Dadpreneur Profile:Danny of Baby’s First Calendar

Name of Business:      Baby’s First Calendar Ltd

Your Name and Age:  Danny Maddocks, 28

Tell us about your family: I Live with my partner Angela and our 19 month old son Cameron, Angela is a Cardiac Physiologist at our local hospital in Bristol.

What did you do before coming up with your business idea?

I worked for a national recruitment paper selling advertising space for 3 years, a few years in Cyprus before that and owned a recruitment agency when I turned 20, which helped with starting this business.

When did you launch?: We launched at The Baby Show, Earls Court 16-18 October 2009

How did you get started? What research did you do before launching?

After our son was born I had the idea, then lots of research followed, there was a lot to learn! Patenting, packaging, standards etc just for starters! I became a member of the baby products association. We are also corporate partners of The Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths (FSID) the UK’s leading baby charity working to prevent sudden deaths and promote health. Our donations from each sale helps fund research, support bereaved families and promote safe baby care advice.

How have you funded the business?

Personal funds and a small private investor.

How do you promote your business? What has worked best?

Our launch at the baby show was a success, we sold over 120 at the show itself and had a large number of visitors to our website shortly after as we handed out product information at the show. I use twitter (@babys1stCalenda), facebook fan page, and have a blog on my website. I plan to improve the website, attend more shows and build a respected blog that is helpful to parents to be throughout 2010.

What has been your biggest challenge so far? How have you dealt with it?

My  biggest challenge is marketing / raising awareness of the product, letting people know it exists! When people actually see it, they love it, but trying to convey this through the website has been  difficult, I will be adding a video to the website soon along with a re-design so people can see exactly how my product works and how to use it.

How do you fit in work with the family?

It can be difficult at times, working from home with my 19 month old son, I do what I can during his nap times, Gigglebiz and Mr Tumble help when he is awake! I make sure we spend some good quality time together each day, a trip to the park or even just a walk is great for both of us. My partner is home from work around 5pm and we have a few hours together as a family, I then continue to work into the night most week nights, and just try to keep it to a few hours of work at weekends so we can all enjoy our weekends together.

Find out more: www.babysfirstcalendar.com

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009 at 9:33 am and is filed under Dadpreneur profiles, Mumpreneur Profiles. 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.