TWO of the region's most promising start-up businesses have received a major boost in the form state government grant funding.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Geoff Quinn's ManyBusyHands and Liz Crowe's Family HQ will be given the opportunity to take their businesses to the next level after receiving Jobs NSW's Minimum Viable Product (MVP) grants.
The NSW Government-funded grants are designed to support promising start ups with funds to progress from proof of concept stage to a minimum viable product.
Both businesses make up part of the University of New England's SMART Region Incubator (SRI) in Tamworth, but offer vastly different services.
Read Also:
Mr Quinn's ManyBusyHands is an online platform that helps travellers within Australia find regional businesses where they can secure jobs and affordable accommodation.
"Getting the grant just changes how I can do things," Mr Quinn said.
"Now that the platform can be tested properly and I can have an employee manage the marketing for me in connecting with hostels across the state, it means a lot of potential new customers and chance to launch nationally."
Meanwhile, Ms Crowe and her sister Sarah Gleeson, a GP obstetrician, will use the funds to further develop Family HQ, an app anticipated to change the way that medications and family health is managed.
"Parents have increasingly busy lives, and when children are unwell it can be difficult to track medications and surprisingly easy to accidentally overdose their children," Ms Crowe said.
"Our app aims to reduce the incidence of accidental overdose of paracetamol and ibuprofen, and provide a platform to record, store and manage health information about their children's medication and health management plans, that both parents and carers will be able to access."
The successful founders will now receive their matched funding grant up to $25,000 with 35 per cent of the grant funding up front and the remaining 65 per cent after completion and validation of their MVP.
"We are so thrilled we were successful," Ms Crowe said.
"This allows us to take substantial steps forward in getting our app developed and marketing it across a number of platforms.
"This significantly changes things for us now.
"It's very exciting"
UNE SIR community and outreach manager, Dimity Smith, said the grants were a testament to the teamwork shown by the founders.
"This achievement for Liz, Sarah and Geoff is a true reflection of the work they put in and the support of the SRI founder and expert community to ensure they got the best submission completed," Ms Smith said.
"There were multiple founders helping each other and it was amazing to see Geoff, Liz and Sarah support each other in every way they could."