Starting a new business venture can be difficult, even more so when you are young and have no experience in running your own business. youngbusiness.net aims to reduce the difficulties facing young people as they embark upon their careers, wherever they are in Europe.

The youngbusiness.net website is the hub of the Network, from which young entrepreneurs and support agencies across Europe can interact and access information to help create successful businesses.

youngbusiness.net is a unique network partnership of youth enterprise support agencies specialising in providing business start up and development programmes for young people. Drawing on their individual specialisms and experience, the partners complement each other and provide a knowledge base including counselling and training for both young people and those agencies supporting them. The founding partners come from Western, Central and Eastern.

Facilitated via the use of developing telematic technologies, the partnership promotes the exchange, development and dissemination of best practice among the agencies and young people. This best practice includes such areas as counselling programmes, training materials, ideas and co-operation, etc.

Alongside delivering training workshops and seminars on the use of the internet and telematic technologies, the partners are promoting the benefits of this technology to young businesses. This support helps young entrepreneurs to access a global market place which encourages commercial competitiveness and trans-national business collaboration. This includes:

	Joint development of counselling and training materials, piloted to clients in various partner centres.
	A programme of trans-national workshops to develop best practice among Network partners.
	A programme of internet awareness and advanced electronic commerce courses.
	A virtual industrial collaboration and co-operation programme.

The youngbusiness.net website consists of a section for young entrepreneurs and this section for youth enterprise support agencies. In this section you can find out about the partners, view case studies or search for something specific. It is intended that the site be regularly updated in order to keep agencies and entrepreneurs abreast of current information and issues.

The intention is to continue developing membership of the Network thereby increasing the range and volume of materials and information available. This in turn will promote and disseminate best practice and create greater international business to business co-operation and support agency collaboration.

youngbusiness.net will continue to promote the concept of youth enterprise provision as a viable means of helping young people into self-employment, as well as promoting self-employment as an available and realistic career option.