Liverpool Science Park News & Press

From graduate freelancer to business owner
with blue-chip clients - in just nine months.

Young entrepreneur Gareth Houghton is just starting out in his career, yet he's already achieved what some businesses spend years working towards. Having already delivered work for phone giants Orange and T-Mobile and a national financial institution, the design agency he launched in June 2010 is off to a very impressive start.

Shuttle Creative is one of eight start-up firms currently working out of Liverpool Science Park's Graduate Enterprise Centre (GEC). And with more soon to move in, this vibrant hub is proving the ideal base for the brightest and best graduates branching out on their own.

Gareth, 30, who graduated from LJMU in 2005 with a Master's in New Media Production, launched Shuttle Creative after recognising that the repeat business he was winning and contacts he had built made him more than just a freelancer.

"I know the economy is tough right now, but I didn't see that as a reason not to start my own business" Gareth explained, "And I'm really glad I did, as otherwise it's something I'd probably have regretted in five or ten years' time."

The GEC was created specially to support graduates like Gareth carving out businesses in the science and knowledge based sectors.

Gareth said: "With the GEC you get the best of both: running your own company without that sense of feeling alone. I have essentially stepped into a mini community of people all doing what I am doing, and it's a great opportunity to collaborate and make new business leads, not just in the GEC but across the science park campus. The whole move to the GEC has given my business a real boost and I'm now in a position where I'm ready to recruit, which I wouldn't have envisaged a few months ago."

Gareth's creative campaigns have included a Christmas TV campaign for Liverpool's MET Quarter which he delivered in collaboration with two other creative agencies, and the design of outdoor media for high-end brands such as Orange, T-Mobile and TRESemmé. Fellow LJMU graduate Sarah Reay, 28, was among the first graduates to move into the GEC and has seen her business, Construction Marketing Experts, really take off in recent months.

The consultancy, launched in February 2010, specialises in construction marketing and already has three consultants on board.

Sarah revealed: "Being based at the science park does seem to have boosted our business. We're really getting our name out there and we've had some great clients come on board in recent months, including Armadale UK in Cheshire, who manufacture and supply tiled spas. We are seeing increased demand for strategic marketing and the followon implementation of marketing plans and I'm actually hoping to bring another consultant on.