Secret Diary of a Mumpreneur: The Future’s So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades

Meriel Kehoe - 1 Nov 18

If you could plot starting a business on a graph it would look like a series of vertiginous peaks and deep troughs.  The peaks would be labelled with things like ‘I’m on top of the world, pour me a gin’ and the troughs would sob from under a blanket ‘Why……?!’

With six weeks left before our official launch into Sainsbury’s, we were on the up.  We’d found a factory to make our product, we’d handed over our recipe and we were on a budget flight back from Holland, safe in the knowledge a lolly alchemist was making magic in the sample kitchen.  We’d have products to taste within a week, so we celebrated with a soggy sandwich from the onboard ‘Bistro’.

Just when we thought the glamour couldn’t be surpassed, exactly one week later, we found ourselves in Nottingham train station car park. With no time or money to fly back to Holland, this was a convenient meeting point and we found ourselves commenting on ‘consistency’ and ‘fruity finishes’ like a pair of wine experts, all whilst munching lollies from a freezer in a car boot. They’d done an incredible job and carpark or no carpark, for the first time, we really thought ‘this might just happen.’

The next few weeks were nerve-wracking.  What if we’d cocked up the barcode and it didn’t scan?  What if we sent the wrong packaging files to the printer? What if somehow the lorry fell off the ferry hurling all our lollies into the English channel? But none of that happened. After months of hard graft our product was going to be in the SHOPS!!!

I dragged the whole family down for an outing to the supermarket the first day that they landed in store. Fin had just turned three and, convinced he was going to turn into an overnight celebrity, (because his name was on the box), he opted to wear an elaborate disguise of over-sized sunglasses (mine) and a straw-boater.

I felt sick as I got closer to the frozen aisles and then suddenly there they were! I cried, Fin cried (I think because I was), even my husband’s eyes looked a bit glassy. I’d never been more proud of anything in my life. Somehow, we’d made it to the start-line. The journey had begun.

www.claudiandfin.co.uk

Meriel Kehoe

I’m a mumpreneur and Mum to seven year old Finlay, trying (but not always succeeding) to do both those jobs well. I’m a ninja of the juggle, nailing loads of washing on conference calls and silencing my son by conjuring a well-timed snack whilst simultaneously bashing a keyboard. My brand has grown from the kitchen table to supermarket shelf and my boy has grown from 50cm to well over a metre. I can’t take all the credit for those two things but I can try and enjoy the ride even if I sometimes drop the ball. When I’m not out and about being mumpreneurial, I can mostly be found in my spare room in ‘activewear’. Very occasionally I am actually active in it too.

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