A Manchester couple have used their respective redundancies as a platform to launch their own business.
After leaving different companies on the same day, Sarah Bush and Ashley Hopper, of Stockport, decided to take their future into their own hands. They combined their skills in marketing, webcasting and videography to create Visair, a new agency which offers high-quality and affordable live streaming and webcasting services specifically for the SME and public sector markets.
The pair already count Innovate UK amongst their clients, delivering regular webcasts for their wide network including Department for Transport, UK5G and Network Rail. They have big plans to grow their portfolio across the North West.
Commenting on Visair, Sarah, former Head of Marketing at 8Ball Games, comments: ‘I’ve always wanted to start my own business, but it was something I’d put on the back burner. The fact that both Ashley and I were made redundant on the same day was incredibly bad timing, but it gave us the push we needed to make our dreams a reality. We knew our skills were a perfect match and we spotted a gap in the market to make live streaming relevant and accessible for all businesses out there. That’s our goal for Visair.”
‘The current webcast market is polarised. At one side you have high-end productions which require huge budgets that just aren’t viable for many businesses. At the other there’s cheaper, but unprofessional, webcasts which don’t represent companies in the best light,” says Sarah’s business and real-life partner, Ashley Hooper, a webcast and videographer technician.
‘I’m extremely passionate about live streaming and I believe it’s an untapped channel for the SME and public sector markets. Live video content is the future of engaging online audiences and Visair’s mission is to encourage businesses to unlock the potential of webcasting and challenge misconceptions that streaming is just for Facebook mobile.’
Sarah adds: ‘It’s an exciting time to be a start-up in the North West. The level of support has been incredible. Organisations like People Plus, The Business Growth Hub and Lloyds Bank Business Hub have been there every step of the way and now we’d like to give something back.”
Visair will be hosting a free session, ‘How Businesses Can Take Advantage of Live Streaming’ at Lloyds Bank on 26th September 2019. For more details and to secure a place please visit https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/how-businesses-can-take-advantage-of-live-streaming-tickets-69731758567
