"Make money, have fun, do good."

The PopUp Business School was founded in 2012 by Alan Donegan and Simon Paine.  They knew that the traditional approach to starting a business (start-up loans and business plans) put more people off than they help and in order to find, inspire and help people start businesses (especially at grassroots) you need to take a completely different approach.

So they reinvented how to start a business. The first PopUp Business School event was in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset in partnership with Alliance Homes and we got some incredible results.  Fast forward to today and we've partnered with Housing Associations, Universities, Jobcentre Plus, Local Authorities and we've helped to start more than 1500 businesses in communities across the UK. 

"Fail fast and fail cheap, You'll find success much quicker."
- Alan Donegan

How are we different from traditional enterprise support?
You don't need a business plan or a loan to get started. Our approach is the opposite. 

We excite and inspire people to test their business ideas and we empower people to follow our simple process to get started. 

Fun and Passion are at the core of everything we do. 

Our events are a mixture of inspiration, information, 1:1, workshop content and peer support.

Our Process
Meeting
Pre-project- we meet key partners and members of the community to create a Pop-Up Business School that will involve and develop people in a way that will best serve the community.
Promote
In the Marketing phase we work to tell as many people as we can about the the Pop Up Business School.  Our job is to find those people that are contemplating enterprise or have already started.
Coach
We 'Pop Up' for a fixed period of time in a space identified by the community.  Our job is to give individual-centred high quality support. We run workshops, facilitate peer learning, coach and mentor those people serious about making their own money.
Support
We make a record of our interactions so people can access them after the project has ended. We empower communities to continue the support after the project has ended.

"Customers have to know you, like you and trust you. NO TRUST, NO SALE." - Simon Paine

Our workshops
Who wants to go to a workshop called "How to write a business plan?"

Does this sound exciting to you? We have been to a few in our time and not only are they boring but they suck the motivation out of would be start-ups and actually stop them from getting started.

we run lots of workshops...

...some of which are:
How to start a business with no money
I don't get Twitter - 12 ways to make money online
How to make a website for free
Never go back - 10 ways to leave the Job Centre behind you forever

Our workshops are jam-packed with our unique content and we enjoy showing people how to use the latest technology easily and for free in order to start and build successful businesses.