[Music]
[Stuart Marsden speaking:]
We're Zaremba Marsden Limited — this is Marta and I'm Stuart and we are the directors of the business.
We initially started as an operations management company but due to Covid and our own personal
aspirations, we decided to diversify and look for a nutrition retreat.
[Marta speaking:]
"So so far we've had an awful lot of support from various organisations that includes East Midlands Chamber of Commerce, D2N2 Growth Hub, University of Derby, and Zellar platform. We started off with a programme offered by the Chamber with the starting of the business. So obviously we're already had the business in place, but that two-month programme fast-tracked our launch of the new business, which was a fantastic support
and help and very professional.
"We've also worked with the University of Derby on our strategy front, so that's been an amazing help, and obviously there is a lot of support for other businesses — in terms of webinars and training available to small businesses — so that's been a really good help as well.
"So it all started off with a webinar that I attended, that was conducted by a fellow nutritionist and she actually mentioned LEP, Local Enterprise Programmes. So I jotted it down and one day I googled it, found our local enterprise support and East Midlands Chamber of Commerce; we got in touch and that just snowballed, you know. We found a network that supports small and medium enterprises, we found training available to us, all free of charge — you don't even have to be a member of the chamber to utilise some of those resources — and then obviously we got put in touch with the University of Derby through that, and Zellar.
So we're just amazed by the level of support in this country for the enterprises and any entrepreneurs who want to launch their own business — it's the level of professionalism, the level of support is just
immense and like I said, it just snowballed from day one, and we met an awful lot of fantastic people;
fellow business people as well.
[Stuart speaking:]
I think we're certainly...I wouldn't say more professional, but it's certainly tightened up the rough edges of what we're trying to do; it's made us think very deeply about our next steps: what we need to do, what can we afford to do, what is a priority of things to do.
[Marta speaking:]
It's also consolidated our...so what we already knew from our professional experience, it consolidated that knowledge, helped us identify any gaps and then...basically put the framework in place for us to say okay, so this is how we fill in those gaps — whether we outsource it, or employ somebody, or learn ourselves — and it just helped us shape the strategy for the future five years. And it's certainly — all the contacts and the training we received and all the support we've received — sped up the process of launching this business. What we planned to launch within the next five years, happened within six months and it's happening now.