How I started in Business

I lift the burden off hard-pressed parents by helping them to get organised in the kitchen. Each week, they get a weekly menu planner of weekday meals which they can print off and stick to their fridge, recipe cards, and a shopping list broken down into categories. The recipes make use of the latest supermarket bargains to keep cost down. The best deals also feature in my regular website blog.

How I started in Business
I loved the previous job I had but it just wasn’t viable with a young family. So I decided to set up my own business to fit around the demands of school and extra-curricular activities. The idea for Menus4Mums came when I was chatting with some other mums in a coffee shop about what we could do to set up our own small businesses. I realised that I enjoyed planning out my family’s meals, to make sure they were balanced and interesting but also that they didn’t cost a fortune. I’ve always been interested in cooking at home and at school.I also thought of people like my old boss, who was lovely but just didn’t have time to sort out her family’s meals, so I thought it might be something people would pay for if it helped them get a better life balance.

I started by doing a course in nutrition, and I also enrolled on some really good courses run by Business Link. They gave me a great framework for planning out what I needed to do. I’ve also been lucky enough to get £2,500 worth of start-up assistance through a scheme run by my local university (see open4businessbucks) which I’m spending on a mentor.

I launched in November, a couple of months after my youngest started school. It’s been going well, and I’ve learnt a huge amount already. I’ve already made a major change to the website by introducing a Members Area so I could cope if I had an increase in customers. There’s still quite a way to go to be where I want to be, but I’m beginning to see what I need to do to get there!

One bit of advice I would give would-be start-ups is to make full use of the resources that are out there. Some people might be a bit cynical about government agencies (!), but the advice and support I’ve received from Business Link and Open4business has been amazing.