Portsmouth coffee entrepreneur shares start-up business tips ahead of 'Founder Friday'
A Portsmouth coffee seller has shared her tips for aspiring entrepreneurs ahead of ‘Founder Friday’, the annual day when people are most likely to start a business.
Virgin StartUp is holding an event on Friday, January 6, for those looking to start their own commercial ventures, in which budding entrepreneurs can book a slot with a business advisor. All slots have now been taken, but Victoria Poon from Portsmouth has shared her experiences of starting a business.
Data collected by the non-profit, which works with the Start Up Loans Company to deliver government loans, predicts a ‘surge of interest from Brits who want to start their own business’ on the day which it has named ‘Founder Friday’ and a 50 per cent increase in loan applications in January.
Victoria founded Alpaca Coffee in March 2020 and last January got a loan from Virgin Startup. She has since found the resources offered by the company useful and plays an active role in the ‘founder’ community.
Victoria said: ‘I started the business because I ended up falling in love with speciality coffee while I was living in Bolivia and then I saw a gap in the market for a plastic-free speciality coffee brand.
‘When you’re just starting out, it can feel like you’re not quite sure what direction to focus on.
‘Advice I would have liked to have had is to take a more structured approach to the things I was doing for the business.
‘For example, understanding what channels I could sell through. I think it’s normal for a lot of entrepreneurs, it feels like a jumbled mess that you just kind of have to wade through.’
Speaking about pressures added by the cost of living crisis, the 28-year-old added: ‘Start small, test your ideas, see if there’s a market for your product. Don’t over-invest too early because things like branding and other aspects of the business can get quite expensive.’
Virgin StartUp managing director Andy Fishburn said: ‘As a New Year begins, we have historically seen January to be a peak period for founders looking to get their business idea off the ground.’
According to the Virgin subsidiary, a quarter of 2,000 adults surveyed planned to start a business in 2023.