Meet the brands that will be showcasing their small businesses on Oxford Street in October

At the start of 2021, together with Enterprise Nation, Uber launched 

 - three exciting initiatives to empower drivers, couriers, restaurants and new food entrepreneurs to start and grow businesses.

In the Business Builder programme, 100 Uber drivers and couriers received support to help them turn a business idea into a business reality, including weekly training sessions and a grant.

In the Food Fellowship programme, eight food entrepreneurs took their food start-up to the next level via a hands-on educational programme and access to workbenches in Karma Kitchen.

Now, six months on, some of the programme participants have the chance to showcase their businesses and sell their products to the public in a pop-up shop on Oxford Street.

The Empowering Journeys pop-up will take over Sook’s Oxford Street store every Monday – Thursday in October to give the entrepreneurs the opportunity to test physical retail and introduce their businesses to the public.

Visit the pop-up at Sook, 58 Oxford Street, London, W1D 1BH, every Monday – Thursday in October to support the small businesses.

You can see the businesses that will be in the store each week here:

Week one: Monday 4 – Thursday 7 October

Herbal tea blends designed to support a healthy brain function and mental wellbeing. 

Yu Pods, Muhammad Nawfal

Week two: Monday 11 – Thursday 14 October

Free-from cake pots made with no wheat, no dairy, no gluten, no grains, no soya, no additives, no preservatives and no refined sugar. https://www.sweetcakeything.co.uk/

Nora Amin, founder, From Nora’s Kitchen

Authentic South East Asian treats – Ready-to-eat Sambal. https://www.fromnoraskitchen.co.uk/

Independent record label and platform for up and coming musicians to perform and release music through. Laurens will be hosting an open-mic night in the store. https://basementflatrecords.bandcamp.com/

Nicholas will be showcasing his app in the store. The London Experience helps people in London try new foods and experiences whilst saving money and supporting local businesses. Visit to find out more about using the app or getting your business listed on it. https://www.thelondonexperiencecard.com/

A handmade vegan deodorant made with organic and natural ingredients for your skin! #no2plastic #crueltyfree https://www.instagram.com/lazy.pea/?hl=en

Sukh will be showcasing his app in the store – a private social network for families.

Sukh is the founder of Priceless App - a private social network for families. An online repository that can only be accessed by your family. Website: https://priceless-app.com/

Monday 25 – Thursday 28 October – Food Fair

Mirko Amelotti Yimesghen, founder, Gursha

Ethiopian food reinvented. The team at Gursha have made Ethiopian food easy – visit to try samples and get your hands on their ready meals. http://www.gursha.co.uk/

Mia-Sara Crowther-Nicol, founder, CND Drinks

Father and daughter led family business. South London homemade tropical drinks, specialising in ginger beer, sorrel and fruit punch. https://www.instagram.com/cnddrinks/?hl=en

Contemporary, gourmet, dim sum focused menu, offering hot delivery in South West and North London, and a Nationwide frozen delivery service.

Programme manager at Enterprise Nation. Connect with me to chat about getting involved in our events and programmes.

In my spare time, I love discovering independent places to eat, drink and shop!

Programme manager

Meet the brands showcasing in the Empowering Journeys pop-up

Meet the brands that will be showcasing their small businesses on Oxford Street.

Facebook ads can feel tricky, but in reality, they’re not - but they require a LOT of testing and tweaking until you reach the ultimate goal, which is targeting the RIGHT people, at the RIGHT time with the RIGHT message.

If you’re not getting the results you want, here are five things that you should be looking at:

It might be that you’re not targeting the right people. 

You can have the best ad in the world, but if you’re showing it to the wrong people it’s never going to be successful. 

Facebook gives you lots of ways to create suitable audiences. You can use custom audiences (these are your “warm” audiences: website visitors, Facebook/Instagram followers, video viewers and even your email contact list) and then you can create lookalikes of these audiences, giving you a whole load of new people who are really similar to your current audience.

You can also create saved audiences, which you can build based on your ICA (ideal customer avatar) using age, gender, geographical location (if relevant), job roles, interests, hobbies, where they shop, who they follow etc. 

The more you know about your ideal customer, the better! 

Have you chosen the correct objective for your ads?

When it comes to your objective, you have to be clear in telling Facebook what you want your ads to do - it takes your instructions at face value! 

The objective you choose will dictate who your ads are shown to. If you choose “traffic” then Facebook shows your ads to the people within your chosen audience that it thinks will click your link. If you choose “conversions” it shows the ad to the people most likely to take the chosen action (download, purchase etc) and so on.

So if you’ve set up a traffic campaign, hoping that people will click the link AND buy, then you’ve chosen the wrong objective.  Facebook is showing the ad to people that will click the link, for sure… but you failed to mention you wanted people to take an action. 

If your images are bland, they could be doing you a disservice. 

It’s really important to find “traffic stopping” images. The type of photo that’s going to make your ideal customer stop scrolling and actually notice your ad. That’s not an easy task as you have to think outside of what you personally like, and really put yourself in the mindset of your ideal client/customer. 

As a business owner/brand you can get caught up in your logo/your branding and whilst images including these things might work, you have to be prepared to consider that equally, they might not! 

You want to find an image that feels natural when it’s in the newsfeed of your ICA but equally will intrigue them enough to take notice of your ad. 

It could be that your copy isn’t working.

You have a split second to catch someone’s attention on Facebook, so you need to learn to be short and snappy! 

That’s not to say that ads with long copy don’t work, but you need to make sure that your first line is attention grabbing.

Focus your attention on your headline and the first line of your copy - your headline should tempt people in, and your first line of copy should fully back that up! 

These two elements should make the reader either want to read more or take immediate action.

If you’re not willing to allocate a decent budget then you might not get the results you hoped for.

I’m a firm believer that everyone can get started with Facebook ads from as little as £1/$1 a day, however if you want Facebook ads to deliver a serious amount of traffic or leads for your business, then you have to allocate a decent budget.  

Facebook ads are run on an auction basis, so everyone is competing, and in a very busy marketplace you do have to pay to play.

Once you’ve made some changes in one, some, or all of these areas, you should start to see your results improving. 

Want more business advice from experts like Simon? 

Join Enterprise Nation to connect with our network of advisers

I've been running my business for nearly ten years now, after a twenty year career in sales and marketing.

What I do, day in day out, with absolute passion, is help my clients to implement their marketing strategies and get their sales funnels really working for them – primarily through harnessing the power of Facebook advertising and email automation.

I’m not just here to tell you WHAT you should be doing, I’m here to help you with the actual implementation of all the strategies and ideas.

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HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) has delayed the introduction of new income tax rules which require businesses to keep digital records and use software to submit quarterly updates to the government.

The changes to income tax self assessment (ITSA) were originally due to come into force in April 2023 but Lucy Frazer, financial secretary to the Treasury, today said due to the disruption caused by the pandemic, businesses and landlords with an income of over £10,000 will now be mandated to comply from April 2024. The rules will apply to general partnerships from April 2025.

The new requirements are part of the Making Tax Digital (MTD) strategy which aims to see the end of the traditional annual tax return and transform the tax system. The government says the changes increase business productivity, reduce mistakes and cut costs. Figures show that tax return mistakes cost the exchequer £8.5bn in 2018-19.

"During the pandemic, UK businesses increasingly turned to digital tools to communicate remotely and work collaboratively", Frazer said in 

. "Businesses adapted rapidly to the challenges posed by the pandemic, using digital solutions to maintain resilience and reduce disruption.

"Over the past year, HMRC has worked closely with partners in the business and tax communities on the proposed design and scope of MTD for income tax.

"The government recognises the challenges faced by many UK businesses and their representatives as the country emerges from the pandemic over the last year. In recognition of this and of stakeholder feedback, we will now be introducing MTD for ITSA a year later, in the tax year beginning in April 2024.

"A later start for MTD for ITSA provides more time for those required to join to make the necessary preparations and for HMRC to deliver the most robust service possible, affording additional time for testing in the pilot."

The announcement of the delay came as the government laid out 

, also released today, says that the requirements will impact on an estimated 4.2m unincorporated businesses, individuals and civil society organisations with trading and/or property income over £10,000.

It includes around 2.6m self-employed individuals, around 1m landlords, over 250,000 ordinary partnerships and about 380,000 businesses with income from different sources.

Since 2019, businesses with taxable income above the VAT threshold of £85,000 a year have been required to comply with MTD for VAT. Over 1.5m businesses have signed up. VAT-registered businesses with taxable turnover below the threshold need to join MTD for their first tax return from April 2022.

We're interested to know how you use tech tools to benefit your business, so we've teamed up with Dropbox to find out. 

 and you could win a £100 Amazon gift voucher.

I'm a freelance content creator and event host who helps small businesses and the organisations that support them. I'm also Enterprise Nation's Local Leader for Bristol.
I have 19 years of experience as a small business journalist having interviewed hundreds of entrepreneurs from billionaires like Sir Richard Branson to the founders behind brand new start-ups.
I've worked for a range of leading small business publications and support groups, most recently as head of content at Enterprise Nation where I was responsible for the prolific output of content on the company's blog and social media. I now freelance for Enterprise Nation including hosting the Small Business sessions podcast.
I'm based in Bristol where I run and host regular events with the local small business community in my role as Enterprise Nation's Local Leader for Bristol. I also have strong connections with other major business organisations in the south west region.
In total, I've hosted over 100 events including conferences with an audience of hundreds for international brands like Xero and Facebook and live web chats from inside 10 Downing Street.
With my partner, I co-run Lifestyle District, a lifestyle blog focused on culture, art, theatre and photography.

Freelance content creator & event host

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Since launching in 2005, the Enterprise Nation team has helped thousands of people start and grow their businesses. Led by founder Emma Jones MBE, Enterprise Nation continues to be the most active UK small business community and a leading campaigning voice for small business. Joining Enterprise Nation connects you with resources, community and connections you need to reach your business goals.

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Watch back: Lessons learnt a year on from starting my breakfast delivery business

Lauren O'Donnell used to prepare her own overnight oats for breakfast every morning, but when she didn't have time to prepare them the night before, she couldn't find any affordable, filling alternatives on supermarket shelves. 

Lauren shared her first overnight oat samples at a workshop hosted by Enterprise Nation and TSB back in October 2019 for young, budding entrepreneurs. Feedback was great, and her course attendees became her first customers. Lauren started selling her breakfasts through Instagram, before launching an online store in April 2020. 

 has sent out thousands of overnight oat pots to hundreds of customers across the UK. 

Watch back this recorded Lunch and Learn to hear Lauren share lessons learnt as she recently celebrated her one year business anniversary.

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Drawing on experience from a wide range of transformation programmes,&nbsp;

, a change consultancy that equips customers to deliver lasting change, responsibly.&nbsp;

CE Change Ltd specialises in delivering operational change, focusing on ways which empower people, processes and performance. 

CE Change Ltd solutions fall under two main headings; Sustainable Transformation and Responsible Change: Sustainable Transformation is all about developing intelligent and ethical solutions to business priorities and Responsible Change is about delivering excellent results whilst managing the impacts of change well.

Watch back this recorded Lunch and Learn to find out more about: 

- Understanding that business change is critical to successful technology change

- How to recognise the importance of supporting people through change

- A new way of thinking about key project activity right from the outset (testing, data, support models etc)

I am director of a change consultancy that specialises in operational transformation using intelligent, ethical, sustainable solutions. We bring clarity and confidence to change, offering tailored solutions to enable our customers to discover their operational health, develop future goals and deliver the change required. I am passionate about remoulding businesses for better futures – to me, this goes beyond improving mere profitability and instead involves looking for high quality, lasting solutions that look after people, the planet and the bottom line. I also believe that it matters what we deliver and how we get there. Responsibility is a key value for my own company and embedded into the work we do with clients: we focus on delivering sustainable transformation through responsible change. I have extensive experience of delivering digital and business transformation within corporate businesses and public/private partnerships.

Director

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Sophia Bonne is senior advisor at the Customer Department where she is involved in the creation and the development of the SME projects at the

Sophia is a Belgian lawyer with more than 25 years of experience in the IP area, amongst others as litigator before the EUCJ and as a certified mediator.Before joining the EUIPO, she was attorney at law at a leading international law firm in Brussels.

She is the author of a book on international mediation, various articles on IP law and has been a speaker at several events in the field of IP.

In this recorded Lunch and Learn session, you will gather an understanding of the basics of intellectual property protection with a focus on the importance of trade marks and branding. You will also find out more about the types of IP that could be useful when building your brand and the geographical coverage of your protection.

Learn something. Anytime. Anywhere.

Learn something. Anytime. Anywhere.

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Meet the brands showcasing in the Empowering Journeys pop-up

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Events you can attend

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Learn something. Anytime. Anywhere.

Learn something. Anytime. Anywhere.

Hot topics

Meet the brands showcasing in the Empowering Journeys pop-up

Five reasons your Facebook ads might be underperforming

Government gives businesses more time to prepare for Making Tax Digital for Income Tax

Find a popular topic

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Events you can attend

She Means Business Ireland: Create a virtual storefront with shops

How to create a social media content plan for your agency clients

Lunch and Learn: Make peace with debt and commit to a plan