Name: Carine Pouypoudat
Age: 33
Children: 4
Business: www.madeinwater.co.uk
Profit in first year: £ 8,000

How did the idea for your business come about?
I launched Made in Water in 2004, to make La Bassine, the first inflatable birthing pool available to women who have planned a home water birth.

La Bassine was first created for the home birth of my third child in 2004. Not impressed by the birthing pools available for home birth, I decided to create my own special cocoon. Having already experienced two water labours for my previous sons, I knew exactly what I wanted; A warm dimly lit place where I could feel unobserved and secure while still enjoying the relaxing effect of warm water.

The midwives present at the birth were so enthusiastic about what my little boys named “la Bassine” that they encouraged us making it available to others mums-to-be

How did you fund it?
Personal loan – for the first two years, I also kept a part-time job.

How do you manage your business with childcare commitments and running a home?
I try to work only three days a week. On these days, I usually wake up at 7.30am to prepare breakfast. At 8.45am the boys walk to school with their dad and I get the girls ready. At 10am, I drop them to my much adored and trusted childminder and work until 5pm. My husband works also with me , processing and dispatching the orders, maintaining our website and doing all those house chores that I am not good at. He picks up the boys at 3pm and I got home by 6pm with the girls. It’s time for everyone to get a bath, a dinner and at 8.30 they are tucked in their bed. We then work until 11pm or 12 pm.

On my days off, I try as much as possible to keep one of the girls with me and not do any work during the day. Week-end is usually spent in family.

My previous jobs as finance director came with a lot of responsibility, but I always got the balance right by negotiated flexible hours to be with my family. Today’s, things are different . It is not really in terms of working hours but more the difficulty to switch off from work. Made in water is always in my mind, resulting in less quality time with my children. I never been the workaholic type but I found that having your own business is dangerously addictive.

What is the best thing that has happened to you as an entrepreneur so far?
Recently Our birthing pool made prime time TV in US in an episode of Private Practice (a show about an alternative clinic in California – a spin off from Gray’s Anatomy). There was three births on this episode and one was a sweet water birth in La Bassine. The sales in US are really good and this was the best advertising we could have.

And the worst?
When we received our first delivery of pools and realized that the manufacture made a sizing mistake during the production. We had to make a new production and the launch was pushed to 5 months later !! It was a waste of money and time that almost ended our new venture.

What would you do differently if you could turn the clock back?
Not investing so much in advertising the first year. PR and Networking are really the best way to go for a small company like ours. However everything is a learning process and making mistake is part of the business.

Any tips for mums who are considering setting up a business?
To have a good business plan and some contingency in case thing don’t work the first time.

Starting small and growing the business organically is often the best way to do if you want to start a home business specially if you have young children to look after.

Digg

Stumble Upon

Del.icio.us

Buzz