Nature Friendly Products: Blog

The Nature Friendly online store goes LIVE!

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 09:20:22 GMT

After a lot of work and re-work of web sites, setting up of shopping carts and back end coding nightmares, I am pleased to say that I have launched an online store for Nature Friendly Products.

Our entire product range can now be purchased online!

Visit www.naturefriendly.co.uk to purchase our products.

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Creating an online store

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 09:14:44 GMT

This was not an easy task to complete. Initially I decided I would use oscommerce software to run the shopping cart and transactional functions for my online store. I proceeded to organise a suitable server, set up a database, install the oscommerce software and front end templates.

I ran into a lot of problems with connecting the oscommerce system with the front end of the web site. It became apparent to me that I did not have the expertise or sufficient knowledge to continue with the oscommerce system.

After weeks of struggling with this I started investigating alternative shopping carts such as Google Checkout, PayPal, PayPal express and other ecommerce offerings. There are some great systems out there. These vary in price and capability.

After careful consideration I decided to switch to an ecommerce system provided by 123-reg. As soon as I had switched over I knew I had made the right move. The administration tools are very easy to use. Setting up an online store was straight forward. No coding is required.

Our New online store is not available at: www.naturefriendly.co.uk.

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Are your products going to sell?

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 11:22:30 GMT

I’ve asked myself loads of times, "Do I have the right products or not? Will people really buy these machine washable kitchen cloths, microfibre dusters and microfibre cleaning cloths? Do people really care about the environment enough to switch to re-usable cleaning cloths?"

At the end of the day, the truth is, I don’t know for certain. I’m going to take a risk. If I get this wrong, I’ll have several lifetime supplies of cleaning cloths. Perhaps my great-great-great-great-great-great grandchildren will appreciate inheriting thousands of cleaning cloths? Who knows.

I am encouraged by asking a lot of people what they think. Market research is invaluable to a start-up business.

Running an online survey, showing some products to friends or enlisting the services of a market research company are all great ways to gather opinions.

I conducted market research by giving some sample products to a few close friends. I requested that they use my cloths for a few months and report back their honest opinions. I received some really valuable feedback.

Online surveys are a very cheap and environmentally friendly way to gather information on opinions. Via these methods it becomes easy to see if a product will be a success or not. Google Forms offers free online survey capabilities that are impressive. Find out as much as you can about how your products and services will be received before you invest too much cash in your business.

Don’t get caught up in your product /service with rose-coloured glasses. If your product or service has flaws, do what you can to improve the offering. If the flaws are major – it is best that you carefully consider how this will affect the long term longevity of your business.

After doing some market research, I feel confident that my products will fill a gap in the market. I believe these cloths will be successful. I intend to expand upon this limited range over time. Every time I add a new product to the Nature Friendly Products range, I'll conduct lots of market research before I launch new products.

www.naturefriendly.co.uk

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Creating a Perfect Company Logo

Sat, 21 Jun 2008 06:40:38 GMT

Lots of companies have great business logos. A good logo is essential for building a brand. I hope to build a strong brand over time.

I know from my experience in Marketing products and services that design is a subjective thing. I've had hundreds of designs created for projects I've been working on; where 3 people have hated the proposed design and 1 likes it.

Nature Friendly Products deserves a really special logo. My goal was to create something that could easily be recognised, represent an eco friendly theme and support a great strap-line.

I believe I have a great logo. I’m really pleased with it. I’m hoping to find 3 people who love it for every 1 person who hates it!

How did I create my business logo?
Creating a good logo is really easy when you have the right know how. There is one rule I stick to for this: hire a great designer!
If you want a really great logo – invest your time, energy and money in a good creative designer who will take the time to understand your brand, company and deliver a great logo to support your business.

A good logo will last a lifetime.

If you’re looking for a good designer to do some work on your marketing, email hello@naturefriendly.co.uk with designers in the subkect line, and I’ll pass on the details of my favourite UK designers.
Feel free to leave a message and let me know if you like my new logo or hate it. I’m interested to find out what the ratio is!

www.naturefriendly.co.uk

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Registering a New Business / Company in the UK

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 21:12:41 GMT

Registering a new business in the United Kingdom was very easy. When I attended the Business Start-ups exhibition at Earls Court in London, I found several companies that specialised in company formation.

I decided to use one of these companies. They help you with all the legal bits, the forms and provide solicitors to found a lots of companies are available to help you set 'form' your company.

I ended up using Companies Made Simple to form my company. They offer a bronze, silver and gold package for company formation. The prices vary. I think that all the packages are good value. I decided to go with the gold package. This included the first years annual reports. I wanted to have the first years reports prepared correctly. The web site can be found at: www.companiesmadesimple.com

I found this process quick, easy and hassle free. I didn't have to schedule appointments with solicitors, lawyers or do mounds of paperwork.

My company was formed within 48 hours. I was wrapped. I received a certificate in the mail as proof of my new business. Now I have to focus on making money.

www.naturefriendly.co.uk

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Finding a Business Name for 'Nature Friendly Products'

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 13:56:02 GMT

Finding the name Nature Friendly Products for my business name took a long, long, long, long time.

I knew that I wanted the name to clearly communicate that this is an environmentally friendly, sustainable products company. I also knew that I was going to offer multiple products (eventually). This would mean that I would need a strong eco name that wouldn't tie me to, or limit the type of product or service I'd offer. TOUGH!

Consider for a moment how Sir. Richard Branson has branded 'Virgin'. This is a fantastic example of a company that was originally established with a generic business name. As Sir Richard moved into new ventures he simply created a new company under the Virgin umbrella. Virgin Mobile, Virgin-radio, Virgin-Media, Virgin Altantic, Virgin megastores, Virgin Records. These are all sub-brands link into the over-arching brand. Clever. By linking all the brands, the tone of voice across Virgin is unified.

It is vitally important to carefully consider both the short term and longer term business objectives to ensure that the business name you choose clearly communicates with your customers your product or service.

The business name selection process took about 4 weeks. I spent hours researching other companies, brands and structures of company, brand and product. I believe the relationship between a customer and a brand has a huge impact on the sale.

I spent every spare moment I had considering the question - 'what will I name this business?'.

My approach was to create a short list of ideas for my business name. I discussed some of these past my husband, family and friends. I researched word definitions, meanings and cross referenced with a thesaurus. After I had collated a good list of possible business name ideas collated, I visited the two following web sites:

Companies House: I searched this site to determine if the business names I was considering were still available as business names in the UK. (some of my best ideas were already taken - typical!) www.companieshouse.gov.uk
123-reg: Here I searched to establish if the web site domain name was available. www.123-reg.co.uk

Eventually, (after a long time) I had the idea of Nature Friendly Products as my business name. I felt that this name provided a good balance of environmental concern, clearly product related, yet the company name and brand can be expanded upon if required. When I searched for this business name in companies house and 123-reg web sites I found both the trading name and the domain name were available. I'd hit the jackpot!

I registered my company as: Nature Friendly Products Limited.
www.naturefriendlyproducts.co.uk and www.naturefriendly.co.uk are my business url's.

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Start-up Cash

Thu, 29 May 2008 12:41:04 GMT

Finding start-up cash was a little bit daunting at first. I knew from my business plan how much I'd need for the initial outlay and ongoing running costs.

As I started to register the company, I realised that there were a lot of costs that I had not included in my business plan. Items such as domain registration, web site hosting, email hosting, legal creation of the company, equipment needed for logistics etc.. So many small items popped up that I had not considered. If I was doing a business plan again I would definitely include a larger area for smaller miscellaneous costs.

My husband and I agreed that we would not invest our existing savings into this new business. As tough a choice this is, I'm glad that we came to this decision. This means that this new business venture won't drain our personal finances. I worked additional hours and earned a little more to set aside for this start-up. Surprisingly, it didn't take too long before I had the start-up cash in hand. I also felt a huge sense of achievement by doing this.

In the future I expect that I'll need to consider using Invoice Finance or a Bank Overdraft to fund the growth of the business. For the moment I am happy that I have created enough start-up cash to move forward.

The amount of start up cash required, and the directors/owners personal financial circumstances will often dictate how you finance your business start-up. Often entrepreneurs turn to Business Angels, Venture Capitalists or Loans for starting a business.

Business Angels are always keen to spot and make a good investment. I attended the Business Start-up Show in London where there were lots of Business Angels standing by to invest in new investors and entrepreneurs. Going down this path will inevitably mean giving away some market share in the business. We've all see the Dragons Den experiences of entrepreneurs who are pitching for investment to the Dragons. Many lessons can be learned from these pitches.

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How do I find time to start my business?

Wed, 07 May 2008 21:25:39 GMT

I am finding it difficult to free up the amount of time required to do all the things that I need to do for this business.

In an ideal world, I wouldn't be working full time whilst trying to start my own business. Ideally, I'd be able to spend all my time working on my business. My reality is that I can't. I have to work full-time. In addition to working, I also need to make time for my husband, family, friends and fulfilling my religious and community responsibilities.

So many demands on my time, have at times felt overwhelming. When this is the case I try to gather myself together, write a list of all the things I need to do by category. (family, work, friends, community, new business). I then allocate time in my diary to spend working on each category in my schedule.

When the allocated time comes around, I work on the items on the list from most important to least important. This system works quite well for me. It also helps me to feel as though I am actually achieving things in the right order.

My business plan is now well underway. I know what I want to do and how I want things done. I’ve listed an order to the items that I need to achieve.

For each category of the business plan I have allocated time. Time for marketing, time for building partnerships, time for packaging, time for speaking with suppliers, time for running market acceptance testing. Overall I feel that by making a plan to deliver the business plan by 'category' and task, I'll be able to achieve the goals of the business.

I’ve found that by structuring my tasks this way I’ve been able to achieve more at work, more at home and more for Nature Friendly.

Every moment of my day counts. This is going to be a hard slog - but I want this more than anything this year. This is the year that I'll always reflect on with pride.

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The excitement of knowing you have a business to start

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 20:35:00 GMT

Since the moment I knew I had a business to start life has been very exciting.

One thing I have been uncertain about is when to introduce my new business venture to family and friends. Often I will be speaking with someone, and I'll contemplate during the conversation if I should or shouldn't mention my business to this person.

There seems to be an ongoing battle inside of me - I want to tell everyone I meet - and I also want to hold back from telling very many people until I get my business off the ground. I've decided to speak to a select group of people (who I trust) about what I am doing. Of course one day I plan to make that big announcement to as many people as possible. I feel I need to have my products in place ready for purchasing before I spread the word too much.

So, back to my business plan. I've been working away on deciding the finer details of how to run my new business. Currently I am working full time whilst starting this business. I have decided to set aside 4 hours each Saturday and 4 hours during the weekday evenings to work on my business. I will see how this works for my schedule and adjust if necessary.

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Creating a Buisness Plan for Nature Friendly Products

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 12:15:27 GMT

The next step to starting my business was to create a business plan. This was essential to establish if the financial or charitable reward is worthy of the effort of creating and running a business. It was also important to establish the level of up-front investment required.

I searched around for business plan templates and found a really good one on my favorite template site: Microsoft free templates.
This Business Plan template I used was easy to follow and included step-by-step instructions. This was really useful. Two other sites I visited while writing my business plan were: Companies House and Business Link. These sites also have great resources for creating a business plan.

Over a four week period, I worked on my business plan. It takes time to document your ideas, research the market, estimate the level of investment, and sales figures. I found estimating sales figures to be the hardest thing to do.

In addition to my business plan, I also added additional spreadsheets such as: Start up costs, and break-even analysis to further understand the level of investment commitment required for this business.

If you have a business partner, it is important to sit down early and often to discuss all areas of the business plan.

The Nature Friendly Products Ltd. business plan, contains an additional section evaluating the environmental impacts of the business.
'Helping every home go green' is the motto of the business. This rings true from the core of the business plan, its partners and into the change in customer's homes. Part of the plan is creating change in ordinary homes, rather than selling washable kitchen cloths, microfibre dusters and microfibre cleaning cloths.

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Kitchen tongs & business ideas

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 12:37:03 GMT

Considering how many years I longed for my own business, my golden business idea was so simple that it took me by surprise.

My husband and I moved from Australia to London just over a year ago. I previously lived in the UK between 1995 - 2000. I remembered from the last time I lived here, that it was incredibly difficult to find a good pair of kitchen tongs – yes, the kind you use on a BBQ. As an Australian I can’t live without kitchen tongs. When we moved to the UK this time around, I packed three high-quality kitchen tongs before leaving Sydney in anticipation of my London kitchen. Of course between 2000 and 2006 kitchen tongs have become a commodity in the UK and you can now buy great tongs all over the country.

My point is this, the last time I moved to the UK I couldn’t find good tongs. This time I moved to the UK I did exactly what every new resident does – I looked for my favorite things from 'home' in the UK stores. As I searched the UK stores I came to the realization that I couldn’t buy good quality washable kitchen and microfibre cloths. I can't live without washable cleaning cloths. The reasons are numerous..... our planet is too precious, I hate throwing away cloths after 1 - 2 weeks, I just won't continue to throw away packaging and most of all I like my cloths to be clean, hygienic, do a great job and reduce the use of chemicals in my home.

This was the beginning of my business.

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The best of the bad ideas

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 13:26:26 GMT

So, what does a good idea look like? To answer this, let’s look at a few of my non-start business ideas. I've had hundreds of non-start business ideas. In order to keep this entry short I've only included one below. Post me a message on this blog and I'll happily email you all the others. (sorry, too many to include here)

Idea 1 - Online pavlova bakery
This was a good idea because I can make great pavlova (most of the time). This business idea was based on myself making the pavlovas each evening, then dispatching in the morning. Customers would purchase through an online pavlova-bakery web site. The delivery area would be restricted to my local area. I've seen this business idea work really well in Sydney, Australia.

Advantages of this business idea:

Marketing costs would be low, customers would be limited to a local area/market
I could make my own web site and marketing materials, run a local mail drop etc.
I would deliver to a small local area – an area I knew quite well
As the customer base grew, I could move to larger premises, purchase larger mixing machines and ovens.

Disadvantages of this business idea:

After creating a business plan, I realised that there was a huge gap in scalability of the business
Pavlova takes 1 hour to cook - not a fast turnaround time
In order to make enough Pavlova to make this a viable small business, I’d have to have several ovens
I didn’t have the funds (or kitchen space) to purchase several ovens
I didn’t have the funds to start in a bakery premises.

This business idea was a non-start business idea for me, because of two main reasons;

I didn’t have the capital required to start this business
Scalability was not feasible for my circumstances

So what does a good business idea look like?

A good business idea can come in all shapes and sizes. Overall, it needs to be a product or service that will generate sales, repeat customers if possible, and feasible. If you don't carefully consider the requirements and demands of your new business, you may be setting yourself up to fail.

Each week I receive the Springwise newsletter. It is packed with new business ideas. The Springwise e-newsletter is definitely worth subscribing to.

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Thinking of a good business idea

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 14:05:28 GMT

Some very lucky individuals have their own business fall into their lap. We’ve all heard of the person who was working full-time for a company, then decided to ‘consult’ full time rather than be an employee. These lucky sods have their small business start up experience handed to them on a plate. Admittedly, some may rather be employed than running their own business. However, these individuals immediately switch from receiving a payment derived by an employer to receiving a payment in reaction to an invoice. Regardless of its origination, the payment continues exactly as it had done before the business was created. ‘Lucky sods’ is all I can say about these people.

For the rest of us – we have to come up with a fantastic business idea that covers a gap in the market, has customers wanting to fight each other to purchase the product, is interesting enough for investors to take notice or cheap enough to start on one’s own accord. The product/service needs to overcome barriers to entry, be cost effective and be able to withstand the competition and/or substitute products/services. The business idea also needs to be achievable. In short, the business idea needs to be outstanding.

Over the past 10 years I’ve come up with hundreds of ideas for starting my own business. Each one has had its merits and weakness. Often my ideas have been random and unconnected. Members of my family, ex boyfriends, friends and my husband can testify of a range of business ideas I’ve prattled on about over the years. Some of my bad business ideas have become part my family’s standard joke topics at family gatherings.

I believe all my business ideas have some merit – but sadly not enough ‘oomph’ and too many weaknesses to realistically get the business idea off the ground or sustain.

On reflection, I estimate that I’ve spent at least one year of my life working on various business plans and ideas for my own business. Often it is when I get to the business plan stage I realise the gaps in the marketing plan, sales plan, or realise the start up capital is not feasible for my circumstances. It is at this point of new business idea analysis that the business idea either flourishes or dies.

A non-start business idea can be very hard to forget about. A good idea that you just can’t make happen can nag at you for quite some time. I’ve learnt that if it is not a feasible business idea for you - let go and move on. A non-start business idea may come at a price that you can’t afford. This could be your health, relationships or finances. In these instances is it particularly important to let go.

When you have a good idea, you’ll know. You won’t be able to think of any reason why it is not going to work, or why you can’t sustain this new business. You’ll find it easy to flesh out a business plan including all the intricate bits. You’ll be able to work out the advantages, disadvantages and the next steps to getting your business going. You’ll also know that you have the energy, time and resources to allocate to your new business. This is when you’ll feel like you have hit the jackpot. You really have something. Once you have the right idea the hard work can begin.

So, what does a good idea look like? To answer this, check out my next blog that looks as at some of my non-start business ideas. You’ll see a clear outline of what a good business idea needs to consist of.

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My Desire to Start a Business

Wed, 20 Feb 2008 12:18:55 GMT

For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to run my own small business. The aspects that appeal to me are flexible working hours, the opportunity to work from home, the opportunity to drive and build my own empire. According to research conducted by Business Link there are more than 10 Million people in Britain with the same desire.

I'm a fan of small businesses. I believe small businesses have the opportunity to have a positive impact on personal lives, communities, and they play a major role in providing choice and diversity in the marketplace.

I’m not an expert in the area of running a business. I have a background in Marketing, Business Administration and Project Management. My Husband is an Accountant. I’m hoping that between us we have the know-how to start up a successful small business.

I invite you to join me on my journey to start a small business, feel free to subscribe to the RSS feed, or tune into this blog on a regular basis. As I research and take steps to start my business I’ll share with you interesting web sites, useful articles and hopefully help you keep motivated to achieve your goals along the way.

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