Why a bump can be the best thing for your business!
Tajinder dreamt up her posh candles while pregnant with her FIRST child. By the time her SECOND arrived, they were in John Lewis. Now, as she welcomes her THIRD, she’s a finalist in our Mumpreneur Awards
Barely weeks after watching her first pregnancy test turn positive, Tajinder Banwait was blotting the ink on her business plan and sourcing suppliers.
By the time aman was born the finance was in place, and six months later, while he slept by her side after a session of baby yoga, she was ‘having conversa-tions with retailers’ about stock- ing her chic fragrant candles. Starting a family is challenge enough for most women, but for Britain’s increasingly influential mumpreneurs, there’s the small matter of launching multi-million-pound businesses, too.
Forget painting the nursery, the women who came through the rigorous selection process for this year’s aphrodite ‘Mumpre-neur’ award, sponsored by the Mail, were designing prototypes, investing life savings and buying factories while either heavily pregnant or with a newborn by their side.
Part of the NatWest every-woman awards, the accolade, for women who’ve started businesses while their children were under 12, shines a spotlight on the inspi-rational mothers who generate more than £7 billion a year for the
UK economy. As we sifted through this year’s impressive entries, we were amazed once again by the brilliance of their ideas and the sheer hard work they put in, often at the kitchen table or while their children are asleep.
Here, we unveil the shortlisted candidates and our three highly-commended runners-up . . .
I BOUNCED BACK FROM BREAKDOWN
At the end of her pregnancy with daughter Holly, Cara was so badly affected by the painful pelvic condition SPD, she was in a wheelchair.
Yet it was the post-birth process of rehabilitation — effectively learning how to walk again — that proved a light bulb moment for her business, Snooze Shade.
‘I was so excited to be on my feet, I took lots of little walks with Holly in a pram, and of course she’d fall asleep. Like most mums, I’d sling a cardigan or a blanket over the pram to block out the harsh sunlight, but they’d always fall off in the road, or get dirty.’
Unable to find a black-out blind or shade with UV protection, specifically designed to cover a wide range of pushchairs, she decided to invent her own. Blocking up to 97.5 per cent of UV light, Snooze Shade covers are designed to fit all prams and car seats, and act like black-out curtains, helping babies sleep in bright sunshine or noisy cafes.
But it hasn’t been easy. the story of Cara’s success is one of constant challenge, including nervous breakdown and a divorce.
At first, however, using savings to launch a prototype, Cara watched the orders come in thick and fast. ‘I took it to a trade show and the sample wasn’t even finished, but I got plenty of interest then.’
Yet life was exhausting — Cara was undergoing gruelling rounds of IVF in the hope of a second child and looking after Holly full-time, too. Something had to give.
‘It was June 2010. the business was going mad, all the stock was stored in our bedroom and I was working practically all night on it. there’s only so much lack of sleep you can take, and one day I just collapsed in a sodden, weepy heap.
‘I’d have been happy for someone to take me away, but in the end my mum moved in with us for three months and I slowly got better.’
the business grew steadily until 2014, when Cara was forced to confront another personal crisis. Divorce ‘really does focus the mind on your profit margin’ she says. ‘When you’re a newly single mum and the bills won’t get paid unless you do, you tend to look more closely at the numbers.’
But again, she shook off the setback and Snooze Shade boomed. Its impressive turnover — £400,000 last year — is testament to the force of her personality and the importance of a really good idea.
‘Not that this was ever some fluffy hobby,’ she adds sternly. ‘I’ve always approached it very seriously indeed.’
Holly is now nine and proud of her role, albeit largely as a sleeping partner, in the creation of the business. ‘I’d change a lot about what I did at the start,’ admits Cara. ‘But I’m now at a point where the brand is established and it’s all running smoothly. I manage my own time and can always be there for my daughter. It feels great.’
snoozeshade.
TEARS ON LAPTOP... THEN I SUCCEEDED
For designer Victoria, 2014 was a big year. In January, she launched her business with its first collection of make-up and wash bags, and in August, at the age of 45, she gave birth to her second child, a daughter called rose and a sister to Billy, then seven.
‘Also,’ she says, ‘my partner had just got back from Afghanistan and together we decided that after 16 years in the army, it was time for him to leave.’
She adds: ‘But then suddenly, when he left, I was the sole breadwinner. In one way it was absolutely terrifying.
‘I’d been a freelance designer before setting up the business and we’d always relied on my husband’s income.
‘ Now here we were, with a new baby, spending our life savings to fulfill my first order of bags. I’m the most risk-averse person I know. It was completely uncharacteristic.’
the uber-practical bags were very much her style, however. Victoria is a super- organiser, the kind of woman who scares other mums with the precision and efficiency of her holiday packing.
‘I’m renowned for it. When I go camping everything is stashed and stowed away in little bags. I can’t stand being untidy.’
Her tardis-like wash bags aim to transport more products than any other, with zipped compartments, voluminous pockets for 500ml bottles, and — a genius touch — a hook to hang the whole thing from a shower rail, turning bag into mobile bathroom cabinet.
It was her passion for the idea that got her through long nights of planning.
‘When I was pregnant with rose, I was often found weeping into my laptop at 3am, thinking: “this is ridiculous, what am I doing?” But when you really believe in something, you can weather all that.’
In fact, rose had not been expected. the pregnancy came after five years of trying and several miscarriages. ‘We didn’t think it would ever happen, so it’s absolutely wonderful now to be able to arrange my time around her.’
Victoria’s office is in Brighton, a ten- minute bike ride from home where she works two days a week.
With the business established and a turnover last year of £565,000, she’s stopped working at night.
‘the biggest lesson I’ve learned is that things don’t always have to be perfect. I focus on what’s feasible to achieve and don’t drive myself nuts about what I can’t do that day.
‘Ultimately I want to put my kids to bed every night. the emails will still be there in the morning.’ victoriagreen.co.uk
MUM’S CANCER FIGHT INSPIRED ME
Katherine’S business emerged from a coincidence that might have ended sadly — but thankfully didn’t. In 2010, her mother elizabeth, then 60, was diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer and given a relatively poor prognosis. At the same time, by chance, Katherine, a fundraiser and event manager, was asked to work for the charity then called Breakthrough Breast Cancer.
‘Mum’s diagnosis knocked me for six. She’s always been the driving force within the family, a mother of five, and an incredibly strong woman.
‘on the day of her mastectomy, I was all over the place, finding it hard to work, but it was that very day I was given the opportunity to manage a big new appeal.
‘over the next few months, I took potential donors around cancer research institutes and having known next to nothing about it, was suddenly exposed to cutting edge research at precisely the same time Mum was going through treatment.’ one of the things she learned was the potential benefits of a diet high in antioxidants, the molecule found in leafy plants, fruit and vegetables, that can mop up cancercausing free radicals. that led her to matcha — the Japanese green tea full of a potent antioxidant compound called eGCG.
‘Immediately I wanted Mum to start drinking matcha and I wanted the best possible stuff, so I found a supplier in Japan and started importing it for her.’
Several years later, seed money raised, Katherine’s company oMGteas was born in Brighton, selling premium grade organic matcha tea online and at stores such as Planet organic and Fenwick.
‘It’s been a seriously hard slog,’ admits Katherine, citing strict
time management as the biggest lesson she’s learned. Raising their children often means playing tag with husband jason, a coach at Sussex County Cricket Club.
‘Sometimes I feel I haven’t been around as much as I’d have liked, but I am always there for homework and piano practice and dinner. I’ve done a lot of work at night. As soon as jason takes the boys out on a Saturday, I’m back on my emails.’
More impressive still, 18 months ago, Katherine set up her own charity, The Good Life Foundation, which funds research into agerelated diseases and has so far raised £500,000.
But the best news of all is that, seven years on, Katherine’s mum is cancer-free. ‘I wasn’t sure she was going to survive, to be honest. But now she’s doing fine. And it feels like we’re building a good legacy out of her horrible illness.’ omgteas.co.uk
A TRIBUTE TO MY TRAGIC BROTHER
Several minutes before Kate Ball’s younger brother Matt died, he was filmed on video camera running up a beach in Southampton. ‘ I’m knackered,’ he says into the camera, panting — and then the film abruptly stops.
Matt was 23 and celebrating the end of his final exams at university with friends in 2014. What no one knew was that a hidden condition called cardiomyopathy had been slowly and fatally damaging his heart throughout his short life.
‘When you hear that a footballer or a young athlete has died or had a sudden heart attack, it’s often cardiomyopathy,’ says Kate.
‘Matt lived this ridiculously full life and he did look a bit grey now and then, but we put that down to being a student. We had no idea he was so desperately ill.’
Soon after the camera went off, Matt collapsed with heart failure. ‘It was devastating to us as a family, and it made me feel very passionately that if you can prevent it happening to others, you should,’ says Kate, who started a business teaching first aid techniques a year later.
Mini First Aid has grown in the past 18 months from 15 franchises delivering classes in the UK, to 43, with a projected turnover this year of £260,000.
Thousands of people — from mums-to-be in NCT groups and grandparents at friendship clubs, to a group of refugee women in Leeds — have taken a class at home or in a village hall.
They’re learning what to do if a child has a febrile seizure, how to make a sling out of a sweater, and crucially, how to perform CPR, the chest compression technique that can sometimes restart a heart.
‘It’s impossible to know whether Matt would have survived had he been given CPR, though we think it unlikely. What is true is that no one on the beach that morning had ever been taught how to do it.’
The growth of the business coincided exactly with the growth of Kate’s family. ‘We were at our busiest just as I got pregnant with what we thought was our third child,’ says Kate, whose background is in corporate training. ‘In fact, it was twins.’
Kate still has some of her best ideas at night. ‘I always keep a pen by the side of the bed, and write ideas on my hand in the small hours. It’s bliss when everyone’s asleep so I can’t risk waking them by rustling paper.’ minifirstaid.co.uk
I HELD MEETINGS ROUND THE COT
TAJINDER BANWAIT grew up watching her father run the family business making jeans in Leicestershire. She says: ‘He came from India in the Seventies and built this successful business from scratch, working very long hours and roping in the whole family. I’d often go and see him at the cutting table after school.’
With entrepreneurialism in her blood, she always knew she’d start her own company and decided to learn about the beauty and fragrance industry by taking a job managing accounts for French firm L’Occitane en Provence.
Counter- intuitively, Tajinder decided the time was right to launch her own venture when she had her first baby in 2010.
Upmarket candle company Urban Apothecary was planned between feeds and by the time Aman was toddling, Tajinder’s vividly-scented candles in distinctive glass holders were in 40 branches of john Lewis and at department store Bergdorf Goodman in New York. Today, it operates an annual turnover of £1.5 million.
‘ In those early days all the suppliers came to my house and we had meetings with the baby carrier on the table.’
With her parents helping to manage the candle factory she bought in Leicester and Paramjit, who works for Barclays Bank but is a hands-on dad (Shaan followed in 2012 and Maya just weeks ago), Tajinder made Urban Apothecary a family affair too. But there’s one major difference between Urban Apothecary and her father’s jeans company.
‘The last thing I wanted to do was put my children in childcare from 7am to 7pm. I wanted to be there for them, not work ludicrously long hours like my dad. So I made family-friendly hours a real priority.
‘I work 9am to 3pm — and that’s it unless we’re particularly busy, when I might work a few more hours in the evening.’
All 12 of the company’s employees also work a strict 9-3, allowing the ten parents among them to be in school playgrounds for pick-up every day. ‘There’s no reason you can’t run a perfectly successful business during those hours if you’re focused, good at planning, and take decisions quickly.’ urbanapothecarylondon.com
EMPIRE GREW OUT OF MY FUSSY EATER
Every family kitchen had one in the Nineties. Annabel Karmel’s Complete Baby And Toddler Meal Planner pioneered the idea of cookbooks for kids.
On the back of its fame she built a children’s food empire — including toddler meals, baby purees, a shelf of books and a bestselling app — with an annual turnover today of £8.5 million.
Yet the recipes might never have been written had tragedy not struck in 1987, when Annabel’s first child, Natasha, died aged three months.
‘She had a viral infection that caused inflammation of the brain. We’ll never know why it happened to her, though of course it’s a question you ask yourself all the time.’
Back then, Annabel was a professional harpist with a glittering career ahead of her. Yet after Natasha’s death she felt ‘I just couldn’t play any more’.
On the advice of a doctor, she became pregnant again within months, and gave birth to a son, Nicholas, who was healthy but a fussy sleeper and eater. Annabel sought out fellow mothers and began to run a playgroup in St john’s Wood, North London.
‘I still felt terrible loss, but it helped to be around them. At the same time, I was making up little dishes for Nicholas to encourage him to eat, and the other mums would ask me for the recipes. Someone said I should gather them all together in a book.’
Two more girls, Lara and Scarlett, were born while Annabel built the business, at first researching and writing about child nutrition and later developing children’s meals for M&S and Boots.
‘I worked when they were sleeping. Having lost a child, I didn’t want to be away from them for a second. I started to do more when they were at full-time school: you manage the guilt by making your own rules, like not being on your phone when you’re with them.
‘It doesn’t last forever of course. Now my children are in their 20s, I drop everything to spend time with them.’ annabelkarmel.com Our Mumpreneur winner will be announced in Inspire next month.