Hints for Mumpreneurs*

What are the career options for a talented Mum who wants to work flexibly? There are part time jobs, but they are hard to come by unless you are negotiating down from a full time role. Some recruitment companies do specialise in flexible working such as Capability Jane but there is stiff competition for each vacancy.

Next there are working from home options. Antonia Chitty wrote an interesting blog about current scams recently. There are many home business targeted at Mums, if you want to sell books, toys or kitchen paraphernalia. I was initially very cynical about these schemes, seeing the balance of advantage so heavily tilted in favour of the franchises / head offices. I have softened my view here - as these some of these schemes work for you and offer you substantial support and mentoring . Our site even features Barefoot Books (fabulous books with original artwork, published by a company set up my two Mums) which be such a WAHM* business.

So if you have an idea where do you go? What are some of the options for becoming a Mumpreneur*.

1. Getting a New Concept into Production.
Considering getting help and guidance via the B P A - Baby Products Association. They have the most amazing links and if you are starting a whole new concept this could be the route for you. This was the route favoured by Tilly Beasley of Wean Machine .

2. IP*: Copyright / Trademarking / Patenting
Cally Robson is the woman to know! You can join her organisation to benefit from her mentoring or just browse some of her website She's Ingenious ! It is dedicated to female inventors. The British Library Business and IP Centre is a fantastic source of information and training - which is not much use if you are based in Scotland!

3. Cottage Industry
In the days of the Internet there is no reason why a small business should not punch way above its weight. First point of call would be to get the Mumpreneur Guide. It is a great hands on guide, holding your hand as you take the first steps. There are some websites to network and advise, here are some to start you off.

4. Manufacture
Do you make it yourself, do you get UK home workers or do you source from abroad? If you do source from abroad do you go through an agent?
Your product will probably decide this for you. Some products just can't be made at home and need specialist tooling - if that is the case call in the experts immediately!

With my own invention, Rockin Hood , I initially made up samples and slowly scaled up production finding a great unit in London to make them up. UK manufacture can be an expensive proposition, and if I were to wholesale the Rockin Hoods I would need to go for off-shore sourcing to get competitive prices.

The first thing that you will need will be a decent sample, often called a counter sample in the trade. Good samples are absolutely key to getting yourself set up well, if you have not clearly defined your product via the IP* route.

To find manufacturers and someone to make a sample Business Link have a Skills Matching tool on their website, your local University might have some good contacts if you contact the pertinent department and don't forget your local council - mine has given me some great contacts (thanks Wokingham!).

If you are not sourcing a manufacturer locally you must have a decent intermediary. If there is a misinterpretation or a mistake that can be made it has been made already and will possibly be made again. WARNING if you go it alone it is a minefield. Many Mumpreneurs have found great factories in Turkey or the Far East via the Mumpreneur networks (see links above).

Two samples are better than one. Keep one pristine and trash the other! Wash it, iron it, tumble dry it, let our kids loose on it - can they get their fingers stuck it? Can they puke on it then it comes out of the wash looking as good as new? My first samples are STILL going strong and I am still learning from them! Three years on I am hearing that my first external sample is still being worn by my initial tester AND her baby sister. Without a proper sample to test you will never get feedback or be able to make it better.

One obvious hint from the site: if you would not buy it and love it then something is wrong. It needs to be the right product, at the right price in great quality - with that as a starting point you have great foundations for your business! All you need know are nerves of steel and a lot of luck; as Sam Goldwyn said, 'The harder you work, the luckier you get!'



* Terminology.

Mumpreneur - It is a bit of a Marmite of a word, you either love it or hate it.
Acronyms: WAHM - work at home Mum, SAHM - stay at home Mum.
IP Intellectual Property - the world of patents and trade marks.
Enter a whole new world of terminology!

Still standing...

Yes, my blog went off the boil for a while, but so has the business. I wish that I could have fast forwarded over the past few months as by now I hoped to be launched and seeing some great progress. We are now four months late and if you see the needle trembling on a Richter Scale it is just my fingers drumming the table with frustration at wait. It is just torturous! The delays keep on stretching out with tantalising false horizons while my reserves to keep me personally solvent ebb away.

The delays have all been technical, and the frustrating bit has not knowing exactly what needs to be done and why it needs to take so long. I think this could be a great case study in customer liaison for the techy industry. While I trust that the guys are doing their best and they are building something great, bespoke etc I am not abreast of their challenges, benchmarks and goals so I just have to cope with continual stretching deadlines.

Instead I listen to the news of the economy in meltdown and hope that there are still some customers with money by the time we launch. Strangely contradictory statistics come to mind, firstly Internet commerce is not being too badly effected in the credit crunch, secondly nine out of ten Internet business fail in the first five years. Laughing? Me neither...but then did I tell you the joke about my web developer and the deadlines?

Anyway, you can read a link about why businesses fail here - it is quite cheery as I fall into none of these categories....yet...
http://www.thebusinessdevelopers.com/articles/business_development/internet_business_success.html

Time for another Picture

So what do you think? This is what the home page should look like sometime very soon except that following feedback the text will be darker to make it easier to read.

What does it do?

I have been focusing so much on the mechanics of the business I have failed to talk about what it actually does.

'Mothers of Innovation' is going to be the best website, selling cool and practical stuff for families that has been designed / sourced / invented by parents and thoroughly tested on our own kids.

When my daughter started to go to nursery I initially came up with the idea for a 'Rockin Hood' as we needed the warmth of a coat but with more flexibility. From that design and loads of compliments the concept of a resource for parents with similar eureka products emerged and then 'Mothers of Innovation' was born. 'Mothers of Innovation' will be selling loads of great stuff, as well as my 'Rockin Hoods' from where it all began.

Hopefully that will explain the two logos, which have been a source of confusion!

'Mothers of Innovation' will only sell stuff that I would buy, it will be as ethical as possible and will be looking for long term happy relationships with buyers and sellers. While at this stage I am really keen to find as many sellers as possible I am still turning people away if I don't think their products are up to scratch...(scary, bleeping scary).

The other thing that is really influencing the final format of the site is a questionnaire. My lovely Business Link lady recommended 'Survey Monkey' for on-line questionnaires. If you only want something simple it is a free service - and although the designs are a bit basic it is really user friendly. I now have a new vice, forget Facebook, checking Survey Monkey for completed questionnaires is far more compulsive. You can see what the survey looks like as, at present there is a link to the survey from my home page www.mothersofinnovation.com or if you need to type it in you can try the shorter version www.moixx.com

Please feed back if you have any thoughts on the holding page - or anything at all really.

Now OpenSource IS the dogs bollocks

Today was spent playing zoo keeper. A border collie pup and toddler desperate for attention and dragging me in opposing directions. All was very mild mannered until Stephen Fry stepped in; who would have thought that Radio 4 could be such a malign influence? He repeated 'dogs bollocks' with such relish that Miss Trouble was bound to be impressed. So, as the dog bounded after new smells up the hill, Miss Trouble escaped to the blackberry patch at the bottom of the hill, I failed to look composed as I held onto both (guiding the buggy with my elbows) all to the Troublesome toddler refrain of 'DOGS BOLLOCKS'.

Business has been a haven of calm by comparison, until I started to save the evening's work. Working on a shoe string I decided to design my own logo for my hoodies even though things have moved on in the two decades since I last dabbled in graphic design. I looked at some of the standard logo design packages available for free such as AAALogo, that Amazon seem to recommend their sellers, and quickly ruled them out. I had to tackle something much more complicated.

I love Open Source software, it has been the greatest find. OpenOffice is brilliant and I salute all those who have contributed to it. Graphic design needed something much more specialist, so I quickly found Inkscape. I am not technical - and those who speak fluent geek despair at my inability to grasp the basics of the language (I think I am waiting until my toddler can explain it to me in a version that I can understand) - but most graphics programmes seem to have similar fundamentals. Four hours later I have something passable that conveys style and does not look as if it was created from clipart and a uniform template. At some point within the next month I should have worked out how to save it in a format that will be useful.

Starting at the beginning ...

You have the idea, you have bored your friends about it and then comes the reality. Take a deep breath and go! Many small businesses are set up each year, some will become defy the odds and make it. This is my story as I to try to launch an innovative new website selling children's products.

My great idea came over a year ago – we got fed up of parcelling my daughter papoose style to get her to nursery when for most of the journey she would be over heating. Ever inventive, when DH bemoaned the lack of something to keep her warm, I quickly ran up the cutest little hoody for her. That would have been that, but every time my daughter went out in her little hoody the comments came flooding in. I was keen to pursue this, but trying to bring a single product to market is rarely cost effective – so the project went on hold.

Even this early on I found out a thing or two about the perils of internet business. Before I got to the name Rocking Hoods I thought that Babes in a Hood may be a good idea. Wrong! I made one for a little girl in a wheelchair (up to then at the end of daycare they just sat her in her chair with her anoraks back to front with her little hood dangling about her chin) when her Mum tried to look up Babes in the Hood to write up something complementary, she did not find me - and the only feed back I got was that what she saw made her blush...like a beetroot! (Hence Rocking Hoods not Babes in the Hood).

The good news is that you really don't need to start with a blank page; there is loads of advice out there to help. The big problem is working out where research ends and procrastination sets in. My plan is to share with you some of my research and the pit falls of stumbling into business. I hope to have some uplifting successes, but we shall see...