There’s no doubt the Gold Coast offers a great lifestyle, but what can it offer businesses starting out?
The City of Gold Coast provides strong support for business with access to State and Federal support. Below are a few programs available to Gold Coast businesses.
Growth Accelerator Program
Assists businesses in identifying the critical steps needed to achieve the next phase of growth. It’s targeted at businesses with high growth potential that are looking to accelerate growth, businesses experiencing high growth and are unaware of financial and other risk factors associated with growth, and business owners building a business that’s not reliant on them.
Online Business Program
Provides businesses with an understanding of the fundamental tools for conducting online business to achieve increased online sales and leads. It also assists to identify opportunities and make improvements to digital assets to enable business growth. You may consider this program if you currently do business online and are looking for opportunities to grow, if you are looking to offer products or services online, or if you are looking to gain a better understanding of online marketing.
Emerging Exports Program
There are two programs that assist businesses new to export and emerging exporters breaking into overseas markets.
The Emerging Exporters Program – Driving Export Growth guides businesses in:
How and why to export
Where to export
Market entry strategies
Critical success factors
Marketing and sales overseas
Visiting overseas
Launching a product
The Emerging Exporters Program – Exporting Online assists businesses in:
Driving international website traffic
Processing and fulfilling international payments and delivery
Regulations, documentation and legal issues for online export sales
Automating trade show follow-up and partner training
Launching a product in a market online and offline
Markets focus – USA, Japan and Korea
Launching a product – offline and leveraging online tools
Export Assistance Scheme
The scheme provides financial support to emerging and existing exporters who are export ready and have identified international markets for their products and services. It’s designed to encourage SME Gold Coast companies to develop export markets, assist export businesses to be sustainable and increase export sales, and assist emerging and existing export businesses in entering new growth and emerging markets.
If your business is eligible and your export relates to Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands, you can be funded $1,500. For Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Americas, you can be funded $3,000.
The funding is limited to one payment of either amount per year for up to 3 years.
Further information about the programs and support for starting a business on the Gold Coast can be found on the More Gold Coast website.
