Business Plus Baby

November 10, 2011November 7, 2011

Launching an iPhone App: How two mums launched Legacy Organiser

Today’s guest post comes from Victoria Moore who, together with her business partner Mo, launched the iPhone app Legacy Organiser (despite neither of them having a background in IT or even owning iPhones!)

You may recall that the last series of the BBC’s Apprentice featured the launch of an app. At the time I couldn’t believe it as earlier the same day the programme went out, my friend and I had launched our own iPhone app. It was such a coincidence and hopefully a good sign for the success of our project.

Mo and I met as neighbours in the Scottish Highlands. We both had previously been involved in start-ups and business, and last year we started talking about new ideas and ventures. It was around the same time that I had my will drawn up. Like many people, I had never got round to doing this but after having children I felt a huge responsibility of making sure they would be looked after if anything were to happen to myself and my husband. There are many moments in life when you suddenly recognise your own mortality and for me having children was definitely one of those.

Although my will dealt with legal and financial matters, I realised that there was no way of leaving details of how I would like to be remembered or my life celebrated. Many evenings and glasses of wine later, Mo and I came up with the idea that a mobile app would be a perfect way of storing this information and thus “Legacy Organiser” was born.

However, neither of us had any kind of background in IT or new media nor did we own an iPhone between us. The whole project has been a massive learning curve. There is a huge amount of information on the internet about start up apps, but given our lack of experience and knowledge it was very difficult to work out what was relevant or helpful.

We met with a few app developers and had a particularly surreal meeting with one agency where we felt we were old enough to be their mothers. They swaggered in wearing skinny jeans looking like Franz Ferdinand and appeared pretty startled when they spotted us sitting there sipping our lattes in our pastel coloured cardigans. I think there is a presumption that people engaging in new business within the mobile app community are young, achingly trendy and technology natives. We don’t quite fit the bill in any of these categories.

Having said that, and after months of research, we came up with a brief for our developers for the design and the functionality for the app and we spent several months working with them to get it right. We submitted the app to Apple and having had it approved we are now beginning the process of soft launching the app. It has been a fantastic, exasperating at times and fascinating journey so far. We are trying to raise awareness of the app through traditional and social media. We were delighted to be featured recently as a Virgin Entrepreneur http://www.virgin.com/entrepreneur/blog/app-innovator-on-acting-upon-inspiration

My advice to anyone thinking of doing the same is don’t let a lack of IT experience put you off – look at me….I did it!

To download the app and being creating your own legacy click here:

http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/legacy-organiser/id428518774?mt=8

For any further information contact Victoria Moore at victoria@legacyorganiser.com

or at LinkedIn http://uk.linkedin.com/pub/victoria-moore/34/a08/512

If you enjoyed this post, why not join my mailing list? You’ll get weekly tips to help you thrive as a self-employed parent, as well as my a free e-book,”Running a business around a family: 9 Steps to success”.

November 8, 2011November 24, 2011

Business Mums Blog Carnival for November

Are you a mum with a business and a blog? Join in the November Business Mums Blog Carnival and get yourself more readers and comments!

(If it doesn’t seem long since October’s, you’re right. The carnivals late in the year are squeezed closer together so we avoid the Christmas period.)

You don’t even need to write a post for the carnival, just pick your favourite from the posts already up on your blog and send the link to the carnival host.

This month your host is Anne from bumptobundle.wordpress.com

To enter, email the link to your post to anstone (at) blueyonder.co.uk by 15th November.

The carnival will be posted on bumptobundle.wordpress.com on 20th November.

If you’re not sure how it all works or what kind of post to enter, you’ll find everything you need to know on the Business Mum’s Blog Carnival page. And you can get your own blog carnival badge there too!

Want to know more about blogging to promote your business? Grab yourself a copy of my book Business Blogging for Beginners (only £2.29!)

November 7, 2011April 14, 2013

Do I need a business plan?

Most mums don’t need to get a start-up loan (although that would be nice!) Instead, we tend to choose businesses that need very little start-up capital and fund them either from our savings or just keep feeding our profits back it the business.

We don’t need a heavy-duty business plan to convince an investor to give us money, so do we really need a business plan at all?

Er, yes!

You may find that using a typical business plan template for a small home business is like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. In fact, every time you look at the template you get this irresistible urge to make a coffee, feed the cat or do anything else but fill it in!

Here are two good reasons why you need a business plan:

1) Without a plan, it’s hard to have any direction or focus. In fact, unless you’ve done some business planning, you could find yourself working hard for several years and still have no idea if you’ll ever make a profit.

2) The process of writing it is at least as valuable as having the finished business plan sitting in front of you. So don’t feel you that you can’t write a business plan because you don’t know where you’re going yet. The purpose of your business plan is to give you direction. And it doesn’t matter if you change it every week.

Any planning is better than none at all, so if you’re struggling, grab yourself a sheet of A4 paper and scribble down the answers to these questions. Go on, do it now!

Who are my customers? (be very specific)
What problem will this solve for my customers (and do they really want it solved?)
How will I check that customers want this product/service?
How will my customers find me?
Who are my competitors?
How is my product/service different from my competitors?
How much do I need to charge/sell to a) be able to pay myself a decent salary b) pay all my expenses c) have some profit left over to be able to develop my business?

I found this Remarkably Simple Business Plan from Sonia Simone really helpful, too.

If you found this post helpful, why not join my mailing list? You’ll get weekly tips to help you thrive as a self-employed parent, as well as my a free e-book,”Running a business around a family: 9 Steps to success”.

photo credit: KatjaSchmitt

November 3, 2011April 14, 2013

Be careful who your friends are

The people we hang around with influence us more than we think.

That’s because our perception of what’s normal comes from the people around us. Hang around with struggling self-employed people who have clients-from-hell and are working their butts off just to make minimum wage and you’d conclude that’s just the way that self-employed life is. But if you spend time with self employed people who are doing well and have clients who are generally a pleasure to work with, then your perception would be very different.

I believe it’s very easy for us women in particular to get close to our business friends. We get to know and like them, and soon enough they become true friends. That’s great for overcoming the isolation that the self employed life can bring, but as the people around you have such a huge impact on you, it’s good to pay attention to who is in your circle every now and then.

Women’s desire to help others can be a problem here, too. Helping others is usually a really positive thing, but there comes a time when you’re so busy helping others that you neglect yourself. You can only effectively support people in your own business community (possibly any community?) if you’re exposed to positive influences yourself. Otherwise your community becomes a crowd of knackered and frustrated people who are just propping each other up!

Am I suggesting that you drop friends who are not helping you progress? Absolutely not, that would be really selfish. But you aren’t restricted to just the one community. There’s nothing to stop you building a network among people who are going to challenge you just a bit more than where you are now. By ‘challenge’, I mean that they stretch you a little, expose you to new ideas and create a bigger sense of what your world could be.

It’s so easy to slip into spending an hour in an internet forum or in a Facebook group which is, if you’re really honest, doing very little for your business. Instead, why not spend ten minutes there and another twenty in a group that will really help you and your business grow?

photo credit: ammgramm

October 31, 2011October 30, 2011

Twitter changes at Business Plus Baby

This weekend I did something I’ve been procrastinating over for about eighteen months now. I switched Business Plus Baby’s Twitter account over from @HelenLindop to @Bizplusbaby.

This feels like I’ve dropped back from over 3000 followers to…er…11!

No wonder I’ve been procrastinating, eh?

Actually, I haven’t lost any followers and I’ll still be tweeting at @HelenLindop. It’s just that over time I’ll be tweeting about slightly different things at @HelenLindop than at @Bizplusbaby. You’re very welcome to follow me at either or both IDs.

So why did I do it? Well, I wanted some consistency. This blog is called Business Plus Baby, the Facebook page is called businessplusbaby and my Twitter account was @HelenLindop.

But also because I’m going to be starting some new projects and I want to give people useful and relevant info on Twitter. I’m still thrashing out what my new projects will be, but they’re likely to be about business without the baby! So I need to separate out what I’m tweeting about.

That doesn’t mean I’ll be putting Business Plus Baby on the back-burner, though. I’m currently planning a rebrand/refurb/restructure of Business Plus Baby and I intend it to become bigger and bolder than before. If you’re intrigued, watch this space! (Or better still, join my mailing list 🙂 )

In the meantime, I’d love you to follow me at @Bizplusbaby!