A home maintenance tech start-up says it plans to turn 119 ex-Forces staff into business owners within 5 years.
Patch App UK has launched a £250k Armed Forces Business Academy in partnership with Community & Business Partners CIC and Burnley Football Club in the Community.
It will offer 2 years of business mentoring and training, with military veterans getting “meaningful employment” and training with Patch for the first 12 months, before taking on that part of the business and operating it themselves.
“We’re a tech company and customers are our number one priority. By promoting this way of working, we’re able to ensure the services are of the highest quality, whilst supporting our ex-forces Veterans with proper entrepreneurial opportunity. That’s something I’m really passionate about,” stated Paul White, Founder and CEO of Patch App UK, who also co-founded The Modern Milkman
“We didn’t want to provide our services by simply employing a workforce. That’s no longer enough in today’s society. We wanted to come up with a solution where the people delivering the services were as invested as we are. Effectively, we’re sharing the ownership of the operational side of our business. They’ll provide the services and we’ll run the tech”
Burnley Football Club in the Community, which has a strong Military Veterans programme, will be the recruitment partner.
“We’re really proud of our Military Veterans Programme and when Patch came to us asking for support, we were excited to get involved,” added Daniella Worth, Veteran Project Co-ordiantor at Burnley Football.
“Because we’re already working with Military Veterans, we’re well placed to be able to access that community, and already there’s strong interest from members of our Military Veterans Football Team”.
Patch App UK is an online subscription outdoor home maintenance company which currently specialises in window cleaning and plans to move into other outdoor home maintenance.
“We’ve been supporting businesses for 30 years and we’re delighted to be leading the Armed Forces Business Academy,” added Jaydee Davis, Operations Director at Community & Business Partners.
“Paul came to us with this brilliant idea to deliver their business in a completely unique way and it’s something that we’re really excited about. It could change the way of work in the future. As a CIC everything we do is to benefit others, so we’re delighted to be able to help those who have given so much to our country to set up their own businesses. They’ll be directly supported by some of our brilliant Mentors, who are also ex-forces Veterans.
