Belfast City Council is to launch a new initiative aimed at helping would-be business owners and entrepreneurs develop their ideas during the economic downturn.

The council’s ‘Pre-enterprise Programme’ is designed to provide help for anyone interested in becoming self-employed or who wishes to explore a recession-beating business concept, but doesn’t know where to start.

“One of the ironies of a recession is that it has proven over previous historical periods to be a good time to launch a new business — both Microsoft and Oracle were launched and excelled as the world was in the midst of significant economic downturns,” a statement from Belfast City Council said.

The programme will run between this month and next June and will feature five group workshops and a number of one-to-one mentoring sessions.

The council said the sessions will help participants think through the challenges of self employment from finding finance to assessing marketing issues and dealing with issues such as fear of failure and self motivation.

Also taking place as part of the project will be two “seeing is believing” events featuring visits to existing small businesses and a networking event.

This programme is open to residents of the Belfast City Council area and will be provided free by the council in conjunction with the ERDF.