Start-up of the week: New Hackney Wick business clinic Upstarter ‘helps avoid pitfalls’

The Gazette hunts high and low each week to bring you news of the most interesting and unusual new businesses in Hackney. This week we speak to Gill Wildman who followed her own advice when it came to setting up her new business.

Gill Wildman advises people how best to set up their own business through her own social enterprise, Upstarter.

In the early stages of getting up and running, she says she can share how to “avoid a tonne of pitfalls”.

“There are things like thinking you have to get a building, or thinking you need everything in place before you start, rather than getting customers early which is the critical thing,” she explained.

“Sometimes people think they want to do one thing but their heart tells them something else is more important to them. If you start a business you’ve got to absolutely love it.”

Happily, Janet followed her own advice when she launched her own business, which she runs out of her home in White Post Lane, Hackney Wick. “Absolutely my heart is in it. That’s what makes it work,” she said.

While many incubators have a building, Janet takes her service to her customers.

I used to do a lot of work with corporates and science based start-ups. I realised there’s a whole bunch of people who are missing out on starting their own business and having their own livelihood,” she said. “Even Google started small. I work with tiny companies and help them develop resilience.”