Name: Lucy Handley
Age: 43
Children: 1
Business name: department 83
Profit in first year: £3,000; profit in fourth year £60,000

How did the idea for your business come about?
While working at BT I had to develop a speaker programme for key executives and realised that this service was not proficiently offered by any PR companies. Not being at the ‘sexy’ end of PR was usually given to a junior account executive to manage when in fact it required the exact opposite.

How did you fund it?
Privately

How do you manage your business with childcare commitments and running a
home?
One of the biggest challenges facing our company is managing the work/life balance. Like me many of the employees are also mothers of small children. We all frequently need to travel across the UK and abroad, and are often out of the office.

Extrasys provided us with the solution and now enables us to work from anywhere. Our desktop, all the applications used for everyday work (such as Word, Quark, etc) and our corporate network are run on Extrasys' data centres and accessed through a broadband connection.

This travelling desktop gives us secure access to the files and programmes from any computer via a broadband internet connection – whether we are at home, in the office or on the move. This allows us to work as effectively from home, which is crucial for many employees during school holidays or when a child is ill and cannot attend school.

What is the best thing that has happened to you as an entrepreneur so far?
The best thing that has happened to me is freelancer mothers and other women I employ. Watching them grow in confidence and working so well together. Going back to any role after you have had a baby is so daunting. Your confidence levels drop and there are usually few people around you in the business world who are prepared to ease you back into this world gently. Building a strong team of women who recognise that getting the balance right between work and family is just fantastic.

And the worst?
The first year was the worst time when I was alone setting up the business. This is such a lonely time if you are setting up a business on your own when all you really want are people around to support you through so many decisions that need to be made. Looking for office space, purchasing IT equipment, ordering stationery at the same time as trying to build business. My lowest moment was in the first 3 months when, being so busy, I had not remembered to back up my data from my laptop. It crashed and I lost everything. It took me over a month to get back on track. With Extrasys I don’t even have to worry about my laptop crashing!

What would you do differently if you could turn the clock back?
I am not sure if I would do anything too differently. If I had had the budget I would have taken on someone to work with me in that first year though.

Any tips for mums who are considering setting up a business?

1. Listen to advice but act on your own as much as you can.
2. Do not listen to those who try to put you off; usually thinking they are saying this in your best interests.
3. Remember to tell yourself that you can and you’re clever! That’s some advice I was given by a friend and I still use it!
4. Think every day why you are doing this. If the answer is not clear as crystal then something needs to change.
5. Develop as many potential business contacts as you can in the 12 months before you set up on your own and develop this into a database that you can refer to.
6. Don’t give up when things go wrong.
7. Talk to other working mothers as much as you can.
8. Set simplistic goals and make sure you achieve.
9. Celebrate every success, such as the ability to spend more time with your children because you’re the boss.
10. Build open and fruitful business relationships with your bank manager, accountant and all other suppliers
11. Be honest and keep a down to earth attitude with everybody.
12. Do not let the business run your life make sure you run the business.
13. As a working mother you will have the ‘guilt’ factor embedded in you. It will never go away so get used to it!