@thedaddyman
I don't think that an ideas forum is the place for people who already have their business idea and simply want to get advice on how to proceed.
Shovel ready projects - because of their immediate prospects for giving employment and profit and therefore their more immediate need for attention - would dominate the mixed forum.
So I feel that two separate forums is right if both types of posting are to be welcomed by AAM - a decision for AAM management in any event.
You mention that a lot pf people starting out don't know what their local LEO can do for them. I agree.
I can help with this question right now.
The local LEO will do NOTHING for those STARTING OUT.
Plain and simple.
Ireland's LEOs exist to provide jobs for the people who work in LEOs, not those in potential businesses.
To that end, LEOs come on board only after the enterprise has swam a full circuit of the business pool by themselves and demonstrates a capacity to do another with no thanks to the LEO fussy-pots. Of course if this practice became anyway common then there would soon be calls to abolish the LEOs. So at that point LEO people monitoring the enterprise will "offer" some finance to enable the new business to move to a - somewhat - higher level, e.g. buy a new machine, a delivery vehicle, a bigger premises, etc.
An enterprise accepting such LEO grant/finance (in truth the cash comes from the local main banks and finance companies) willl be classed as a client of the LEO and willl appear in an annual listing of supported enterprises in the local paper.
I think some of the credit unions have started lending to smalll enterprise now. It might be a better - and more honest - place to start.