Funding help for micro businesses.

In Northern Ireland there was InvestNI, they had a eight week course called the Start A Business Programme (SABP). It was a good intro to running your own business but it had one small problem, the grant funding for completing the course was only £400 (or £200 if you were going part time).

It doesn't sound much of an issue. Now you get nothing for completing the course, so you still have to raise funds somehow.

Microbusinesses don't need huge amounts of money to get started. For example a power washing business may only need less than £1000 to get up and running. There's not much point of running to the bank to get a loan, banks like to give bigger loans to make more money. Business bank accounts cost money and business loans are usually large and have a business plan attached to them. If you only need a powerwasher to get started then do you really need to go to all the trouble of getting a business account and then a business bank loan together.

The microfunder project is a website to enable small business in Northern Ireland to get microfunding to kick start their business ideas, without the need of huge hurdles to raise finance.

It's coming together and more will be reported soon.