For all of you who have not heard yet, let me introduce you to Naturally Babies, the online shop for all your cloth nappy and babywearing needs.
I first thought about this when I was on maternity leave in 2013 as I became excited by cloth nappies and ergonomic baby carriers that I was using with my daughter. I both wanted to share my new passion with more mummies and daddies and have a shop in Leeds where you could come and see the products in real life and buy them there and then. Time rolled on, I couldn’t think how to fund this, so back to work I went. Still the idea lurked in my head and as time went by I also needed a way to work that would give me some flexibility with my daughter as she gets older, goes to nursery and then school. Eventually, I decided to try and get a bank loan and make my dream a reality. Despite what I initially thought in these more austere times, I did find a bank who would loan me the money I required. Yippee. In the meantime, I had a Cancer diagnosis to side swipe me but me being me (readers of this big will know about this already), I wasn’t going to stop my dream coming true and anyway I now had a bank loan to pay back!
We “opened” for business on 12th March. Naturally Babies your place for all your cloth nappy and baby wearing needs and advice became a reality.
It’s hard starting a business for anyone, I knew it would be but you never quite know what something will be like until you do it yourself. I am still working whlst getting this going but to get it going it really needs time. Time to get the website up and running, time to choose and order products, time to put products on the website, time to create your social media posts, time to think about marketing.
This sounds like I am not happy. I am. Being in it’s infancy, it’s a bit scary, as I really do want it to be successful. Each time I make a sale, I get a happy feeling and think it’s worth while. With my realistic, accountancy head on, I know that everything is fine. Business’ take time to get going and need a lot of promotion.
It’s great to be doing things that are similar and different to my usual job in Finance. Allowing to be a bit more creative than usual and learning about the world of SEO! I have also just been on a course to become a babywearing consultant, so that customers can feel really confident with the advice that I give and to expand my business in to baby consultancies as well. Sharing babywearing with more people.
I couldn’t do this with out my husbands support. As always, he is amazing. Helping to keep the house going whilst I get an order packed or put together a new post for social media and taking on the role of delivery man.
Will it just be a hobby or will I be able to give up my current job and allow me some flexibility while my daughter is young. I don’t know yet, it’s too early days to tell at the moment but I am giving the business the best shot that I can. If nothing else, I’m excited to be doing this and sharing my passion with others and I can’t believe that I have over 600 Facebook likes in just under 2 months!
Do come and take a look at Naturally Babies.
The Happy Life of a Leeds Working Mummy 