FREE AND LOW-COST SUPPORTS FOR DUBLIN SMALL BUSINESSES

The Local Enterprise Office Dublin City offers a wide range of free and low-cost supports ideal for small businesses in Dublin 1-13, 17 and 20, across multiple sectors from tech to agriculture and food to professional services.

TRAINING & DEVELOPMENT

We offer a wide range of training workshops, programmes and webinars to help if you are taking the plunge to set up a small business, as well as training if you are already established in business. We run weekly business advice clinics suitable for individuals just getting started, Start Your Own Business courses, as well as a range of training to help you to build your skills to reach more customers and drive sales. These workshops and training courses cover a wide variety of topics including finance, grants, marketing, social media, sales and leadership.

MENTORING

Alongside the training, our mentoring programme provides your businesses with access to our experienced panel of mentors from a wide range of disciplines. The mentoring programme is designed to match the knowledge, skills, insights and entrepreneurial capability of experienced business practitioners with small business owner-managers who need practical and strategic one-to-one advice and guidance. The mentor contributes independent, informed observation and advice.

FINANCIAL (GRANTS)

The Local Enterprise Office offer a number of financial supports to small enterprises suitable for each stage of development. Primary among these supports are the financial grants for businesses. Our feasibility grant assists those looking for capital for new product R&D, prototype production and test marketing projects. The Priming and Business expansion grants provide businesses with salary supports to take on additional full time staff and help with growing small businesses. The LEO’s Trading Online Voucher also offers businesses the opportunity to receive partial funding (50% up to €2,500) to develop or update their website and ecommerce capability.

We also provide pre-loan advice sessions to clients seeking to obtain a loan from Microfinance Ireland to assist them with their application. People who apply through LEO receive a preferential interest rate from MFI and have improved probability of application success.

LEAN FOR MICRO

Lean for Micro is a programme designed to help businesses improve their day-to-day processes by providing support to implement lean principles and business practices for their company, regardless of sector. Businesses that have implemented Lean for Micro have experienced productivity increases of up to 20% as well as cost savings of up to €30,000.

GREEN FOR MICRO

Green for Micro enables businesses to take their first steps on their green journey. A green consultant can inform and demonstrate how small changes can make an impact. Green for Micro is flexible in terms of the area of sustainability you chose. For example, the green consultant can work with a client on energy understanding and reducing carbon footprint, energy efficiency audits, or on green tendering.

DIGITAL START

Digital Start supports your business to create a digital strategy, technical and/or advisory services. We assign an expert digital consultant to guide development of a digital adaptation plan based on your identified need and assists you to implementation.

So whether you are planning to start a business, in business and challenged by the trading environment, sustaining or growing by seeking new markets, Local Enterprise Office Dublin City can assist you.

For details on these supports, see localenterprise.ie/dublincity