IT makes perfect sense – a start-up firm helping start-ups.

Well, that is what Christine Maskill’s Customer Feedback Services does, but it is hardly the blind leading the blind, given her vast experience in training, research and evaluation of small and medium-sized ventures.

The green shoots also have a lot to learn from her when it comes to determination to make a new life for herself with her project which she operates from the York Eco Business Centre in Clifton Moor.

Now, as she starts to fly high, she is seeking both the New Business Of The Year and Women in Enterprise titles in The Press Business Awards.

In the days, when she worked at the Learning and Skills Council in York she and her husband were doing well, but they drifted apart after 21 years of marriage and finally divorced Now as her 22 year old son is in the third year of his four year university course and living in a two-bedroom semi in Huntington she faced a crisis. Her five years with a government funded consortium of training providers in York and North Yorkshire came to an end when the funding ran out.

So the business consultant launched Customer Feedback Serevices, preparing herself with workshops organised byBusiness Link Yorkshire on business planning, financial forecasting and marketing.

It offers a bespoke package to businesses – for now startups – helping them to review their customer feedback process, improve customer experience and therefore profitability.

There are three levels of package, from a “mystery shopper” report to a report and meeting with staff to discuss training and development needs, to setting up staff appraisal systems.

Her general advice to those who are tentative about changing their lives: “Be positive and keep going. Believe in yourself. Remember, I am mid-50s, divorced, made redundant in March and started a new business in April. You too can do it.”