Don't drop a ball!

It's a bit like juggling, this business thing. There's so much you are trying to do at once, and you have to keep all the balls in the air!

Not done much specifically to do with the business today, as I've been busy with other things. But I have had a couple of ideas (mainly PR & marketing related) so I've made a note of them. I have to keep lists of my ideas, as otherwise I'd never remember them, even by tomorrow I'll have completely forgotten about this one! And I'd kick myself if I missed the chance of implementing one of them.

I get tons of ideas, or lists of things I need to do/check, when I'm reading books, so I add those into my notes aswell. Keeping it all together in a notebook (instead on scraps of paper all over the place) means I can review them regularly and take appropriate things to the next stage when necessary.

A few weeks ago, I was a bit bothered that it was all getting out of control, and I couldn't see the woods for the trees. So I drew up a 'Timetable and Countdown to Launch' work programme which is split into monthly tasks from September to May. Pre launch, launch (March) and immediately post launch.

It allows us to focus on the priorities and not get carried away spending time on things that aren't that important yet. We brainstormed everything we think we need to do, and then I divided a table into columns showing Technical activities (actually getting our product right), Marketing activities (market research, PR and direct sales) and Business activities (bookkeeping, tax, company structure, finance etc). It's worked a treat.

But as I sit here and look at September (being 30 Sept today) I realise that I've probably done about 70% of what I set out to do, but loads more that weren't in the original plan, but became necessary - such as this blog for instance! That's fine, because it needs to be flexible, and I can add things to the months as we go along. For example, I forgot that I needed to buy a scanner, so that's been added into November's tasks, and it means I can forget about it until then. Frees your head up and stops you becoming so overwhelmed at the size of the job in front of you.

Dropped off the first lot of 'gifts' for our market research respondents yesterday. Hope they liked them!

Kirsty

Well would you credit it?

Amazing! Only yesterday I was complaining to anyone that would listen (or read), that RBS weren't returning my calls, and hey presto, this morning the bank manager has rung to set up a meeting for next week, to go through our business plan in more detail! So I'd better hold off my scathing opinions of the banking community until we've seen what happens with this. But sounds very promising.

So, back to the story about the day the lightbulb finally lit up! It was a cold wet day in January 2005......

Well, actually, to be honest the thought really developed over a few days, as I had a couple of instances of sheer exasperation that made me think seriously about the offering from businesses already out there.

The first one was when we were driving back from visiting some relatives, I was driving the car and Gregg (hubby) was in the back seat next to Luke (one of us tends to do this if we are on a long journey, and it was a 2.5 hour drive). Luke had started to play up (just one year old at this time), was getting really restless and Gregg was running out of things to entertain him with. Next thing he was sick! (Luke that is, not Gregg!)

So I stopped the car, we cleaned him up, and we swapped places because Gregg's patience had pretty much run out. And I took over as the in-car entertainer. We weren't that prepared with toys, books etc, because up until that time Luke had generally slept for the full car journey (babies are great like that, aren't they?) So I started improvising with empty water bottles, magazines, anything I could find. And I managed to settle him a bit and he started to cheer up. It occurred to me then that some of us are more natural at quickly finding things to entertain children (of all ages) than others. I recalled my days of being a cub leader and kids club leader and realised that it was probably something I was pretty good at. It's amazing what you can do with an empty matchbox and some energetic kids! Honestly, there's loads of things! And I knew that if I was going to set up a business, it had to be doing something that I really enjoyed and was good at (because I get bored quite easily). So that was lightbulb moment number 1.

Number 2 came the next day, when I was surfing the web at home. I'd decided that it was about time Luke started colouring with crayons, but I didn't have any suitable things for him to colour in (plain paper yes, but no colouring books as such). I'd decided that somewhere you should be able to download colouring pages for children, in this technological age you couldn't have just been reliant upon buying books from the shops for this type of thing. Well it took me ages! Eventually I found a site that linked to another site (an American site) that did provide some colouring pages to print off, but they were really a bit too 'old' for Luke. I wanted something really basic. Lightbulb moment number 2!

And ideas were starting to come together.....next step, developing the concept a bit more and talking to Ross about it. Who's Ross - my brother and now my co-director! I'll explain how things moved on later.

....and I forgot one!

7. Low start up costs!

I forgot my last requirement for my perfect business! We've already ploughed quite a lot of our own money into the development, marketing/PR, research and countless hours obviously, so we decided a few weeks ago that it was about time we approached the banks to help us really get a good budget towards PR for our launch.

Quite ironic that yesterday I was presenting a course on 'Fundraising for SMEs' to 50 accountants, and that I wouldn't think twice about helping a client to get some financing for say, £1m. But try and get £20k for a start up business - no chance! I decided to 'go local'. My countless banking contacts are generally in Manchester, and I've moved house now over to West Yorkshire. As we were only looking for small amount, I thought I'd try approaching the local bank managers, and not rely on my previous dealings with bankers, as a corporate finance advisor. What a mistake!

Banks are just suffocating entrepreneurship in this country. The reason we've been turned down by 2 banks (Barclays and HSBC for the record!) is that our business plan is too speculative. Despite the fact that we have done thorough market research. I admit that we haven't any 'proof' as to how many members we are going to get, we'd never be able get that exact information before we launch.

Of course we don't have any firm members yet. But that's because we haven't launched yet and we are 'selling' to consumers. What start-up B2C business would? And yet, only a couple of years ago I raised £150k for a start up retail shop! They'd rather give larger sums of money to more traditional businesses. Although the higher overheads of running a shop, and therefore the higher breakeven point is going to make it a higher risk for the banks. It's bizarre! Don't get me started! I suppose at least Barclays and HSBC have replied to me, I can't even get Royal Bank of Scotland to ring me back! If only they knew.....!

So it's onwards and upwards, using our own resources and having belief in ourselves and our business plan. If I could manage our business without even using a bank account, I would. It really irritates me that they're still going to make some money out of us with the transaction charges through Worldpay and the general banking charges. HSBC did say (without prompting!) that they may live to regret this in a couple of years' time. It's a good job I truly believe 'what's goes around comes around'.

Some really good news yesterday though. We had the results of some of our market research from Luke's nursery, who very kindly offered to distribute our questionnaires to their parents - thank you Alexandra at Greetland!! They showed that we have pretty much got our business strategy spot on. It's such a relief seeing that you have the same views as everyone else, and we've pitched our price about right too!

Haven't even told you what the business is yet, have I?!! Have you guessed or have you been sneaky and guessed what our home page is?

More later and I'll spill the beans (unless I have something else I want to rant about!)

Kirsty

Where has today gone?

One of those days I'm afraid! Luke, who you can normally set your clock by, decided that he wouldn't have his usual 90 minute nap at lunch, and has just finally given in at 5pm! So everything I planned to do this afternoon has gone pear-shaped.

However I did manage to get through a few items on my task list (from our board meeting on Saturday), mainly to do with chasing up the banks and the PR companies were are in discussions with, but not what you could say major progress. Anyhow I've got an hour now to write up some more of the blog, then I will have to make the tea, and then prepare tonight for my 'day job' tomorrow - work/life balance eh?

So, back to the story...rewind to January 2005.

I had been thinking for while about the 'perfect' business. As a chartered accountant and business advisor, I'd seen a fair few failures, and also many successes. And realised that you didn't have to be a genius to be very successful, you just had to have a good idea, a lot of persistence and some creativity. So I reckoned that if I was going to have my own business, it had to have the following attributes:

1. The business shouldn't be reliant upon my input as the limiting factor in the growth of the business (this is a personal thing, as I want to start and grow the business and then be able to get 'time freedom' as quickly as possible. It's the whole point of being able to run my own business - flexibility for the family whilst being financially comfortable and secure)
2. It either has to provide a product/service which is niche and high value, or have mass market appeal with a low price
3. The business needs to be scaleable, without any major scarce resource (eg fixed employee or machinery hours etc)
4. To have overheads/fixed costs which are as low as possible (so that you can break-even on a fairly low turnover)
5. The product should preferably not be a fashionable item or have laws or regulations that will change quickly (the reason I didn't specialise in tax as an accountant!)
6. And ideally the business should not have to deal with any stock issues, such as storage, delivery and suppliers - (ie it had to be a service!)

So, that's my idea of utopia!

Well, in early January 2005, I think I had an idea for that perfect business which is exactly suited to me. And nearly ten months later I still believe that, because here I am, planning our business's launch for March 2006. Who is 'our'? What is the business? The wok is calling me (no, not Luke! The cooking vessel!), so I'll carry on the story tomorrow....

A mum-preneur in the making?

Well, that was pretty painless & I am now an official blogger, which until two days ago I'd never even heard of!

Reading up on some books to research my new business, and I came across the concept. I'd had an idea to do a series of articles for a magazine to chart my progress in setting up my own business, but how 'last year' is that? Hallelujah! This format is ideal for me, in this new age of technology, to describe the ups and downs of a real-life mum starting her own business, from conception of the idea through to eventual launch. Readers can experience my setbacks, and my successes, and learn how to become an entrepreneur themselves if they like, and avoid my (many) mistakes!

I know that many mums & mums-to-be think about running their own business, so they can have more flexibility & a better work/life balance, but most don't know what it will involve, and don't know how to take the next step. So become a 'fly on the wall' in someone else's life.

So who on earth am I, who is ready & willing to share my lowest moments and my highest thrills?

- I'm a 32 year old mum (to Luke aged 21 months),
- a wife (to Gregg, aged nearly 32!),
- an accountant (institute to chartered accountants in england & wales),
- a business owner (well nearly, obviously!),
- 'mother' to 2 cats (cleo & tizzy - that is relevant, you'd be amazed how even the cats impact upon my quest for time & money freedom!)

By the way, I'm English and setting up the business in UK.

Well that's all for now. I'd better start the next post by rewinding to January 2005, when the idea was first conceived. So keep in touch, hope you enjoy it - now I'm off to feed the cats!

Kirsty