of Bristol if Outset had been lost.”
Outset Bristol is one of a number of Outset programmes run across the UK by Cambridge-based international business creation and marketing group YTKO.
