My Entrepreneurial journey
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My Story is not one of travelling to exotic lands and exploring the world, I havn't lived in different places or had a range of job titles.
I'm a seaside home bird out of choice.
As a child my parents were landlords and owners of a very popular inn in my village, I remember pretending I couldn't sleep so I could come and chat with the customers and be part of the craic. They often now say they remember me coming down in my Leeds united tshirt as a nightee and asking for pop(shandy), crisps or if I coluld help count the till or collect glasses. We also had 3 bedrooms we let out and I enjoyed taking the breeakfast orders and chatting to the residents. Just dont ask me to clean, if there was cleaning to do I need the loo.
My parents are the greatest roll models without a doubt, the tought me a good work ethic (they NEVER stopped even on days off or holidays the pub wasn't a job it was their livleyhood) but they also taught me that if you work hard you can enjoy nice things just like the short breaks to London they would take me on to stay in the beautiful metropol hotel on Edgware road where we would go to the west end to the theater to see things like Greece, josheph and his technicolour dream coat and the buddy holy show then enjoying dinner in some of the most amazing restaurants, langans, Smolenskis balloon, Mezzos was my favourite owned by terrance conran, Farther to jasper conran. Mum was a chef so she enjoyed really good food and collected menus wherever she went.
Our family song is kooks by David Bowie, the were the couple of kooks hung up on romancing, inviting me to be in there lovers story. We danced to this at my wedding. I especially like the part about homework getting you down, we'll throw it on the fire and take the car around town.
Mum and dad often said to me 'be your own boss, do the hard work for yourself not someone else' so from there my entrepreneurial life began. I was about 10 when I started 'Super Sammy's dog walking service' and with a poster in my Dad's cousins shop I got my first client, a small poodle called Dusty. He was lovely and I enjoyed taking him out but at a rate of 20p per hour this wasn't going to sustain me in sweets and magazines. My first lesson in business, value yourself and your time.
When the furby came out I so desperately wanted one and as I was tought I'd have to work for the money to get anything I wanted I had a clear out and had a garage sale, they do it on the TV so why would it not work for me? It didn't, so my next plan me and my friend would bundle the items we had into a big bag and go door to door selling. This was amazing until I got to my best customer, my auntie, who bought lots from me, probably out of kindness, then grassed on me to my mum and dad. What a telling off I got!
I always assumed as a child that I would run the pub one day so that future was no more when my Mum, my hero, was unable to carry on working due to her MS. I was 13 when we left the pub and had never lived anywhere else and that was just at the point everyone and their uncle is asking 'what do you want to be when you grow up?' And I had no idea!
It was at this point I suffered my first mental health problems that I still battle to this day. Maybe it's the pressure, maybe it's ' beeing a teenager' but for the first time I was uncertain about my life.
Anyway I decided to study fashion, graphic design and life drawing. I was an arty child and I like clothes so 🤷 why not.
By the way my 16 yo brain thought life drawing was fruit, boy was I in for a shock when the man who lived a street away from me appeared in nothing but a sheet 😳
Fashion was my passion and I excelled in all of my college work but my next stumbling block was uni! I did not want to go, but as i was told I needed to go to uni to succeed in fashion I reluctantly lasted 6 weeks at batley school of art. I did tell you I'm a home bird. My second lesson, follow my gut feeling.
At the age of 20 I had my little boy Jacob, and while I was pregnant with him my dad and his work friends were calling one of the young apprentice joiners 'the big lad' and dad asked me to design a t-shirt for him and from there I became the owner of The big lad t-shirts. We would go to bodybuilding competitions with dozens of boxes full of t-shirts and made some wonderful friends along the way but as a young mum now pregnant with my second child Lizzie, and my Dad unable to help as he became Mum's full time carer the competitions were not the same and we said goodnight to the big lad. My third lesson, don’t overstock! My business plan doesn't require it!
Then about 4 years later a friend came to me with a very well known nutrition company and being frustrated with working for other people where my time is not my own I absolutely jumped at the chance. This is about the time I first met our charlie at a weekly biz meeting in Berwick! I can not believe it was 10 years ago! Is it possible charlie ages backwards? Anyway we had a fantastic time until Antony my now husband decided to be my business partner and it almost broke us. My forth lesson, me and Antony do not work well together.
In 2019 I became poorly and finding out in 2020 that I also have MS just like Mum I had to made some work adjustments, 4 day work week, more office work ect.
I had all but given up on becoming my own boss until inspiration hit me once again! Inspired by my friend who'd became a travel agent and was posting on instagram, I heard that little kid in me again telling me that one day I had to be my own boss, that being an employee is not my path. But what would I do, what could I do? I know fashion, I know graphic design, I know alot of social media, I know chronic illness inperticuler MS and I've learnt 4 lessons in what not to do in business.
This was were Something Profound was born.
For about a year I was getting creative and learning about designing on my phone then I upgraded to a tablet, in recent months I decided for myself and my family that I need to be home more and I'm also needed at home more so here I am ready for the next chapter!
All of those "failed" business as I seen them in the past, now I know, each time I'm learning a lesson, I'm failing forward. It's not easy and it doesn't feel "safe" but as Mark Zuckerberg once said "In a world that is changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks"
I'm a seaside home bird out of choice.
As a child my parents were landlords and owners of a very popular inn in my village, I remember pretending I couldn't sleep so I could come and chat with the customers and be part of the craic. They often now say they remember me coming down in my Leeds united tshirt as a nightee and asking for pop(shandy), crisps or if I coluld help count the till or collect glasses. We also had 3 bedrooms we let out and I enjoyed taking the breeakfast orders and chatting to the residents. Just dont ask me to clean, if there was cleaning to do I need the loo.
My parents are the greatest roll models without a doubt, the tought me a good work ethic (they NEVER stopped even on days off or holidays the pub wasn't a job it was their livleyhood) but they also taught me that if you work hard you can enjoy nice things just like the short breaks to London they would take me on to stay in the beautiful metropol hotel on Edgware road where we would go to the west end to the theater to see things like Greece, josheph and his technicolour dream coat and the buddy holy show then enjoying dinner in some of the most amazing restaurants, langans, Smolenskis balloon, Mezzos was my favourite owned by terrance conran, Farther to jasper conran. Mum was a chef so she enjoyed really good food and collected menus wherever she went.
Our family song is kooks by David Bowie, the were the couple of kooks hung up on romancing, inviting me to be in there lovers story. We danced to this at my wedding. I especially like the part about homework getting you down, we'll throw it on the fire and take the car around town.
Mum and dad often said to me 'be your own boss, do the hard work for yourself not someone else' so from there my entrepreneurial life began. I was about 10 when I started 'Super Sammy's dog walking service' and with a poster in my Dad's cousins shop I got my first client, a small poodle called Dusty. He was lovely and I enjoyed taking him out but at a rate of 20p per hour this wasn't going to sustain me in sweets and magazines. My first lesson in business, value yourself and your time.
When the furby came out I so desperately wanted one and as I was tought I'd have to work for the money to get anything I wanted I had a clear out and had a garage sale, they do it on the TV so why would it not work for me? It didn't, so my next plan me and my friend would bundle the items we had into a big bag and go door to door selling. This was amazing until I got to my best customer, my auntie, who bought lots from me, probably out of kindness, then grassed on me to my mum and dad. What a telling off I got!
I always assumed as a child that I would run the pub one day so that future was no more when my Mum, my hero, was unable to carry on working due to her MS. I was 13 when we left the pub and had never lived anywhere else and that was just at the point everyone and their uncle is asking 'what do you want to be when you grow up?' And I had no idea!
It was at this point I suffered my first mental health problems that I still battle to this day. Maybe it's the pressure, maybe it's ' beeing a teenager' but for the first time I was uncertain about my life.
Anyway I decided to study fashion, graphic design and life drawing. I was an arty child and I like clothes so 🤷 why not.
By the way my 16 yo brain thought life drawing was fruit, boy was I in for a shock when the man who lived a street away from me appeared in nothing but a sheet 😳
Fashion was my passion and I excelled in all of my college work but my next stumbling block was uni! I did not want to go, but as i was told I needed to go to uni to succeed in fashion I reluctantly lasted 6 weeks at batley school of art. I did tell you I'm a home bird. My second lesson, follow my gut feeling.
At the age of 20 I had my little boy Jacob, and while I was pregnant with him my dad and his work friends were calling one of the young apprentice joiners 'the big lad' and dad asked me to design a t-shirt for him and from there I became the owner of The big lad t-shirts. We would go to bodybuilding competitions with dozens of boxes full of t-shirts and made some wonderful friends along the way but as a young mum now pregnant with my second child Lizzie, and my Dad unable to help as he became Mum's full time carer the competitions were not the same and we said goodnight to the big lad. My third lesson, don’t overstock! My business plan doesn't require it!
Then about 4 years later a friend came to me with a very well known nutrition company and being frustrated with working for other people where my time is not my own I absolutely jumped at the chance. This is about the time I first met our charlie at a weekly biz meeting in Berwick! I can not believe it was 10 years ago! Is it possible charlie ages backwards? Anyway we had a fantastic time until Antony my now husband decided to be my business partner and it almost broke us. My forth lesson, me and Antony do not work well together.
In 2019 I became poorly and finding out in 2020 that I also have MS just like Mum I had to made some work adjustments, 4 day work week, more office work ect.
I had all but given up on becoming my own boss until inspiration hit me once again! Inspired by my friend who'd became a travel agent and was posting on instagram, I heard that little kid in me again telling me that one day I had to be my own boss, that being an employee is not my path. But what would I do, what could I do? I know fashion, I know graphic design, I know alot of social media, I know chronic illness inperticuler MS and I've learnt 4 lessons in what not to do in business.
This was were Something Profound was born.
For about a year I was getting creative and learning about designing on my phone then I upgraded to a tablet, in recent months I decided for myself and my family that I need to be home more and I'm also needed at home more so here I am ready for the next chapter!
All of those "failed" business as I seen them in the past, now I know, each time I'm learning a lesson, I'm failing forward. It's not easy and it doesn't feel "safe" but as Mark Zuckerberg once said "In a world that is changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks"