An award-winning Manchester property entrepreneur has launched a new consultancy aimed at helping businesses in various sectors.
Joe Averill has created Vault 23 in a bid to help businesses in the property, finance and tech sectors grow.
Mr Averill, 29, who won various awards while at property company OBI, said launching his business during the Covid-19 pandemic was a gamble but he had "no regrets".
He said: “Leaving OBI was the toughest decision I’ve ever had to make in my career so far.
“Will Lewis gave me a big opportunity when I had no real estate experience and, along with Andrew Cowell, was instrumental in my career progression and helping me win a number of awards.
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“However working with entrepreneurs makes you entrepreneurial yourself. My primary role at OBI was to support fast growth occupiers to deliver their real estate strategy and I identified an opportunity to work with clients and founders to deliver both their route to market and revenue growth strategy.
“By sitting inside the business I am responsible for both creating the growth strategy and executing it. For example Recoup Capital appointed me as their interim chief revenue officer and have already had a ROI in excess of 900%.”
Mr Averill said launching his business during the pandemic had presented both challenges and opportunities.
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“I was apprehensive at the beginning,” he admitted.
“But I took my proposition to a number of business owners and it’s getting good traction in the marketplace.
“Because of the rules on social distancing, Covid-19 has meant you’ve just had to network differently and make greater use of virtual meeting platforms like Zoom and Microsoft Teams.
“If I'm being honest, I’ve quite enjoyed the rest but I'd be lying if I told you I wasn't fully recharged now and ready to go again when everything reopens.”
So far, he's helped Recoup Capital treble its recurring revenue growth in less than four months and has ambitious growth plans of his own. He is also working with the technology platform Gigable.
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Despite Covid-19, Mr Averill said he had seen some optimistic signs of recovery.
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He said: “In the last two weeks I have seen a significant rise in businesses that are looking at Manchester as a city to expand into.
“There are no immediate movements but there are some firms which are beginning to do their due diligence.
“I think the tech sector is very resilient.
"I’m working with a tech client called Gigable that connects businesses and freelancers for short-term work through their technology platform. It’s particularly focused on Manchester's quick service restaurant industry as they support firms to simply transition to food delivery at a crucial time and that’s getting a lot of interest.”