Joel Simon is the founder and owner manager of Flickerpix Animations.  Flickerpix is a small Animations production company. Joel enjoyed the benefit of support from East Belfast Enterprise during his time as a tenant at the business park on the Albertbridge road.

He was offered a place on the Tradelinks Programme (export focused mentoring) in 2007.  This support amounted to 32 hours of mentoring including access to a specialist mentor who provided advice from a film industry perspective. Joel required mentoring specific to the film industry in the south of Ireland and he believed there were opportunities to avail of.  He was matched to a mentor who had relevant knowledge and experience to assist the business in exploring new business in Republic of Ireland.

The mentoring received was invaluable to the development of Joel’s business and his insight into the ROI marketplace.  From this he generated some very key contacts and identified routes into the industry.

Flickerpix was a tenant of East Belfast Enterprise in its early years and until it became established and well recognised for a good quality of work.  On a local level, Flickerpix is most well known for its ‘Busker and Barney’ animation for UTV.

The benefit of being based in East Belfast Enterprise Park, meant he had reduced rent and was in a safe and secure premises close to his main client, UTV.  His business was bought over in 2008 and he moved to Holywood (Belfast not USA!!) where he is still a director and is becoming involved in much bigger animations work.

Joel believes the support received whilst operating in the Enterprise Park, helped to raise his profile and provided him with ideal facilities to run his business.  He was surrounded by small business owners and therefore had access to a network of advice and support.

The Virtual Assistant  programme currently run by East Belfast Enterprise and funded by DEL (Department of Employment & Learning)  evolved from the Virtual Secretary Programme funded by Proteus in 2006 to 2008.

The Virtual Secretary was very much a pilot project.  It was an innovative approach to promoting self employment to women who where unemployed or out of work and trying to find employment/self employment.  A very motivated group of participants joined this programme and some of them proceeded to self employment.

Jane Warren, now trading as Jane Warren Book Keeping, was one of those very motivated and disciplined women, who joined the programme with a low level of confidence and lack of self value.  Jane is a single parent, with a special needs son.  Due to her circumstances it is challenging to find employment to suit her personal requirements.  After trying for a while to juggle employment and her son’s needs she left her work and needed to find a new source of income.

With her strong book keeping experience of almost 20 years and her willingness to take on work for a number of clients, she soon discovered there was a demand for her and her skills.  This amounted to a fulltime job very quickly which is built around her child.  This allows her to have the time required with him and to focus on her business when he is at school or in respite care.

Jane had a positive and life changing experience through the Virtual Secretary Programme.  She learned how to operate her own business, how to sell her self and how to have the confidence to charge people for the work she done.  She has a contact network of other Virtual Secretaries who she keeps in touch with.

This is an example of just one of our many programmes relating to setting up a business and becoming self employed.  Please contact us if you are interested in exploring self employment or a business opportunity.