What the BUILD route involves: self-employment and enterprise

BUILD is the IT’S POSSIBLE NOW route into viable self-employment and enterprise. It helps you test whether a trading idea adds up, then supports you to start and run it, with the practical barriers dealt with along the way. Success means customers, sales and earnings that last.

What BUILD is for

An idea is where BUILD starts. What it looks at is whether there are customers, sales, turnover, earnings and trading that lasts. The business is yours to run, with help to test the numbers before you commit: checking whether sales would cover costs and leave you earning.

BUILD is one of three routes. WORK leads to paid employment and SHAPE to paid co-design and testing. You do not need to choose before you register, and “I am not sure” is an answer the form accepts.

What BUILD involves

• Understanding your strengths and goals
• Testing whether a trading model actually adds up
• Removing practical access barriers
• Mentoring and structured reviews
• Connecting you to products, supply, fulfilment, venues or pitches

These sit inside the five steps on How it works: listening first, removing practical barriers, matching a real route, checking whether it is working, and recording what happened.

Kinds of trade

The trades BUILD can involve include:

• Mobile and local trading
• Repair and upcycling
• Alterations
• Photography and product listing services
• Digital services
• Other trades that can pay

Where BUILD happens in practice

IT’S POSSIBLE NOW uses the Gazian Mobile Retail Unit to show what BUILD means in practice: a person runs an enterprise, serves customers, makes transactions and earns income from them. Gaziana is the platform behind the unit. People who want to take part can register interest at gaziana.com, where the page explains that registering interest is not an application, an approval or an entitlement to a unit, stock, a territory or a commercial arrangement.

Nuriqa is a second setting. It is a digital retail, reuse and fulfilment business, and the work there includes photography, product listings, repair and upcycling, and alterations.

You do not have to trade through either of them. Where it suits you, IT’S POSSIBLE NOW helps you develop an enterprise of your own. Where opportunities are developed explains each setting.

What is measured

BUILD records customers, transactions, turnover, earned income and how long trading lasts. Every result published comes with the method behind it and the limits of what it shows. How the measures work lists all four groups, and the article on measurement explains why.

Support that may already exist

Access to Work is a GOV.UK grant for practical support at work. GOV.UK counts self-employment as paid work, and a self-employed applicant needs an annual turnover of at least £6,500. The scheme covers England, Scotland and Wales. Check eligibility and how to apply on GOV.UK. There is more detail in the Access to Work article.

The honest limit

Every enterprise carries some risk, and we talk that through openly from the start. Any arrangement with a setting is agreed individually and depends on readiness, fit, approval and funding.

To start the conversation, register your interest and tell us that BUILD interests you. Registering is free, takes a few minutes and commits you to nothing.