We’ve made a success of CELEBRATIONS

Meet the women whose businesses make parties go with a swing

“Our festive balloon Advent calendar is a big hit”

Laura Slater (pictured centre), 40, from Farnborough, Hampshire, is married with two children. She is one of the co-founders of Bubblegum Balloons, a party balloon company.

✢ THE IDEA I worked for a customer services training company and had always dreamed of running my own business. the idea came about because I just couldn’t find something fun to send to a friend on her birthday. I’d seen gorgeous gift balloons in the us that you could send through the post, already inflated and full of confetti, but nothing like that existed here. I asked my sister, sally (pictured right), and best friend, Megan (pictured left), if they wanted to start a business with me and they jumped at the chance. We found a supplier of clear bubble balloons and some disposable helium tanks, and started to experiment. We didn’t understand why no one else was doing it. We kept our day jobs while we researched the market and had fun finding out how to get confetti into balloons, as well as the best way to post them, and how to hand-make the tails.

✢ WHAT HAPPENED NEXT

We begged and borrowed a studio, and a photographer friend kindly did some press shots for us, which we used for lots of marketing on Instagram and Pinterest. We started selling through notonthehighstreet.com and launched the brand by sending balloons to newspapers and magazines. one magazine then ordered 35 balloons so they could give one to each brand winner at their beauty awards. We had a lot of interest afterwards, and gradually more and more orders came in. We started to develop different ranges – Valentine’s Day, Halloween and, of course, Christmas and New year party themes. these did really well, especially the New year black and gold party packs, and the giant star balloon. at this point we were working out of my spare room at home, and then more orders meant more stock, so we moved to an annex at my mum and dad’s house. We built a website and steadily the orders grew until we had to rent a large unit. sales were so good after just nine months that we were all able to draw a salary from the business and employ our first member of staff.

✢ BREAKTHROUGH MOMENT

Realising that we were selling 60-100 gifts a day. When we first started, we’d fantasised about selling 10 a day. We’re still staggered by our success.

✢ STEEPEST LEARNING CURVE a lot of our work is event decoration – for example, we created a balloon wall for Revlon cosmetics in all their lipstick colours, which was huge fun but timeconsuming and required a very early start. as the events side of the business grew, we realised we couldn’t be in 10 different places at once. so finding reliable couriers who could get balloons to the venue on time was invaluable.

✢ WHERE WE ARE NOW We have a staff of 26, and are proud to employ working mothers and returners to work. We have a following of 71,000 on social media and are constantly expanding our range. our personalised rainbow confetti bubble is our current biggest seller, and we’ve done events for big brands including Facebook, Google, Harrods and Europcar. >> BUSINESS BREAKDOWN

Start-up costs: £1,500 Comprising…

Stock: £500

Packaging and post: £800 Sundries: £200

Current turnover: £1-2 million website: bubblegumballoons.co.uk