My business, www.SingleWithKids.co.uk was borne from my own personal needs. A Marketing Professional by trade, suddenly I found myself a single mother by circumstance and with friends who were all happily married, I realised just how isolating it is being alone with children. To fill a few empty weekends I started organising a few informal get togethers with other single parents I’d met online and the little group we started just began to snowball. This lead to a website, launched in December 2008 with five trips advertised and a small forum, a year and over 100 trips and events later we’re still working on developing this further ! We’re now the UK’s leading provider of UK holidays and events for single parents and we’re growing rapidly.

My partner is the technical brains in the business, he has created the website and booking systems whilst I’ve frantically been learning to use design packages so I can complete the graphics. By building the site (all 250 pages) ourselves we’ve managed to launch the business on a shoestring budget, with all our capital going into holiday deposits rather than website costs. Once the ball was rolling, we’ve found one successful trip helps to fund the next and the next.

The greatest challenge in building Single With Kids has been trying to juggle a full time career and a family with a foundling business that demands a lot of time and effort. As a single parent my full time marketing career has been my financial life line and I’ve been unable to forego this until Single With Kids has reached a size where it would provide an income – up until now we have been investing heavily into promotion. This has proven particularly challenging during the holiday period – having spent much of my summer holidays coordinating trips for up to 100 single parents and children, I had little recovery time between each trip as I had to go back to my “day job” due to a lack of holiday entitlement. Fortunately I’ll be working full time on Single With Kids from January.

I can’t pretend at times it’s been an easy run. Having spent all of the last year working until 1am each morning at my pc I’m feeling exhausted. Our forum, club and events have been a lifeline for many lonely single parents and if ever I’m feeling down I read some of the warm words we receive from our members and my motivation returns 10-fold, it’s great to build something that actually leaves a positive mark on people’s lives.

Next year I’ll be working on Single With Kids full time and the effort will pay off in that for once in my children’s lives I’ll be able to fit my career around school pick ups and drop offs. No doubt I’ll still be sat working until the twilight hours simply because of the passion I have for the business but that’ll be a matter of choice rather than necessity.

My advice for anyone wanting to work in this area, or indeed their own business of any nature is to find something that you feel passionate about, a little obsession about your business in the early days can help nurture it and see it through the difficult days.