Mumpreneur Profile: Lisa of Lactivist.co.uk

I am Lisa Cole, 40-something single mum and I live in Bristol. I have a degree in Fashion and I have run a scrapstore, managed trainee railway engineers and taught art to adults with mental health problems. My CV is eclectic!
I started www.lactivist.co.uk in 2003 when I was critisised for breastfeeding my tiny son. I was left speechless, I had found breastfeeding very hard to start with and I knew I was doing the very best for him. So, later that day, I used my design skills to make a slogan t-shirt that promoted breastfeeding. It came in very handy at the baby clinic, stopping any mention of topping up with formula with one glance from the Health Visitors, and I got comments, but they were all – ‘where did you get that t-shirt?’.I sold a few I painted myself on ebay then invested a whole £100 to get some professionally printed. The Mothers Milk Marketing Board at www.lactivist.co.uk was born. I used the profits from the first batch to increase the range to 2 designs, building up to the current range and ditching ones that didn’t sell so well along the way. The first 2-3 years I learnt a great deal, about sourcing, sizing, what the customers wanted and I got loads of help from parenting forums with sections for work at home mums, in particular Baby Greenhouse and Mumszone. The best use of money for advertising was to get lots of very good postcard sized flyers printed, you can leave them in places and put them in with orders, if they are funny, people notice them and take them home. I also have very good wholesale rates with a low minimum order, which makes Lactivist t-shirts accessable to more people.

My biggest challenge is lack of time. My son has behavioural problems and is currently in school only until 11 am, it is impossible to find childcare for him and he is with me full time. It is difficult to concentrate with him around. When he was tiny it was easy, I could just latch him on and start work on the computer!

My business is a niche market, but I have loyal customers who keep having babies. When I was pregnant I diaried on netmums so I already had loads of people gunning for me, and wanting me to be a success. Being open about you home life within a business is unusual but it works for me, customers email me pictures of their kids in my t-shirts, and they always ask how the Moo Boy is getting along. I get frequent emails from people who just want to say thank you for making them laugh, and that makes me very happy.

Working at home is not easy, especially as a designer because I tend to dream designs so I don’t get much rest from it. Stock is in my bedroom on shelves that I see as soon as I wake up so there is no escape. However, if I had had a ‘proper’ job I would not have been able to support my son with his additional needs and I have a lot to be grateful for.

Lactivist, promoting breastfeeding and gentle parenting.

www.lactivist.co.uk – slogan t-shirts, bags and badges www.lactivistbling.co.uk – nursing necklaces www.lactivist.net – lactivists network, news and views

This entry was posted on Friday, May 15th, 2009 at 9:00 am and is filed under Mumpreneur Profiles, breastfeeding. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.