According to Cyril Connolly, the critic and writer, the greatest enemy of
creativity is “the pram in the hall”. The growing phenomenon of the
“mumpreneur” would, one must therefore assume, have left him completely
baffled.
Nowadays, motherhood, far from converting a woman’s brain inexorably into
parsnip purée and leaving her incapable of discussing anything beyond nappy
contents, seems to have the reverse effect. In fact, it is the spur she
needs to dump her unfulfilling office job and set up her own business. Her
goal: flexible hours, an office at home, and, oh yes, a multimillion-pound
fortune.
And the government is only too keen to help. A new enterprise strategy
unveiled last month, aimed at doubling the number of female entrepreneurs,
will offer mothers advice on pitching for bank loans and preparing business
plans. With immaculate timing, a new book, Kitchen Table Tycoon, has just
been published to advise an army of would-be mumpreneurs on the pleasures
and pitfalls of managing a new business and a new baby simultaneously. It
offers practical advice on everything from money management to coping with
“bad mother syndrome”.
It seems counterintuitive to want to take on new challenges when you are
getting no sleep and having to pander to the unreasonable requirements of a
tiny despot 24/7, but the statistics speak for themselves. In the UK, more
than a third of female entrepreneurs are aged 30 or under, and 74% of women
who started a business did so before their child was two.
According to Prowess, an organisation that supports women starting their own
businesses, flexibility is a “key driver” for female entrepreneurs. At last
year’s Prowess awards, the inspirational business mum category was by far
the most popular in the contest, attracting more than 130 entries, the vast
majority of whom conduct their work around school hours.
It’s not just down to a desire for flexibility, it’s also the result of a
surfeit of good ideas. Contrary to sexist legend, having a baby actually
makes a woman more intelligent rather than less. In 2006, scientists
reported that during pregnancy, learning and memory skills improve
dramatically and key brain areas alter in size – changes that can last for
decades, just when the memory decline of middle age would normally kick in.
Moreover, child-rearing is mentally and emotionally so challenging, it
stimulates brain activity. Perhaps it’s not surprising that once
breast-feeding and the hideously broken nights are a memory, those buzzy
maternal grey cells feel the need to get working on a new creative project.
Quite naturally, many of these mumpreneur businesses are based on children and
their needs: there is nothing that shows up a gap in the market quicker than
hunting in vain for something for your baby. This was the experience of
Leila Wilcox, whose son, Troy, had sensitive skin. Having tried and failed
to find reasonably priced, chemical-free baby toiletries at her local Tesco,
she started Halo n Horns, which is now sold in most supermarkets. Similarly,
The White Company’s Christian Rucker started The Little White Company
because she couldn’t find baby bedding or pyjamas that she liked, while
Sally Preston launched the Babylicious range of frozen baby foods because
she hated the preprepared products already on the market.
“I got the idea by accident,” says Lucy O’Donnell, the founder of LoveDean
Larder, whose award-winning granola is available from Fortnum & Mason.
“I’ve always been conscious about what my children eat and check the labels.
The breakfast cereals were mostly terrible. They claim to be healthy, but
they contain so much sugar and salt, you’d do better to eat the carton.
“We were away on a family skiing holiday in Switzerland when I spotted what
looked like the most delicious cereal on the hotel breakfast table. When I
asked the chef where he bought it, he said he made it himself. So when I got
home, I went to the health-food shop and bought tons of nuts and seeds,
honey and hemp oil, then played around with it all and came up with lots of
different ones.”
It became the family’s staple breakfast and its fame gradually spread. “When
it won a gold medal in the Great Taste Awards, I thought, I have to do this
properly.” She employed three au pairs for three months and set up a mini
production line in the kitchen, while she worked on the packaging. “It was
like Fawlty Towers with three Manuels,” she says. “It was a nightmare. In
fact, it was the hardest time of my life.” Hardest of all was persuading the
buyers to give her a chance. “My brother and I would load up the car and
drive around, begging people to try it,” she says. “Once it was in their
mouths, they always loved it.” Now, her company turnover is set to double by
the end of the year. Her three children – Columbus, 9, Angelica, 7, and
Archie, 5 – have all been enthusiastic supporters. “They enjoy helping with
tastings and coming up with ideas,” she says. “It has been brilliant for me:
I can invent mixes while we’re all chatting in the kitchen.”
Naomi Timperley, 36, mother of Olivia, 5, and Elizabeth, 3, was working as a
part-time face-painter last year when she came across Baby Loves Disco,
which organises disco parties for toddlers in nightclubs, and persuaded its
American founders to let her set up a franchise in the UK. It launched in
London’s Clapham Grand and Manchester’s Pure at the Printworks in September,
and has mushroomed, with events in Glasgow, Brighton, Leeds, Stirling,
Cardiff, Dublin, north London and Birmingham from September. Timperley has
now been appointed European co-ordinator and is launching club nights (or
rather, afternoons) in Spain, France, Sweden, Poland, Holland and Ibiza.
There is even a record deal with Universal Music for compilation CDs
featuring tracks chosen by parents who come to the events. “People think
that kids will only dance to nursery rhymes, but mine love Amy Winehouse and
1980s stuff,” she says.
For Timperley, parenthood was not just the spur for her new and lucrative
venture, but the reason she has made a success of it. “I did find I became
cleverer after I had children,” she says. “You become a multitasker. I can
do about 10 different things at once. These days, I wouldn’t consider
employing anyone who wasn’t a parent, because they don’t have the foresight.
When I look at a venue, my primary concern is whether it’s clean and safe –
it takes us more than two hours to set up, because we look at everything.
Before I started this, I never really knew what I wanted to do, but not only
do I enjoy it, I’ve discovered that I’m good at it.”
Sophie Worthington, 44, mother of daughter Io, 12, and sons Cy, 9, and Rex, 5,
set up Ilovegorgeous, a range of funky children’s clothes, with her friend
Lucy Enfield (wife of the comedian Harry), because they wanted an outlet for
their creative instincts that would still allow them to be at home for the
school holidays. Unfortunately, it hasn’t quite worked out that way. “The
idea was just to have something to keep us busy on Tuesday and Thursday
mornings, but it has quickly built into a proper job,” she says. The second
collection was snapped up by Selfridges, and now the upmarket Paris store Le
Bon Marché is also set to stock it.
As a result, Worthington flies all over the world sourcing fabrics and
attending fashion shows. “We were in India for a design week when I got a
phone call from my husband to say that Rex had fallen 10ft through a glass
skylight,” she recalls. “That threw me – for six months, I questioned what I
was doing. It was sobering.”
Even so, like all the mumpreneurs I spoke to, she wouldn’t have it any other
way. “I’m making compromises all the time,” she admits, “but it’s lovely to
have something in my life that isn’t all about the children.”
Kitchen Table Tycoon by Anita Naik (Piatkus £9.99)
Typical comment from a man! Get into the real world. Just because a woman has the choice to have a baby and a career, doing both does not make her any less of a mother, than one who choses to stay at home.
What a ridiculous comment: "Real mothers don't make compomises".
Sarah, Lonon, UK
Oh stop it already. First yummy mummies now mumpreneurs.
The best mothers are there when you come home from school. They have dinner on the table and tell you your painting is the best they've ever seen. They stick plasters on your knee and kiss things better. They also poke their nose in too much after you marry.
Real mothers don't make "compromises".
Brett, Manchester, UK