Meet the faces behind this year's LAUNCH Graduate Freelance & Business Start-up Accelerator cohort!

This year, the 16-week LAUNCH programme welcomed five graduates to our 2022 cohort with great business ideas. Organised by USW Springboard +Plus: Graduate Support Programme & USW Enterprise, LAUNCH offers £5,000 funding paid as a salary replacement, with monthly business coaching and ongoing mentoring as part of the programme.

Chloe is the face behind Teakind, where she makes all things craft, mental health, self-care and well-being. Her website also hosts free mental health resources, and worksheets for people to download. She hopes to go into schools and run workshops in the future.

Chloe graduated with a BA in Creative and Therapeutic Arts, as well as a Masters in Child and Adolescent Mental Health.  “Back then I lost my job because I was struggling with mental health. I started drawing and posting on my Instagram, and now Teakind is a brand that really focuses on mental health awareness of all ages!”

“I’m enjoying LAUNCH, finance has always been an area I’m not really good at, so learning it from the programme has been super helpful. The business coaching element of it has also motivated and inspired me a lot.”

Celina owns a freelance fashion design business, where she curates design work for both start-up and existing brands. At CelinaJDesigns she helps brands grow and develop strong apparel collections, guiding them through the process from design to sampling. She provides them with 1-2-1 consultations, mood boards, creating full merchandise collections, to tech packs, where brands watch their vision of their clothing brands come to life.

As a Fashion Design graduate, she started her business back in November 2021 after realising she wanted to take control of her brand. Having had design jobs before, she found her designs being used without being credited. “Now, I help brands with research, inspiration and designing pieces for small and bigger brands that I am truly passionate about. I’ll be with them through the entire process from design mock-ups, to finalising the designs with them, to eventually having their products manufactured professionally. 

“LAUNCH has been extremely helpful. Prior to this, I lacked knowledge in pricing, so I would usually undersell myself. Now, I take into consideration my finances. I also love how supportive and how freeing the programme is, where I can use the majority of my time to shape my business.”

After graduating with a bachelor’s in Aerospace Engineering back in 2017, Jordan continued onto Music Engineering for his masters and graduated in 2021. Now, he specialises in freelance audio engineering for live bands, going into studios, recording songs and mixing.

Jordan also has an innovative vision for the future: to specialise in providing portable recording rigs. He wants to be one of the first to champion and encourage portability within the music industry. “Professional studios are about £200 a day, where artists would sacrifice their budget and lose the quality of their work. By providing portable rigs, music artists would be able to set up a studio within a community center for example, and pay just £50 a day instead.”

“I learnt a lot in the LAUNCH programme about budgeting and how to charge for my services. At first, I didn’t feel it was feasible especially after deducting insurance and tax costs, because I needed the rest to sustain myself for doing things. Fast forward to today, I’ve been taken on by a studio in Cardiff and am able to see how things are done, and not need to stress about money in the meantime.”

Having both a BA and MA from USW, as well as being part of the Students' Union as LGBT+ Trans Officer and later the full-time Vice President Welfare Officer, Kay is more than familiar with how to champion LGBT+ voices effectively. Kay is starting their own consultancy service “Kay R. Dennis Consultancy”, where they specialise in LGBT+ consultation in the creative industries to support them in creating inclusive and welcoming spaces. They also plan to carry out LGBT+ awareness sessions in the charity sector as well as in education settings.

“The support I’ve been given at LAUNCH has been really good. I had no business knowledge beforehand, and I am now being given a foundation and the basics of business to carry out my consultancy, and to make this a career.”

Ioan holds a post-graduate certificate in therapeutic arts and a degree in illustration. His business, Wall Art For All is an early-stage creative enterprise providing hand-painted, participatory mural activities to adults in residential care in the South Wales area. It meets a growing need in the health and social care sector for participatory arts activities that improve quality of life and wellbeing.

Back in 2020 while working as a mental health and disabilities support worker, Ioan went into his manager’s office and showed her a watercolour portrait of a cat he painted. She was impressed and shortly asked him if he could paint a mural over the masonry wall in the parking lot that will bring together people and improve the look of the space. From then on, every mural enabled Ioan to find new ways/skills that he then used for the following one to increase the quality of the work, the relationship with the client, and the efficiency of each job.

““The LAUNCH programme has helped me focus, plan and organise myself around the tasks I need to get through and the milestones I need to achieve for my business to become viable and realistic. I also am able to look at myself, my expertise and craft and learn to value myself and my abilities in order to price properly. LAUNCH has also improved my motivation to strive and work on my business by having access to a free studio space and being surrounded by like-minded freelancers.”

Want to be a part of 2022/23's LAUNCH cohort? Find out more and apply here.

Be sure to check out our website for more info on 1-to-1 sessions, more funding, resources and much more!

Cheers,
Team #USWEnterprise 😎

As always, we will be here throughout the year to support you with advice and queries. 

Email us at [email protected] and give us a follow @EnterpriseUSW on both Twitter and Facebook for the latest updates.