Dear Entrepreneur

Letters from Those That Have Made it And Are Making It Happen

Danny Bailey, Andrew Blackman

• Publisher: Harriman House
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781908003539
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Commerce
• Subtopic: Activité entrepreneuriale

Do you want to leave your 9-5?Do you want to be your own boss?Are you an entrepreneur?Dear Entrepreneur is an unmissable collection of candid and inspiring letters from business founders who have been there and done it or who are building successful businesses right now.However far along on your business adventure you may be, these letters are the perfect companion. Packed with must-read words of movers and shakers, they have been written by those who have been where you are and know what it will take to succeed."Not for one second has any of us regretted the moment we set up Innocent full time. If you're thinking of setting up your own business, we couldn't recommend it highly enough."- Richard Reed, Innocent Drinks.

Trifle Creative*

Dear Entrepreneur,

I don’t see myself as a traditional entrepreneur. I never set out to run a huge business empire and that’s not what I do. I have a small business which is not focussed on only making money, the motivator for me was about having the freedom to do what I love, to create and push creative boundaries, to mix with people from all walks of life and make their lives better or more interesting in some way and to never, ever have to do the same thing day after day.

It took me a while to work out what I wanted to do exactly, and I did that by freelancing and dipping a toe in here and there. Creative enlightenment came to me courtesy of ?What If! Innovation where I worked for five years in my early 20s. I started as a junior but had a great passion for the work and the culture and as such was allowed a lot of freedom to step up and take on bigger roles and get involved in many parts of the business. This gave me the confidence to recognise where my talents did lie (and where they didn’t).

From an early age I was more of a ‘dress the space’ kind of girl than a ‘dress up’ girl. I think my Mum still regrets the year she said I could do what I wanted to the house for a huge New Year’s Eve party she was throwing…I sourced 8 kilos of glitter and sprinkled the entire house, driveway absolutely everywhere with it. Two years later she was still finding glitter. For me, transforming spaces and making them more interesting, exciting, engaging and magical was always the thing I loved doing. I used the natural abilities I had in many ways before I honed in on commercial interior design. I am absolutely passionate about what I do and you have to be to run your own business because it is unbelievably hard work, you live and breathe it, and if you don’t love it then move on and find the thing you do. We spend the majority of our adult waking lives at work and you need to be incredibly driven and self-motivated to really make it happen.

Be organised

Start off with simple systems and ways of keeping yourself organised in the early days (files, systems, IT backing up and storage, receipts, accounts, research and sourcing) and this will really help you as your business grows. As a visual business we are big fans of Evernote and Pinterest and have no idea where we’d be without Dropbox. Find what’s right for you and get into good habits early on. Get help and support where you need to by talking to friends and using brilliant free sources like Business Link.

Keep your finger on the pulse

Whether it’s trade shows, relevant press and media, people you follow on Twitter, etc. keep on top of news and trends relevant to you and your industry. Once in a while take time to get out and about. This will keep you in the know and stimulated. Many an idea has been sparked for us by walking around the Tate Modern or window browsing at Selfridges. Where and what keeps your brain energised and stimulated? Make sure you know before you start as it is going to need recharging, frequently, once you get stuck into your new business.

Get skilled up

Surround yourself with all the necessary skills by either:

• learning them, or
• sourcing people that have them who can work on a freelance basis.

You can’t do everything so make sure you have people around you that can. Have honest conversations with everyone you know about what you want to do, you never know what skills you will uncover right under your nose. PeoplePerHour has been a brilliant resource for us in this respect. The reality is you cannot possibly learn and know everything but do as much as you can in the early days, as this will give you confidence. When you don’t know the critical stuff pause and find out, don’t guess in areas you really don’t know anything about but at the same time don’t be fearful of being in at the deep end.

Think about where you work

Of course it depends what kind of business you are starting but don’t think you need to rush out and get an office. See what space you have at home to make into a great working space. Think about what kind of work you need to do, how can it inspire you, keep you productive and energised and also allow you quiet thinking working time. You need different types of space for different types of work or simple ways of keeping your space flexible so that it can work for you and enhance what you’re doing, not hinder. Therefore it’s equally important to recognise when you do need more space. My first desk was in a dark hallway – it was great for storage and I could surround myself with all the resource books and inspiring magazines and other things – but I quickly realised the lack of natural light was prohibitive to long working days! I ear-marked local and further afield coffee shops I could work in, hotels are particularly great for this. The Hoxton Hotel was particularly good as I could easily and comfortably work as well as hold meetings there in a fantastic environment. Developing our loft into a home office space allowed me to grow the business further.

Think about who you work with

Having a great team and great suppliers has been critical to my business. Building working relationships within my friendship network has really worked for me and gives our projects a ‘‘family feel”. Building relationships with people I wouldn’t usually hang out with has been equally essential and it is really important to nurture those working relationships and look after people that do great work for the business.

Get accounts savvy

Getting a C in GCSE maths was hard work for me so when I started managing lengthy budgets and trying to understand what I needed to charge in order to make the business work, I really had to work hard at it. Learning the Excel basics has been essential but so has recognising my weaknesses around this area and using people who know how. Having a bookkeeper is the singularly most important thing you can do unless you are able to do this yourself. We essentially ran our business ‘blind’ for a while and the combination of this and an accountant that gave little advice meant we had huge problems with our accounts. Having a decent accountant and bookkeeper is critical. We use KashFlow now and I only wish we had done so from the start.

5 things a day which could lead to a sale

I have to thank Naked Wines who won the Smarta award the year we were runners up for this one, but ever since they stated their mantra we have adapted it for ourselves and aim to do three of the following every day:

1. Tweet
2. Update your blog
3. Highlight a potential client or new market and cold call or email them
4. Contact an old client and find out what’s going on in their world
5. Research what’s going on in your industry and see if there are any governing bodies you can be involved with
6. Find a trade show coming up, book onto it and create some clever new business cards especially to hand out
7. Update your Facebook page
8. Create/update Pinterest – Hunt around to see if anything relevant is going on you can tap into and anything you can bring in visually to the Pinterest community

Use failures as a stepping stone

Mistakes will happen, and things will go wrong, it’s inevitable but it’s how you handle them that can make or break. I have always tried to be an optimist, to turn failures into learnings; use them to make you better and to make you grow, use them as stepping stones to future success.

Emma Morley

Founder, Trifle Creative*

www.triflecreative.com

Turtle Tots

Dear Future Entrepreneur,

Starting a new business is a huge, life-changing, exciting and terrifying thing to do! It can also be incredibly satisfying, rewarding and fun!

We founded Turtle Tots in 2011. Gaby and I both have corporate backgrounds but after we had children we started our own businesses:

- Gaby was one of the first franchisees for a well-known baby swimming company and ran the Oxfordshire and Berkshire franchises for four years, teaching over 1000 babies a week with a team of teachers and administrators. In 2008 Gaby sold the franchises for 15 times what she had paid for them, and moved to Bristol with her young family.

- Caroline worked for Virgin Media in various marketing and communications roles for 12 years. After having her second child she wanted a more flexible job and started her own exhibition business called Little Monster. For five years Caroline organised baby and toddler exhibitions across the South West. Each exhibition attracted around 60 exhibitors and over 1000 visitors but after five years Caroline needed a new challenge and having decided to sell Little Monster last year, was approached by Gaby about launching Turtle Tots Ltd. Caroline was able to sell her Little Monster business quickly and join Gaby.

Our brief histories above illustrate something that people don’t often consider when they start their business – that they are creating an asset that will grow in value as their business grows!

At Turtle Tots we sell licences to people who want to run their own Turtle Tots swimming businesses. At the time of writing we have 15 licencees and each licencee has their own reasons for taking the leap of becoming a business owner and entrepreneur.

The most common reason we hear is flexibility. Running your own business allows you to set your own hours, and work from wherever you want. With today’s technology it’s perfectly feasible to work wirelessly from almost anywhere! Many of our licencees have young children and don’t want to return to their 9-5 jobs and incur huge nursery fees – by running their own business they can work around their children and avoid childcare costs.

Our licencees also want the opportunity to grow something that will reward them – both mentally and financially. When you run your own business there’s no ceiling to what you can earn. It’s incredibly exciting and a fantastic feeling to know that the effort you put in can directly influence the financial growth of your business.

Of course there’s all the planning and practical stuff to consider too. There’s always an element of risk when you start a business, but the more planning and resear...