Louise

2005.

So 2005, we had a crafts website.

I then, like a crazy person, decided the only way to build this business was to open a bricks and mortar craft shop.

But I wasn't the creative.

I wasn't the crafter.

It was my sister.

And she had zero interest in turning this into an actual shop.

But I was convinced that I had something here.

So I opened a bricks and mortar shop and I made no money at it.

So I had three small children.

Worked part-time as an IT project manager in the health service and had a shop.

Now, I think this all came off the back of my dad passed away at 59.

And if that hadn't happened, if he hadn't died so young, I don't think that I would have started a business so fast.

It was definitely a...

thing about life is too short you've got to go for what you want to do I want to have my own business I thought my own business was this craft shop and we had no money at it somebody from the council came out the economic development officers would have mentors and stuff this mentor came out and sat with me and said Louise can we go through your your books and your spreadsheets and she said to me you are like not killing yourself but you are

doing so much work and putting so much effort into this, and it's exhausting, but you're not even paying yourself.

Because I had to hire people to work in the shop because I was working in the health service as a project manager.

So the money was going into the rent, the rates, the stock, the staff, and I was maybe walking away with a couple of hundred pounds a month.

It was brutal.

And she said, I think that...