BVR eDesign

How a digital expert got the help they needed to grow from Go Digital

You might be surprised that someone with Joanna Beaver's tech skills could benefit from the Go Digital project. After all, she is a self-employed web designer (trading as BVR eDesign) who builds online learning platforms for colleges, universities and private training providers. However, as she explains: "although I am tech savvy with specialist technical skills, I didn't know how to use social media for marketing."

Joanna's ambition is to go from being self-employed to running her own online learning business.

"The first product I'm building is a platform to help people use art projects to improve their mental health. This started as a side-project but my desire to turn it into a full-time business was one reason for applying to Go Digital."

Getting a Go Digital adviser

Knowing Joanna's ambitions, the Go Digital Project team selected Kris Jones as her adviser because of his experience mentoring start-up and scale-up businesses.

"Kris really understood my business idea and the challenges I faced. Talking to him was so inspiring, I came away feeling really motivated."

Anyone who has made the transition from being a freelancer to running a business will know that it is a big leap.

"There are marked organisational differences between the two," says Joanna, "but Kris helped me through the audit and action plan to identify those differences and think through the steps I needed to take."

Seeing success

That inspiration and advice came at just the right time for Joanna, who was still recovering from a bad bout of Covid.

"Kris helped me focus on my priorities and I have now built the website as he recommended and am looking at adding a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system. I have also been on social media training courses and attended various virtual networking events, including excellent 'lunch and learn' sessions with Enterprise Nation.

"I even went to a full-day virtual start-up conference, which was brilliant. There were numerous interesting speakers and advice sessions. I would not have even known to look for that if Kris hadn't encouraged me."

The grant was an added bonus for Joanna.

"It covered most of the cost of a new camera for the business, which will help me to create strong visuals that really engage my users.

However, the real value in Go Digital was in the support that Kris gave, his enthusiasm, and his impartial, inspiring advice."