Name of Business: 

Snugglebundl Ltd

Your Name and Age:

I’m Mike Edwards (49) and Dave Solomons (44)

Tell us about your family. 

Dave and I both have two children. A girl and boy each. Now teenagers so we are long in the tooth parents.

What did you do before coming up with your business idea and how was it making the transition?

 I was a teacher and Dave a street entertainer.  What helped was with the transition was other experiences we had, for example I have run my own business and Dave is trained in sales etc

When did you launch? 

At the Brighton Baby Expo show November. Everyone loved the product and we had crowds around us to watch the demonstrations.

How did you get started?

My wife and I decided to move on a houseboat and Dave was next door. Being an inventor we got chatting and Dave had the idea for the snugglebundl for years but hadn’t developed it. Turns out he got the idea when his wife had a complicated birth and he had a bad back. To save stooping he lifted his baby by gathering the excess material and thought, “Why don’t blankets have handles?!”. That was the eureka moment. As any inventor knows that’s the most important step but one of so many to get a product to market. My wife, Heidi, is a competent sewer and I have some textile training too, so when he showed us the idea we made a few suggestions. He like them so suggested we developed it together. Having struggled to put my baby daughter down and having to carry her all the time because she kept waking I knew this was a brilliant product and answered that age old problem of moving a baby with them asleep, so I said yes and started developing prototypes straight away.

What’s your favorite thing about running your own business

By far the most favourable thing about running the business for us both is the flexibility. We can work as late as we like or book an appointment in work time and not feel bad. We both absolutely trust each other and work well together. Another high is the fact that we are working from a position of being passionate about what we are doing.

What’s the thing you least enjoy about running your own business

Time – there isn’t enough of it! Both Dave and I work hard and don’t mind staying late but we also love being with our families so the most frustrating thing is not having enough time in the day to do everything.

What has worked well about your business?

The way we all seem to have different skills that match well. For example Dave takes to doing the website, twitter and Facebook really well whereas I am good at design and dealing with legal matters such as trade marks and patents etc. Now Heidi has joined us full time as a snuggle sister the office has someone who doesn’t mind doing the admin. Between us we all seem to cover what needs to be done.

What’s been your biggest business mistake?  How did you deal with it?

Employing ‘experts’! There are a lot of marketing and sales experts who basically often put across a great pitch and you get excited about what they can do for you. When it comes to it we have found that we can do almost as well if not better on our own. We have a Viking warrior hat in the office which we ware when we have to be brave  have had to sack a few- not easy when you are caring like us. The best way to deal with the need to learn and get on in business is to get mentors involved. We have friends in business and if we have problems we ring them. Good to talk to any potential mentors so we invite bank managers, business link, chamber of commerce people etc to meet up on occasions. We constantly have our business dealings looked at to check we are doing well.

How do you fit in work with the family? Is your partner supportive of  your business?

Dave is single and my wife works with us now so this is not a problem. It has been hard making sure the kids get our time though, especially when we first started.

Are you working towards a financial goal for your business?

Yes, we want our company to be worth £2m by mid 2013.

Would you ever give up your business to do something else? Do you have an exit strategy?

We love working and driving this business forward but Dave and I are actually working towards selling the business and keeping a share in it in about two years time. We are inventors so would like the capital to develop new products or spend more time with our kids. We are very aware of the need for a good work life balance.

Have you had your ‘I’ve made it’ moment?  Tell us about it.  If not when do you think it will come Where do you hope to be in five years time?

We are still a start-up company so it’s only when we meet the targets we have set that I’ll feel we have made it. we have had a lot of great “nearly there” moments such as getting the trade mark, the product passing the safety test etc

If you have a flexible working business opportunity, please explain briefly what you offer and how people find out more.

As family men we are aware of the need for flexibility and have plans to pull in lots of mums we know who can help out when we get busy. As soon as this happens we will be using that ubiquitous source of skill out there in regard to hard working parents who need this kind of work. Indeed it’s all in the business plan!

Your website link.

http://www.snugglebundl.co.uk/

If you can offer a discount or special promotion for Family Friendly Working readers, please write it here: 

Yes, we produce a health promoting product which reduces back pain and helps heal post birth complications. As one blogger aptly put it, ” It’s a hammock like baby blanket which has handles. Simply lift and lay or rock your baby without strain on the back. Fits in prams, car seats etc. And when you lift the baby out of the car seat she stays asleep!”

It retails at £39.99 but if readers ring us and refer to this post they can buy it for £35 including postage. 01273 058703

Name of Business:

Your Name and Age: Adam Black, 43

Tell us about your family: I’m one of four boys….and now have four boys of my own!

What did you do before coming up with your business idea and how was it making the transition?: I worked for my family business. We were one of Marks and Spencer’s biggest suppliers…..and I ran the shoe and handbag side of the business. When the family sold the business, I left…and determined to ‘swap sides’ and become a retailer. I am a better retailer because I have been a supplier…..and would make a much better supplier having built a retail business. I still buy all my wife’s shoes and handbags….

When did you launch? The first Feather and Black store was opened in 2004.

How did you get started? I joined a friend (Robbie Feather) who was turning round a failing furniture factory….and using the infrastructure to launch a retail brand. We grow the brand quickly…and then in 2004 bought the Iron Bed Company, which had got into trouble. It was a strong brand, with a good customer following, but the name was limiting…and despite lots of advice to not put our names above the stores, we re-branded the business Feather and Black. I hasten to say, that if Robbie’s name hadn’t been Feather, we probably would have opted for a more generic name.

What’s your favourite thing about running your own business :The ability to make changes to the way the business operates…and see the consequences.

What’s the thing you least enjoy about running your own business: Ultimately the buck stops with you….and when it doesn’t work, you have to take responsibility.

What has worked well about your business? We have turned the business from run ‘top down’ to being run ‘bottom up’. Everyone in the management team is encouraged to make decisions and take responsibility for their area. I fall out with people for abdicating responsibility and not making a decision….not because I disagree with the decision they have taken.

What’s been your biggest business mistake? How did you deal with it? When we bought the Iron Bed Company, we were under capitalised and I thought we were capable of turning the business around more quickly than we did. The business went into administration when the banks stopped their support. It was hubris….and experience gives you humility. Arrogance is a cardinal sin…insecurity is a strength.

How do you fit in work with the family? Is your partner supportive of your business? I get up at 5.30am and exercise…am in the office by 7am, but am home early….sometimes managing to collect my eldest son from school on the way home.

Are you working towards a financial goal for your business? None specifically.

Would you ever give up your business to do something else? Absolutely…..but I enjoy what I do, so I would need to find something that I enjoyed more.

Do you have an exit strategy? Yes…..but we are a number of years away from it, and in the current market conditions….not getting closer quickly.

Have you had your ‘I’ve made it’ moment? Tell us about it. If not when do you think it will come. Not yet…..when I travel in China, I see the markets full of knock offs / fake merchandise. I guess we will have ‘made it’ when I see our product being copied and on sale over there.

Where do you hope to be in five years time? Doing the same thing…..

If you have a flexible working business opportunity, please explain briefly what you offer and how people find out more. We have a handful of working parents in the business and I try to be as flexible as I can with the effort of juggling childcare with sick children etc. Those that work hard know they can use flexi time where necessary to fit in around children. Being a parent myself, I know what it’s like when one of the kids has a surprise sickness bug and everything has to be dropped. It works on an ad hoc basis with our employees. There is a mutual agreement and I know that none of my staff would abuse this.

Your website link. www.featherandblack.com

Why sacrifice style?

Newly launching into the UK market and set to shake up the luxury handbag sector comes SugarJack; a prestigious, luxury and fashion forward collection of sumptuous leather, expertly crafted handbags that include removable baby changing facilities. Satisfying the world of modern parenting, the SugarJack collection flawlessly provides new mothers and fathers with both practicality and style.

The detachable ‘Baby Organiser’ – including a changing mat, insulated bottle holder and zip pouch – offers seamless functionality, while the bag itself maintains the wearer’s elegance timelessly.

Sustainably packaged in a biodegradable bamboo fibre dust bag and beautifully designed keepsake box, SugarJack offers the ultimate treat for new parents.

Our Brand was basically the Brain Child of 2 fathers looking to find stylish yet practical baby changing bags for their style conscious partners. Having trawled the market they found there was a gap and hence a need for a beautiful handbag that could cope with the practicalities of baby changing. SugarJack was born.

The Business Partners Stephen Upton & Trevor Hayward have background in handbags & fashion accessories so had the knowledge to put their idea in motion. Since the launch in February this year, they have secured product placement in Harrods of London & selected John Lewis stores.

Stephen & Trevor both have young families, Trevor has another baby due in the coming weeks, so they appreciate the need for a fine work/home life balance and hence whilst fully committed to Sugarjack during office hours, they have strict schedules in place to ensure that work is left in the office at the end of the working day. Being busy fathers they also appreciate the need for practical bags that both parents and non parents ( male or female ) can use on a daily basis. Be it for life, work, children or a combination of all three, SugarJack has it covered, this is where the removable organiser comes into its own.

Within the current collection they feature a Unisex Satchel Bag, The Gabi, which is a Leather Changing Bag. The new collection which is due to launch in the Autumn has even more unisex styles, swaying towards the male parent and also features some beautiful ladies designs, some classic , some slightly more edgy.

SugarJack is available to purchase at its chic online home http://www.sugarjack.com , in selected John Lewis Stores, online with John Lewis, as well as online and instore with Harrods of London.

Some might question why he chose to create a company and a baby at the same time. That question can be answered in four words; Paternity leave. Two weeks.

Paternity leave has hit the headlines recently in the wake of the decision to allow parents to share their entitlement to take time off work after the birth of a child. Daniel couldn’t afford to wait for the dust to settle on the Dad debate. Society at large may not have decided whether hands on Fathers’ are the best route forward but, in the Wilson household, legislative changes have been implemented.

A desire to be in charge of his own shower time and spend more than a fortnight getting to grips with being Dad were the catalysts Daniel needed to set up his own venture. An enviable reputation within his field of expertise, web analytics and reporting, meant that from the onset Stubble and Glasses could boast a glittering client list including Skype and Sky.

Set up costs were minimal but time management was of the essence. In order for this venture to work Daniel needed to benefit from more time with his wife and young daughter, and ensure he had periods of time to focus on delivering the customer service his clients expected.

Stubble and Glasses consists of Daniel and a team of experts who help companies make sense of their website data. They speak numbers fluently, love spreadsheets, can churn out accessible and intelligible stats with their eyes shut and, best of all, make a real, measurable difference to a company’s bottom line. They shed light on the murky back stage web world and put the unseen user centre stage in order to maximise the efficiency and usability of the site.

Daniel has enlisted PR Agency Cherry Pie PR to help raise awareness of his new company. With some impressive global clients already growth needs to be steady to ensure he has the man power and correct team to enable his business to grow.

Daniel is used to equipping companies with the skills needed to confidently conquer their websites. He is excited about the prospect of equipping his daughter with the skills she needs to confidently conquer her world.

Name of Business:

I am developing  two children’s brands Pixie and Punk (a children’s t-shirt in a bag gift range) and Eric and Rufus Children’s Books (Story Photo Books)

Your Name and Age:

Tagore Ramoutar (44 years old)

Tell us about your family:

I am married to Rachel and have two little girls  Francesca and Indira or Indi who are 6 and 4 years old respectively. We live in Twickenham. Whilst I am full time working on the businesses, my family are very much involved supporting me at the shows and helping me with the creative process.

What did you do before coming up with your business idea and how was it making the transition?

Before setting up by myself I worked for Vertu (the luxury Mobile phone brand of Nokia). In fact it was the business travel and time away from home that inspired me and prompted me to start up my own business.

Making the transition from  being a director of company that was part of a huge organisation to be being self-employed has been easier and more enjoyable than I ever thought. From the minute I decided to change my life and leave I suddenly was full of new ideas and inspiration.  It is easy to be enthusiastic when it is your name on the book and your ideas behind the t-shirt design.

When did you launch?

I started the process of research, designing the t-shirts and writing the books in January 2011. I launched my range of books (Eric and Rufus Children’s books, written and illustrated by me) at the very end of September 2010 to a group of mums from my eldest’s school class and then did school fairs in November and December. Pixie and Punk the children’s t-shirt in a bag gifting range was launch at the end of January 2011 at Bubble the Kids wear trade show and at the Baby Show in ExCel, London in February 2011 – it was nerve-wracking but because I knew children liked the product it was a bit easier to be confident.

How did you get started?

To a certain extent I have spent years thinking about the idea, though not always formally. The characters were developed out of making-up stories for my children. The t-shirt idea came out of my business trips to Japan, where I would buy lovely t-shirts for my kids that made great presents.

The first thing I did after having the ideas was sit down a write a detailed business plan / concept document, setting out concept, target customer and including project plan. Did a  lot of research and also just started (writing, designing etc). The project plan is key and making small scale deliverables so progress can be gauged. Also I tried to work in parallel on the plan and the more creative ideas.

What research did you do before launching?

Did lots of informal research connected with my own kids, family and friends. Plus also walked round lots of shops to understand the market, then did massive amounts of internet research. In fact I continue to do lots of research to continue to validate the ideas and products – it is a continual learning process.

Also did a start your own business course and read a few books. Working with my network was invaluable in both getting feedback and also access to learnings – things like the software I use to create my websites came from a friends recommendation.

In addition I try and make sure that I spend time talking to children (usually family or friends) or reading the stories to people at shows to make sure I have the widest feedback as possible.

How have you funded the business?

The start-up is funded from our savings

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

I am in the process of testing many different channels and partners to work out the best for my business. The two shows/exhibitions I did (The Baby Show and Excel) generated a lot of new promotion opportunities that I might not have found by myself.

At this stage I would certainly say that having your own website is crucial. Also generating PR there are free PR sites that are great for creating business awareness so people come to you rather than you always chasing. Kids4media is great and PRlog is good as it allows you to embed the content on your own website.

Note When doing shows be careful on the cost as it can get out of hand.

What has worked well about your business?

I think the products have turned out very well, the books are even better received than I thought. Free PR has worked well as has doing shows/ exhibitions right from school fairs to the big commercial fairs.

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

Biggest challenge is developing sales outlets and converting the interest. So far  the books have been very well received as have the t-shirts but getting them in front of buying customers is a difficult and slow process that I am still trying to manage.

One of the other big challenges is moving from the creation phase (intensely rewarding) to the sales phase. It is easy to keep creating but you need sales

How do you fit in work with the family?

Setting up the business and working from home has allowed me to spend much more time with my kids. I now walk them to school every day and am at home when they get home. It has transformed my life.

In fact my girls help me with the creation process, they are both my inspiration and best reviewers/ critics. They request characters and designs and give me invaluable feedback

What advice would you give to someone else wanting to work in this area?

DO IT!!! It is very much a great way of life but make sure you have funding, I am half way through my set up process and I think it will take anywhere between 2 years and 5 years to make a real return.

If you have a flexible working business opportunity, please explain briefly what you offer and how people find out more.

I am about to offer a mums selling/ party selling opportunity. For people to sell the full range from home to friends and family. If you are interested in getting more details once it is launched please contact me at tagore@longshotventures.com . In addition I am looking to appoint some commission only sales people would have prior sales experience in the independent gift store or independent baby and toddler store areas.

Your website link.

www.pixieandpunk.com and www.ericandrufus.com

If you can offer a discount or special promotion for Family Friendly Working readers, please write it here:

I am happy to offer a special deal for your readers of an extra book for every purchase of a Pixie and Punk T-shirt in a bag (with a book)

In June 2009, the ‘My Buggy Buddy Lock’ was launched, allowing a buggy or pram to be left unattended outside shops, nurseries, restraints or play areas. Using a  simple design the pram handle can be locked by use of a 3 digit combination lock which is  secured to a fence or fixed object, or through the buggy wheel to stop it being wheeled away. In 2010 the My Buggy Buddy lock received a Silver Practical Pre-school award.

My Buggy Buddy have also just launched pink and blue versions of their My buggy Buddy clips proudly donating money from the sale of each of these to a leading war injuries charity and breast cancer charities.

The company now supplies over 1000 shops in the UK including Toy R us, Boots and Harrods and sells into 14 countries.

Pretty impressive for a company started up in the middle of a recession by 2 dads with no previous business experience!

And what do the My Buggy Buddy boys attribute their success to?

Paul Baines said “Our products have developed out of listening to what parents actually want. We aim to offer the best customer service in the business and back this up with a no quibble returns guarantee on all of our products.”

What is planned by My Buggy Buddy in the future?

Summer 2011 sees the launch of a cup/bottle holder for prams which allows an adult and baby’s bottle to be carried at the same time. 3 other baby related products are in the pipeline.

How do you Balance your full time jobs, running a business and families?

Paul Clubb said “We have great support from our wives. We also have split our roles in the business and hold regular update meetings to ensure we both know where we are at. Lastly we often find ourselves in our office working away at 4 in the morning before returning to have breakfast with our families!”

www.mybuggybuddy.co.uk

Name of Business:

Your Name and Age: Aldo Zilli, 55

Tell us about your family: I am from a large family – I was one of 9 kids and was born in the fishing village of Abruzzo in Italy. My wife is actress and model Nikki Zilli, and I have three beautiful children, Rocco aged five and Twiggy, 2 and a half, as well as a wonderful older daughter, Laura (aged 25).

How have you juggled your existing enterprises with this new business? My main passion in life is cooking and I am lucky I get to do this for a living! My two Soho restaurants, the iconic Zilli Fish and the vegetarian restaurant Zilli Green both now stock Baby Zilli, as well as Zilli Café at Centre Parcs, make it easier for families to bring their little ones into the restaurants.

What research did you do into baby foods before launching? When my son, Rocco was born 5 years ago, then Twiggy 2 and a half years ago I had to start creating balanced blended food for them as it is quite difficult, especially after milk to find food that babies will eat.  So my babies were my first tasters and to be honest it was harder creating food for them than it was looking after my customers in the restaurant, as when children say ”No” you feel bad because they don’t want your food. Then you worry about them being hungry and not sleeping.  So I had to constantly change my recipes and once I had them right I decided to share them with everybody and try and help other people.  So, it is safe to say my inspiration was Rocco and Twiggy.

Choosing ingredients at that age is very difficult so I really struggled at the beginning but when you have your own children and you are a chef that gets to taste so many different ingredients from all over the world it became difficult to keep it just Italian.  My children dictated the ingredient choice as they rejected quite a few dishes so lets hope your children like it too

How do you promote your business? What has worked best? The first people that tried our products were friends and families. We have been very fortunate as some of our celebrity friends, such as new mum Denise Van Outen and her beautiful daughter Betsy are now great fans. And Denise has tweeted about the products on Twitter, which all helps to spread the word.

We are now stocked in Tesco, Waitrose and Ocado so are easy to get throughout the UK.

What has worked well about your business? It’s the simplicity of the product – healthy, organic ingredients in easy to serve, convenient pouches that don’t need to be refrigerated before opening and that look appealing and taste great. Isn’t that what every parent wants?!

What has been your biggest challenge so far? How have you dealt with it? We believe that by introducing a wide variety of healthy fruit and veg at an early age is crucial. My philosophy and my partner Dean Dunham’s philosophy was that if you can start your children on a good tasty diet you have a great chance of them becoming less fussy eaters as they get older and not overeating later on in life.  I grew up on a farm with 7 brothers and 1 sister and apart from my mothers milk, she fed us lots of different foods right from the beginning and of course it was organic, which Baby Zilli is.

How do you fit in work with the family? It is of course a hectic lifestyle but I’m lucky that my wife and children share my passion for good food. I always make sure that I make time for my family despite work commitments.

What advice would you give to someone else wanting to get a new food product to market? You have to have a passion for food and a vision for your product. We had a whole team sharing my recipes from nutritionists, dieticians and food technicians to make sure the end result was the best for your baby. See www.zillibaby.co.uk for more information.

Your Name and Age: Neil & Laura Westwood 38 and 32

Tell us about your family: We have 2 young children, Ella is 4 and Morley is 18 month. We live in Worcester.

What did you do before coming up with your business idea and how was it making the transition? I used to work at the local NHS hospital as a trainer and Laura worked at the County Council

When did you launch? June 2006

How did you get started? We used saving and starting a webpage and also went to trade shows.

What research did you do before launching? As parents we suffered sleep deprivation and needed a solution to stop light coming into Ella’s bedroom. She was waking up at 5am in the morning!!

How have you funded the business? Initially, we used some savings, and sold online. As we got more online orders we purchased more stock.

How do you promote your business? What has worked best? We prefer to do PR rather than advertising, this works well. We were successful on Dragons’ Den receiving £100,000 investment from Deborah Meaden and Theo Paphitis. This substantially increased our sales.

What has worked well about your business? The fact that Magic Blackout Blind is such a simple product that solves a problem every parent will face.

What has been your biggest challenge so far? How have you dealt with it? Exchanges rate caused our costs to increase by over 20% overnight. We have had to keep costs to a minimum and low.

How do you fit in work with the family? I take the kids to school on Monday & Wednesday and work fulltime. Laura works part time and looks after the kids.

What advice would you give to someone else wanting to work in this area? If you believe in your idea you just need to go for it.

Your website link. www.magicblackoutblind.co.uk

On the site you can create your own profile, sign up as a Dads Included Champion, read and take part in fatherhood-related forums and set up networking groups. And you can work through the Dads Included Test – our groundbreaking online tool to help you assess how well you meet fathers’ needs and support their relationships with their children.

Dads Included is the place to be for sharing your knowledge, hearing other people’s ideas and finding new ways of reaching out to fathers … check out the site.

Nathan Cornish, 38, is a founder of timto, a revolutionary online children’s birthday present service. He lives with his wife, Suzy and daughter Daughters, Megan 8 and Darcy 5 in Cardiff.

Before setting up timto, I worked for 15 years in the banking sector which involved a lot of travelling and as a result I was often away from the family home. There was a time when we considered moving away from Cardiff but this was not something that we decided to do because I believe that Cardiff is a great place to bring up a young family.

The transition from working for a large company to now running my own business has been an enjoyable one. Learning how to achieve the perfect work life balance however, is still a challenge at times.

The idea for timto began after my daughter’s sixth birthday party. Megan received so many presents from friends and family that when the gifts were taken home they needed to be carried in two giant sacks.  Whilst we were grateful for the generosity of everybody, we were surprised by the amount of gifts which were duplicates. I couldn’t help thinking that a lot of the money that had been spent on gifts that Megan was never going to use could have been better spent elsewhere.

We started to think that we were probably not the only parents to have found themselves in this situation and after talking with friends we found that they too had faced difficulty when it came to children’s parties.

I was convinced that there had to be a much more beneficial way for people to make wonderful gestures, something which could enhance the experience for the child and shift the concept of ‘giving’ into the 21^st Century.

After carrying out extensive research I established that there are around 6.5 million children’s birthday parties each year. At these parties, more than £800 million is spent on presents, 30% of which is spent on gifts that are unused, unwanted or unloved. Not only were the presents themselves wasted but there were other factors to consider, like the amount of wrapping and packaging that is wasted as well as the amount of time, effort and fuel which Is involved in the last minute dash to the shop in search of suitable birthday presents.

We toyed with the idea that some of the money which is wasted could be converted into a good deed like a charitable donation. It was then when the idea for timto finally started to take shape.

timto stands for ‘there is  more to birthdays’. It is a free online children’s birthday present service which we launched in March 2010.

It’s a concept that we have been so excited about from day one, because it is the first of its kind ever to be launched. It lets friends and family club together in a collective fund, from which the child can buy their ideal birthday presents, that they themselves select. It also has an added charitable twist by allowing a proportion of the child’s birthday fund to be donated to charity, which encourages charitable giving from a young age and allows the child to pick a charity which they personally identify with.

We have funded the business through personal savings and have continually sought help and advice from business networks as well as family and friends.  Having people to talk to objectively about turning an idea into a reality was essential.

We recently secured guidance and investment from Paul Ragan, a serial entrepreneur. We spotted Paul during an episode of channel 4’s Secret Millionaire TV show which was aired in March and really liked how was able to spot potential in a business and subsequently help support that business to success. After approaching Paul at a charity event, we met and explained the timto concept to him. We were lucky enough to secure his support and he is now an executive chairman of timto. His involvement has enabled us to take our business to the next level and his advice has been invaluable.

Since launching timto we have used a number of avenues to promote the service. We quickly learned the power and potential reach of social media and how tools like facebook and twitter can give you an insight into consumer trends. We have also formed great working relationships with regional and national charities UK-wide who have not only supported our concept from the beginning but have also endorsed our service on their literature, at events and on their websites.

Feedback from the charities we are working with has been extremely positive, highlighting two clear benefits. Firstly, timto provides an entirely new stream of fundraising, which is vital in the current economic climate and secondly, it also helps educate a new generation of young people about the true value of a gift and encourages them to support people less fortunate than themselves.

We have also formed strategic partnerships with professional and community sport clubs including the Cardiff Blues rugby team.  Forming partnerships such as these has helped us raise awareness of the timto brand and allowed us to effectively communicate the benefits that the service can bring to parents, to children and to charitable organisations.

As we are a small business, we have outsourced key areas of expertise by employing a PR agency, freshbaked PR, who have helped co-ordinate our unveiling as well as a team of experts who have advised us on the setup and maintenance of the website. At every step of the process we have sought to forge mutually beneficial relationships which we believe is one of the core strengths of the business.

Launching your own business requires a huge amount of time and dedication, both during the week and at the weekends; since launching the business we have been extremely busy building and promoting the ‘timto’ brand.  However, whilst I know that it is important to focus on building a successful business, I am also aware that it is equally as important to ensure that I continue to spend quality time with my wife and daughters. With Megan and Darcy at school during the days, I use this time to work. This allows me to keep certain evenings free so that I can spend time with the girls after school. Making sure we have a family breakfast is also really important to me. We also have a ‘no timto’ rule during Sunday dinners, where nobody is allowed to discuss the business; this gives us some time away to spend as a family and allows us to take a step back from everything.

My advice to someone, who has a big idea and is looking to turn their business dream into a reality, is to be prepared to work hard; success doesn’t happen overnight. Build a circle of people around you whom you can trust and be prepared to listen to feedback.  Don’t be afraid to adapt your business plan; you must be flexible enough to be able to take advantage of opportunities when they arise. If you believe in your idea and are motivated, you will succeed in getting your new business off the ground.

Website link: www.timto.co.uk

We are offering all family friendly working readers the chance to have professional, personalised invitations made for a children’s party free of charge (preprinted & delivered to their home address).  To request your invitations simply type in the code FFW10 when creating your invites.

For the chance to win £30 of timto vouchers for use with any our retailers including Amazon, RLD, Mothercare, Early Learning Centre and The Entertainer please visit www.timto.co.uk