Case Studies from December 2025

Sector: Restaurant/ Catering

Location: Rushcliffe

Poblano Eatery is an emerging Mexican street-food brand offering authentic burritos, bowls, tacos (including birria), nachos, agua frescas and inclusive vegan options such as jackfruit barbacoa.

Located in West Bridgford, the business was incorporated in March 2024 and began trading in April 2024. It currently operates as a small, director-led company with two other staff members. Originally launched as a events-only operation, Poblano Eatery has since expanded into a permanent neighbourhood takeaway with its own premises.

Challenges faced

Director Harry Bill faced several challenges as Poblano Eatery transitioned from operating solely at events to establishing a fixed premises. This shift introduced several operational and strategic difficulties for the business. Key issues included:

• Building awareness of its new West Bridgford location and establishing a consistent local customer base.
• Increasing footfall and driving higher volumes of takeaway and online delivery orders.
• Strengthening the business’s digital presence, particularly through Google Business, TripAdvisor and other online platforms essential for food operators.
• Navigating a range of licensing requirements, including food safety, music licensing and street trading regulations.
• Limited internal capacity for structured marketing, making it difficult to implement regular promotional activity and customer-acquisition strategies.

These challenges highlighted the need for external guidance and targeted support to help the business establish itself successfully in its new permanent home.

Solution – Support Given

Through the EMCCA Growth Hub High Street Project, Poblano Eatery received dedicated one-to-one support from East Midlands Chamber’s Business Adviser, Insan Farooqi. This support focused on strengthening the business during its transition to a permanent premises and laying the foundations for sustainable growth.

Key areas of support included:

• A comprehensive business diagnostic, reviewing operations, marketing activity, the customer journey and future growth potential.
• Assistance in establishing and optimising the business’s Google Business and TripAdvisor profiles to improve digital visibility.
• Guidance on licensing compliance, including food safety, music licensing and street trading regulations.
• Recommendations on marketing and customer retention, such as loyalty schemes, integration with delivery platforms and improved processes for generating customer reviews.
• Strategic advice on sustainability and digital development, including packaging choices, oil recycling, waste minimisation and planning for a future catering and corporate hire webpage.

Impact - The Difference it’s Made

The support provided has given Poblano Eatery clear direction for successfully launching and scaling its new NG2 premises. Several key impacts are already emerging with further benefits expected as the business continues to grow.

These include:

• Increased visibility through enhanced Google Business and TripAdvisor profiles, improving discoverability among local customers.
• Higher customer footfall and online orders, supported by more structured marketing activity and targeted promotional campaigns.
• A more personalised customer journey, strengthened by improved review processes and streamlined ordering systems.
• Growth in corporate and event catering, enabled by new brochure development and plans for a dedicated catering webpage.
• Improved sustainability practices, including better packaging choices, oil recycling, clearer allergen information, and reduced waste.

Together, these improvements are helping Poblano Eatery strengthen operations, drive customer engagement and build a scalable platform for long-term business success.

"The Growth Hub support arrived at exactly the right time as we prepared to open our new West Bridgford site. The guidance on marketing, licensing and customer engagement has helped us take a more structured and confident approach to growing the business. It’s been incredibly valuable to have expert support throughout this process."

- Harry Bill, Director

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Sector: Photography

Location: Derby

Mark Dunn Photography Ltd was established in early 2024 and is based in Derby, offering professional photography services across sports, events, live music, weddings and commercial photography.

What began as a passion project alongside Mark’s career has steadily grown into a limited company following his retirement from full-time PAYE employment. Now fully focused on the business, Mark is building a sustainable photography practice that combines technical excellence with a genuine love of capturing moments that matter.

Mark has already built a strong reputation for high-quality work, particularly within sports photography, working with organisations such as Trent Bridge Cricket Club, as well as motorsports, boxing and a range of local sports teams. His portfolio also spans weddings, corporate headshots, lifestyle and wildlife photography, alongside large-scale live events such as STONEDEAD Rock Festival 2025, allowing him to serve both B2B and B2C clients across the region.

Challenges faced

As a newly established business, Mark’s key challenge has been building a strong forward pipeline of work, particularly securing bookings further in advance. While his photography is well regarded and receives positive feedback, he wanted greater consistency in enquiries to help fill his future diary.

Mark is especially keen to grow his wedding photography offering but has found it challenging to compete with more established photographers in a crowded market. Alongside this, a lack of confidence around pricing and package structure has sometimes made it difficult to position his services clearly and convert interest into confirmed bookings.

These challenges highlighted the need for clearer pricing, stronger positioning and a more structured marketing approach to support sustainable, long-term growth.

Solution – Support Given

Mark has been working with East Midlands Chamber’s Business Adviser, Lisa Baggott and the Accelerator project. Lisa has provided 1-to-1 business advice and coaching including help with pricing and putting a plan together to grow the business.

The business also successfully applied for a £2,000 Accelerator Growth Voucher, with guidance from Lisa, which has been used to fund specialist digital consultancy support from Paul Ince of LikeMind Media. Mark has met with Paul and his team a few times to go through his business and the type of photography he wants to attract, as well as his current use of social media. This has led to the creation of a comprehensive marketing strategy document for the business which has been discussed in depth with Paul.

To help improve his digital marketing skills Mark has also attended two Accelerator workshops - How to Plan, Build and Launch a Successful Website and Essential Guide to Social Media Marketing.

Impact - The Difference it’s Made

It’s early days but the support has given Mark a sound plan to implement with key tasks broken down into short, medium and long-term activities. It is hoped once this gets going it will attract new business leads and bookings for Mark.

“The support given by the Chamber to me as a new business owner has been invaluable, and it’s made me more confident that I can grow the business into a successful enterprise.”

- Mark Dunn, Founder

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Sector: Commercial Cleaning

Location: Derby

Upbeat Clean was established five years ago and is a charity-owned commercial cleaning business which provides life-changing employment for women who have fled their countries to rebuild a new life in Derby.

The business employs 60 people today and is the UK’s only cleaning company to receive the King’s Award for Enterprise in Promoting Opportunities.

Its teams are paid the Real Living Wage, supported through training and mentoring, and empowered to progress into leadership roles, resulting in reliable, high-quality cleaning that clients trust. Every contract it delivers fuels meaningful change, transforming a routine business cost into a powerful force for opportunity and integration.

Challenges faced

The business wanted to pilot and expand a franchise model for national social impact, but it needed to upgrade its digital infrastructure before it could support multi-site operations. Its current operating system was not designed to allow for franchisees to use it. This was limiting the business’ growth ambitions.

Solution – Support Given

Upbeat Clean’s Managing Director, Michael Gladwell has been working with East Midlands Chamber’s Business Adviser, Sonny Lakhani and the Accelerator project. Following a thorough diagnostic of the business, Sonny was able to support the business with the application for an Accelerator Growth Voucher, up to £2,000 to fund specialist consultancy support from an external agency.

To support the national franchising of Upbeat Clean, the agency, will upgrade Upbeat Clean’s existing Airtable-based operating system to enable franchisees to operate in a secure digital environment. This will be flexible and scalable that lets multiple organisations use a shared platform securely.

The agency is also building in advanced scheduling features to support the complexity of cleaning operations across a growing number of franchisees. This will enable each franchise to manage its workforce effectively and deliver a consistent quality of service.

Impact - The Difference it’s Made

The support enables Upbeat Clean to franchise across the UK, which will help it duplicate the huge social impact it has in Derby, to other cities.

“This grant has made our system ready for franchising.

We won the Kings Award for Social Mobility because of our work in Derby. We are excited to see this same impact spread across many cities.”

- Michael Gladwell, Managing Director

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Sector: Education

Location: Nottingham

Rose Tuition is based in Nottingham and provides both in-person tuition at The Kimberley School and specialist online support to students across the UK.

Founded in February 2024 by Danny Rose, it provides private tuition by qualified classroom teachers covering Science, Maths, English, Key Stage 2 through 1-to-1 sessions and small group classes. All tutors are DBS checked and contract through Rose Tuition with Danny leading the team.

The business focus is on building confidence, improving results and supporting families with accessible but premium, evidence-led teaching.

Challenges faced

Key barriers to growth for Rose Tuition have been specialist recruitment and marketing capacity. The business only works with fully qualified, practising teachers which ensures exceptional quality but makes recruitment more complex than hiring general tutors.

In addition, the rapid demand for tuition has highlighted a lack of in-house digital marketing capacity, limiting its ability to scale its online reach and compete effectively with lower-cost national and international providers.

While the business is growing quickly through word-of-mouth, building a strong digital presence requires skills, systems and investment that go beyond day-to-day delivery of education. This has been a key barrier to expanding sustainably for Rose Tuition.

Solution – Support Given

As a startup business, Rose Tuition was initially helped by David Hallam at NBV Enterprise Solutions who gave Danny invaluable strategic guidance helping the business to prioritise growth areas, refine operations and set clear actionable targets. Danny comments that having an experienced adviser to challenge ideas and provide structure were crucial during a period of rapid growth.

It was David who signposted the Nottingham Accelerator project to Danny and East Midlands Chamber’s Business Adviser, Richard Crowden. Following a business diagnostic and discussion on digital growth ambitions, Richard was able to support Rose Tuition with an application for a £2,000 Growth Voucher.  This funding has enabled the business to invest in professional SEO support through an external provider, Tea Powered Projects. The agency provided ten fully optimised landing pages for its website, significantly improving its online visibility and helping Rose Tuition reach families across Nottinghamshire and beyond.

The support has already had a measurable impact on enquiry volume and quality. The grant itself has supported both its digital presence and its ability to invest in sustainable growth without compromising on its commitment to employ fully qualified teachers.

Other Accelerator support includes attendance at East Midlands Chamber’s AI and Digital Marketing Conference in June 2025.

Impact - The Difference it’s Made

The support has already had a significant impact on Rose Tuition’s growth, competitiveness and its ability to create sustainable education jobs in Nottinghamshire.

Increased Competitiveness in a Growing Market - By strengthening its SEO and online presence, Rose Tuition is now more visible to families seeking high-quality tuition. This helps it stand out against lower-cost national and overseas competitors, while maintaining its commitment to using fully qualified teachers.

Creation of Local, Professional Tutor Roles - As its enquiries increase, it is recruiting more specialist teachers to deliver both in-person and online provision. The Accelerator funding has directly supported job creation within the local education sector.

Greater Sustainability and Stability - Improved digital reach means the business is no longer reliant solely on word-of-mouth referrals. This makes it more resilient, improves cashflow forecasting and safeguards future roles for teachers working with them.

Streamlined Marketing Processes - With optimised, targeted online content now in place, the business can focus its time on tutoring quality and centre development, rather than spending hours manually promoting services. This has freed up capacity for strategic growth.

Danny estimates that the SEO work and clearer marketing strategy now save them around 8-10 hours per month of director time that was previously spent trying to write and optimise web content themselves.

This freed-up time is now focused on curriculum development and supporting more students. Based on internal costings, this equates to approximately £400 – £500 worth of time per month, which can instead be reinvested into growing the business and creating additional tutoring capacity.

“Thanks to this support, we’ve been able to reach more families who need high-quality tuition, and we’re now able to create more teaching roles here in Nottinghamshire. 

It feels like the local business community has backed us, and we’re grateful.”

- Danny Rose, Director

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Sector: Leadership Training and Consultancy

Location: Derby

Practically Leading is a consultancy and training business based in Derby. The business was founded in July 2025 by Director, Janet Holland after 26 years of charity leadership.

Practically Leading provides practical leadership solutions for small businesses and charities through training, coaching, and consultancy. Services include strategic business development, policy and procedure design, income diversification, bid writing, governance and project development.

The company also delivers specialist training in areas such as early years safeguarding and compassionate leadership, helping organisations strengthen their leadership capacity and improve operational performance.

Challenges faced

As a newly established business, Janet faced several initial challenges. It was difficult to clearly define the brand identity, service offering and target customer base. In addition, Janet didn’t have the skills herself to create the marketing materials, slowing down promotion and new leads. Online presence for the business also needed work as the current channels did not fully reflect the services provided or values-led approach Janet was offering.

Solution – Support Given

Through the Derbyshire Accelerator project, Janet accessed one-to-one support from Chamber Business Adviser, Lisa Baggott. This support helped Janet focus on developing the business plan, identifying target customers, refining the pricing model, and clearly defining the service offer. Lisa also supported Janet in reviewing her overall business approach, customer funnel and sales strategy.

Janet was also successful in applying for a Growth Voucher. This Accelerator funding helped Janet access further support with branding, which encouraged her to reflect on the purpose and vision behind Practically Leading, helping to establish a clearer understanding of the brand and its values.

The business’s previous website had been created quickly as a simple online “window,” without significant consideration of brand identity, target audience, or service focus. Working with Creative Director, Chris Green from Pretty Decent, this support allowed Janet to explore these areas in more depth, prompting her to think carefully about Practically Leading’s services, ideal customers and future direction.

Chris also provided guidance on improving social media content and visual presentation. He introduced Janet to Canva as a more effective tool for creating marketing materials, replacing her earlier use of PowerPoint for visuals.

To build her skills Janet also attended the Marketing that Means Business: Build your Marketing Plan Accelerator workshop.

Impact - The Difference it’s Made

As a result of the support received, the business now has a stronger sense of brand identity and direction. Janet has gained greater clarity around the business’s purpose, target audience and service offering, enabling a more strategic approach to marketing and business development.

The visual identity and web design support provided a clear foundation for refreshing the company’s online presence, ensuring that the website and branding now better reflect the values and practical approach of Practically Leading.

Through the guidance of Lisa and Chris, Janet also increased her confidence in promoting the business and improved her ability to create professional marketing materials using Canva which significantly reduced the time spent producing graphics. Janet also developed a more effective social media strategy. Overall, the support has positioned Practically Leading for sustainable growth and stronger engagement with its clients.

“Lisa and Chris were amazing to work with, they were both incredibly patient with me, as a non-marketing person, they helped me understand some key principles and how I should present my business online. I look forward to working with Chris further to develop my brand identity.”

- Janet Holland, Director

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Sector: Retail

Location: Nottingham

Eyesore Merch is based in Nottingham on the banks of the River Trent, not far from Nottingham Forest FC and Notts County FC.

From the seed of an idea in 2010 that started in a box room at his home, the dream became a reality in September 2011 when Eyesore Merch was launched by Alastair Marr.

The business started as a music and entertainment-themed clothing and accessories retailer and has also expanded into selling vinyl records and CDs. Products are sold primarily online but the Eyesore Merch team also attend several music festivals throughout the year taking a large range of its merch and audio products. Festival attendance helps with its overall marketing, giving the team the opportunity to meet customers in person and be part of the wider music community.

Eyesore Merch now employs 11 people including Alastair and his wife Suad, who are owners and directors of the business.

Challenges faced

This year has proven to be challenging for Eyesore Merch, possibly the most difficult to date, excluding its startup days. It is facing heightened competition from new entrants, and many existing sellers have adopted increasingly aggressive pricing strategies, often accepting minimal margins, simply to secure sales.

The ongoing pressures of the cost-of-living crisis and sustained inflation across multiple areas of the business have added to the squeeze on margins. This has forced the business to increase prices, contributing to a reduction in sales. Striking the right balance has been exceptionally difficult for the business.

Eyesore Merch has also been affected by the introduction of US tariffs for its international business, a month-long shutdown of Canada Post and ongoing pricing and contractual difficulties with its main parcel carrier. Each of these things have added further complexity and cost to its operations.

Finally, like for many other businesses the recent increase in National Insurance contributions presents yet another financial burden it has had to absorb and mitigate as effectively as possible.

Solution – Support Given

Eyesore Merch identified that to strengthen its position and maximise online presence as well as brand visibility it needed to fully embrace the rapidly evolving rise of AI, which is increasingly shaping online shopping behaviours and driving searchability.  Alastair said: “Our website and marketing practices must be configured correctly and robustly to tap into everything that this new and evolving landscape offers.”

To achieve this a number of Eyesore Merch’s employees have attended several of the funded Accelerator workshops. This includes Utilising ChatGPT for your Business, Vibe Coding – Using Prompts to Improve your Website, the Impact of AI on Search Engine Optimisation and Optimise your Social Media Profiles.

Alastair added: “These workshops have been extremely constructive and insightful, allowing us to develop our in-house skills and understand areas that to date, we have not been giving full attention.”

It was through attending these workshops and the associated marketing emails, the business became aware of the funded support available for Nottingham businesses through the Accelerator programme.

Alastair continued: “After registering I was contacted by an extremely friendly and helpful Business Adviser, Richard Crowden, who explained everything quickly and clearly. We identified that the best option for us is to focus on the implementation of new technologies and processes to boost competitiveness, focusing on AI and digital sustainability.

We already have a long-standing relationship with a web development company, so all I needed to do was to contact them, explain the required work and obtain a quotation. Within a couple of hours, I’d gone from the initial phone call with the adviser, to an approved quote and a completed Growth Voucher Application. The work is now under way and will be completed within a week!”

Alastair reflected that this has been one of the easiest support and funding opportunities he’s ever accessed in 15 years of running a business! Eyesore Merch have also booked a funded energy audit to see if there are any opportunities to help reduce its energy usage and bills.

Impact - The Difference it’s Made

Eyesore Merch’s adoptions of new technology and the use of AI in the business will dramatically improve its website framework and onsite SEO content, leading to improved discoverability through the various search engines and paid advertising services.

With increased visibility the business hopes to see an increase in sales, and with that increase, it hopes to recruit again in the new year.

“As the owner of the business and the one who has undertaken the application of the Accelerator Programme, I can honestly say that it has been extremely easy.

Clear information and friendly, fast and efficient support have resulted in us securing much needed funding that will help us improve our business for the year ahead.

Let’s hope that 2026 is a more positive and productive year.”

- Alastair Marr, CEO

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