When we started, our biggest competitor, the one who was turning over £5.5m, came after us quite aggressively, more aggressively than I calculated they would. We were stealing less than 5% of his business away from him but he dropped his prices by 35%. It was just to try and kill us off straight away.
Because we were a new...
I talk to a lot of people about starting a business and I’m convinced that most people have enough stuff lying around their houses to sell on eBay and raise £2-3k which is enough to get a business off the ground. Im really passionate about getting the message out there that people can self fund their start ups. eBay is accessible to everyone –...
When I launched my second business – Baggers – we started it with £10, a sewing machine and a kitchen table.
After Baggers, we started a contract cleaning business but we had to do it with no money because it was all still tied up in the other business.
When my bank manager told me that they couldn’t lend me any money I said that we’d get people to pay up front. He said that would never work.
I said it would. And it did!
The biggest challenge we faced in setting up the business was that it was so bloomin’ expensive to get started! Some items of kit we’ve got in the laboratories cost as much as £110,000, and not that many people have that amount of cash swimming around in their bank accounts. We certainly didn’t.
When we started though, we didn’t want to...
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