Business: Bay Cycles
Location: Torquay, Devon
Keen cyclists, Lisa Gubby and her partner Jeremy Barker launched Bay Cycles in November 2013 in the St Marystreet area of Torquay with funding support from SWIG Finance following a decline for finance from their bank.
Jeremy had extensive experience of the industry having worked in a bike shop for many years and the couple felt, with his experience, that they could offer an excellent service of their own.
Lisa, a part-time A&E nurse works predominantly on the sales and marketing for the business while Jeremy works in the shop full time, providing customer service and bike repairs with both working together to provide professional bike fitting consultations.
SWIG provided Bay Cycles with a £7,500 loan from the South West Microcredit Fund, European Regional Development Fund finance, which also enabled the couple to access funding from the Fredericks Foundation.
“We really wanted to run our own business so we signed up for business enterprise courses with Outset Torbay who introduced us to SWIG Finance.
“Without the funding from SWIG we would have never got Bay Cycles off the ground. Our turnover has been more than £100,000 as we are pleased with our performance, it’s not bad for the first year.”