Don’t Tell Me I Can’t… …become an online entrepreneur
Kate Findlay faced a personal tragedy, but had an idea she was determined to follow
‘I WASN’T READY TO STOP YET’
Wrapping the parcel and securing it with tape, I remembered all the times I’d sat in this exact spot with my husband, Ian, while he did his best to help me to package up my customer orders. It had been two years since he passed away, but throwing myself into my business had given me the distraction I’d so badly needed.
It was 2015 when Ian, then 62, had been diagnosed with Lewy body dementia (LBD) – a condition similar to Parkinson’s dementia. For a long time, he’d been suffering with confusion, anxiety and memory loss, which had gradually got worse.
After his diagnosis, I’d quickly become his carer, and I’d had to watch as my capable and clever husband began to struggle with the simplest of things – from taking out the bins to changing the vacuum-cleaner bag.
It was heartbreaking, and through the sadness and worry, I needed a focus – something that wasn’t painful and that would work as a distraction. And so I’d directed my efforts on launching my own business, an online gift shop I called Peach Perfect.
I’d got the idea more than a decade earlier, just after Ian’s 50th birthday. Well-meaning friends and family had sent him silly gimmicky gifts such as joke books and mugs, which were lovely, but never really what he wanted.
‘Surely there’s something a little more imaginative out there?’ I’d thought.
As a mum to my son, Robert, then 29, and a grandma to two small boys, I was always on the lookout for a thoughtful, practical, yet beautiful gift, but found it hard to get hold of them. ‘If only there was a website I could go to,’ I’d think.
I’d worked in IT, so knew the power of the internet. Once I had the idea, it was like grit in an oyster – it stayed and started to become a pearl.
In the years that followed, rather than deterring me, Ian’s health problems made me realise that he may not always be around, and I’d need something to throw my energy into. Even though I’d worked all my life, and despite being almost at retirement age, I wasn’t ready to stop just yet.
So, not long after Ian’s diagnosis, I employed someone to help me set up the website, and I taught myself a lot about Google searches and how to promote it by reading books and looking at articles online.
Our four-bedroom house was soon packed with stock – cook books, craft sets and garden goods, such as bee hotels and pretty bird feeders. I had a knack for knowing what mums, wives and grandmothers would want to buy their loved ones – and, as the months went on, demand for my gifts soared. Within a year, I was starting to make money.
Ian was always keen to help where he could, and we’d spend evenings sitting in front of the TV together, sticking address labels on packages. Sometimes he’d get confused, but just having him there, trying to help, meant everything to me.
Only, as his condition continued to deteriorate, life at home got harder and harder and, in June 2018, he went into a care home. In March 2019, he passed away at the age of 66. Although nothing could ever replace my wonderful husband, and I miss him desperately every day, having to get up and work each day has helped to get me through.
I know that Ian would be incredibly proud of me for accomplishing my dream, and I’m so happy that, although he’s not here any more, at least we got to start this new chapter together.
✱ peachperfect.co.uk