Paul Harris and Jack Denton – All About Law
All About Law is a law careers resource combined with a social network that takes its users from high school to employment with information specific to each stage.

‘I was lucky enough to be invited to a three day course in 2007 which was a great experience to meet other young entrepreneurs and to build up some initial contacts many of whom I’m still in touch with. Without such initiatives and the chance to meet other people in the same position it can be a lonely road so I would recommend the course to anyone!’

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Jayne Tarasun – FollySmith
Jayne has revived the 18th century architectural concept of a folly, fusing it with contemporary design principals and traditional, sustainable materials. Using cedar, oak, copper and glass, Jayne designs and produces these follies, which are durable, self-contained structures that provide an antidote to our seemingly constant state of divided attention.

‘The FlyingStart programme gave me the confidence to be able to see the potential in my ideas. My mentor is enthusiastic, he is always there at the end of an email when I get stuck and I am still in contact with him.’

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Gemma Brown – Gemmina Mia
Gemmina Mia is a unique leatherwear design company, specialising principally in hand crafted leather bags and infant footwear. All Gemmina Mia products are made from pure natural fibres, reflecting the brand’s quality and down-to-earth fashion spirit.

‘The FlyingStart workshop provided great advice for start up businesses and good contacts.’

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Jennie Cummings-Knight – Golden Leaf
A South Yorkshire based Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and Integrative Counselling Service, including stress counselling, for individuals and businesses. Golden Leaf also offers an integrative service - different ways of counselling are woven together to suit the client.

‘FlyingStart gave me that little bit of extra impetus to get things moving and start working for myself. Advice on building a website and networking has been useful, as has access to a
mentor.’

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Marcia Brown
Marcia is a Leeds based visual artist, specialising in issue based and fun based workshops linked either to the school curriculum, gallery, museum collections, festivals and community events and family learning.
She is a qualified Arts Tutor (P.G.C.E) and a member of the Institute for Learning, with previous experience in adult and community education.

‘FlyingStart has helped me with support and advice, gained from my mentor. I was able to recognise my talents, strengths and weaknesses and build relevant relationships by networking. This has enabled me to confidently plan, research and manifest my specialist skills within education and the arts.’

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Nicola De Cruz
The Surrey based designer uses an unusual mix of hand and machine embroidered and digital printed textile techniques to produce distinctively embellished designs, based on myths & fairy tales. The collections are made from a range of cotton, leather and silk using a mix of textile techniques to produce distinctively embellished designs, adorned with recycled vintage and antique details.

‘Attending the FlyingStart programme helped me to head in the right direction with pricing items, as well as meeting other people in the same industry with small businesses too.’

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Graham Mossop - Design & Conquer
Graham Mossop’s web design business has transformed since he attended a FlyingStart programme. Design and Conquer now has an estimated turnover of £24,000.

‘Before I took the FlyingStart three day course, I didn't really have any kind of plan or structure, I just knew I wanted to make websites for people and get paid. Now my business is a lot more structured, it has a purpose and I have new contacts and clients.’

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Fiona Davies - Flame Interiors
Fiona Davies attended a FlyingStart programme in 2008, during the final year of her foundation degree in interior design. The programme gave her confidence to overcome the difficulties she faced in setting up her business.

“It was great to be on this particular programme as many of the delegates were creative types too. This meant that as well as great, informative, realistic and challenging teaching, I received great mentoring and also the chance to bounce ideas around with like-minded people.”

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Donna Fraher - Fluffy Auto Boutique
Fluffy Auto Boutique (FAB) is a retail business that provides car accessories mainly for women and hold car style and car knowledge workshops in Yorkshire. They began trading on eBay July 2008, set up an e-commerce website in May 2009 and opened a small unit in West Yorkshire in August 2009.

"The initial FlyingStart three day programme in Reading that I attended provided me with knowledge that I have utilised to help me to set up my business."

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James Baker and Tim Miller - Freedom Adventures Ltd.
James Baker and Tim Miller had little knowledge about setting up a business, before attending a FlyingStart programme. They now own ‘Freedom Adventures’ an independent adventure travel specialist providing climbing and diving experiences to groups or individuals.

‘Before we went on the FlyingStart course we had very little knowledge on how to set a business up. After attending we managed to get lots of knowledge on how to progress our business forward and learnt how to pitch and went on to doing so at the bank for investment.’

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David Batterbee - MR Shox Limited
MR Shox has developed revolutionary technology for mountain bike suspensions, which detects changes in terrain conditions to optimise suspension performance automatically.
FlyingStart assisted David with several grant applications, which were successful, including: £70,000 in proof of concept funds from the University of Sheffield's own fund and Yorkshire Concept Fund and £40,000 from the 2009 Royal Academy of Engineering ERA Award.

‘My business planning skills were enhanced through attending the FlyingStart course for engineers. The mentoring that was made available also provided a useful source for advice. FlyingStart also generated free publicity through its contacts with the national media’.

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Nicola Bockelmann - Artist
Nicola attended a FlyingStart Programme in 2007, which helped turn her creative hobby into a business. She produces large scale oil paintings which deal with gender representations in the media. She has had a number of solo and group exhibitions, taking images from adverts and slightly modifying them to create ambiguity and question gender stereotypes.

‘I participated in the Flying Start Programme at Hull University in 2007. I learnt many things about the business side of being an artist, which was something I didn’t know much about. The course was very compact and dense with information and has proven to be very valuable for the growth of my business.’

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Alice Horsman - Olice Productions
Olice Productions provide video production and website design to a diverse range of clients. including restaurant chain Las Iguanas, The Learning and Skills Council, Marstons Brewery, and Capita Insurance.

‘FlyingStart taught me a lot about how to run a small business and I have been able to ask my mentor to give me advice on marketing materials. I made some good contacts on the course, some of whom I have continued to work with. The course also gave me the confidence to grow my business and showed me that anything is possible.’

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Mark Reilly - Remarkable Innovation
Remarkable Innovation is a company that is trusted by international clients to provide technical advice on mergers and acquisitions around the world. Having started from zero, with no revenue and no contacts, Remarkable Innovation now have a client base including US Fortune 100 companies.

‘FlyingStart gave me the confidence to go ahead and set up a company. It gave me exposure to experienced entrepreneurs who had lots of practical tips, but most of all it was just really inspiring to speak to people who had built a company from nothing!’

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Julius Nkemdiche - www.studentindex.org
StudentIndex is a free classifieds website that allows students to sell items that they have collected while being at university or college. They actively promote new listings through popular social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Delicious and more, creating more viewings for each ad.

‘FlyingStart has helped by providing a mentor who I can ask questions and seek advice. Without this professional help, it would be hard for me to progress and make my business grow the way I want it to’.

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Jamie Chaplin-Brice - Wudwork
Wudwork produce sustainable contemporary furniture and bench joinery that make the most of the UK’s natural resources, including innovative wood veneer curtains. They won second place in the Sheffield Hallam University Enterprise Challenge in October 2007.

‘FlyingStart was a real boost to my understanding of business. I took a three day course in Manchester in 2007 and it taught me more about business and networking than three years at University.’

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Nathan Pearson - Pearson’s Engineering Services
Nathan had been working for a freight haulage company, but decided to start his own business. He took part in a FlyingStart programme in February 2008 and shortly after Pearson’s Engineering Services began trading. The company is currently working on a major contract and pursuing more.

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Isabelle Stead - Human Film Ltd.
After University Isabelle spent time working in America within the movie industry. Although it was a great experience, she never had any real control over the projects she worked on. Isabelle made the scary decision to return to the UK and start her own production company. Attending the FlyingStart programme helped Isabelle realise that starting her own company was achievable and since then Human Film Ltd has gone from strength to strength.

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Nin Castle - Goodone
Nin wanted to start a company that would create innovative clothing entirely from recycled goods. The FlyingStart programme Nin attended helped her to secure funding to make this a reality. Nin has seen her creations displayed at London Fashion week and the Clothes Show Live and is aiming for the Goodone brand to be known internationally.

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Will Hayler and Linley Lewis - Ticket to Ride
Whilst studying at University Will and Linley identified an opportunity within the ‘Gap year’ market, to offer surfing courses. They attended a FlyingStart programme and trading began in 2007. Since then they have enjoyed rapid growth and have been able to expand to offer customers even more choice.

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Jethro Macey - Designer
Since attending a FlyingStart programme, Jethro has built up a successful design practise based in London and Cornwall. Jethro produces designs for mass production and sells his pieces in galleries and famous outlets. Jethro found that the FlyingStart programme was well focussed and equipped in helping him make progress within the creative industries.

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Chris Quickfall - Invate Ltd - assistive learning
While at University, Chris realised that the technological support available to dyslexic students was lacking. Chris attended a FlyingStart programme and with his business partner founded Invate Ltd. Invate Ltd is now a leading assistive technology supplier enjoying wide success.

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Fatima Ba-Alawi - DCS Designs
Fatima already had her idea for a new design of hospital gown and with FlyingStart she was able to turn this into a trading business. DCS Designs now receives requests for gowns from all over the world and Fatima is currently working at extending her range.

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Emma-Jayne Parkes and Viviane Jaeger - SquidLondon Ltd
Emma-Jayne and Viviane were inspired by a mix of design, technology and science to create colour changing umbrellas. The FlyingStart programme helped to focus Emma-Jayne and Viviane on what they hoped to achieve and they have since had much success- even designing the outfits for the closing ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games.

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Adam Bowen and Dan Hinton - Pixelfish Limited
Pixelfish Limited is a newly established creative agency, based in Poole, providing superior service in the areas of  website design, content management systems, e-marketing, e-commerce, branding and print design. In its first two weeks of trading Pixelfish has managed to secure several projects.

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Oliver Sidwell - Ratemyplacement.co.uk
Ratemyplacement.co.uk is an undergraduate recruitment website specialising in student work placement and internships in the UK. It aims to provide students with unrivalled information on work placement and internship opportunities in the UK as well as allowing employers to reach the best career minded students earlier than has traditionally been possible.

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Gareth Mitchell - Tree2mydoor
After having the idea to send his parents some fruit trees as gifts, and being unable to find a tree gift company, Gareth left the safe world of employment to start Tree2mydoor Ltd. A gift company that specialises in sending personalised trees as gifts, Tree2mydoor's products are green ethical and have been nominated and won numerous awards.

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Simon Phelps - Fluvial Innovations
Simon had an innovative idea for a new flood barrier system; he founded Fluvial Innovations Ltd to develop it. Following a FlyingStart programme where Simon gained many useful contacts and industry knowledge, Simon successfully sold his FLOODSTOP barriers to many local authorities and is continuing to pursue further contacts.

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