Hello world! Well I thought I'd better introduce myself and the business so you know who we are and what we do... so here go's.
My name is Sally and 2 years ago I worked as a librarian in central London and, although I loved my job, I was miserable. There were money cuts on stock, threats of redundancy, staff being moved around sites all the time and my job role kept changing. I was stressed, unhappy and needed to get out of there, but there were no suitable jobs to move to.
I've always enjoyed being creative and had enjoyed making dreads and hair pieces for myself and friends and had just started making jewellery. Occasionally I would relax from work at the weekend by going to Camden Market and selling a few of the things I had made.
Resigning my job for the great unknown
Then one fate full day at work I was checking my emails in my lunch break when I received a message from a company I had expressed interest in several year ago. Beano's in Croydon was a record shop I had visited when I was a teenager and due to the Internet and downloads, sadly it had to close as no one was buying records anymore. The owner, David, was planning to turn the shop into an alternative market place and I had put my name down as interested. I hadn't heard anything for years when out of the blue I received this email saying that the shop had been turned into stalls and was ready to open it doors for Christmas 2009 and was looking for stall holders. The new market place was to be open 7 days a week and you had to commit to doing the weekends and at least 2 week days. It seemed like the answer to my prayers as it would allow me to work less at a job I hated and do something I loved.
After speaking to my husband and researching my options I decided to resign half my job (therefore working 18 hours at the library and the rest at the stall). I was due to start working part time in October. My boss wasn't very supportive and told me I was making a huge mistake and it would never work. Many people close to me were doubt full about my decision but felt at least I still had a permanent wage coming in to fall back on.
Unfortunately the Croydon market place opening date was put back to the end of January. Meanwhile things fell apart at the library. All my outreach and community based activities were stopped and I was reduced to sitting behind a desk and shelving books, not what I had learnt a 21st century librarian's role was. In short all the things I loved about the job were taken away and I had a new manager who was horrible. After coming home early one day from work in floods of tears because I was so unhappy me and my husband sat down and talked it through. I really couldn't carry on in the job I was doing and if we wanted to make the business work I felt I needed to put my all into it and work full time. So the next day I went into work and resigned all my job, and although I had to work out my months notice knowing the adventure I had ahead made it bearable.
Resigning my well paid full time job in the city to chase my dream was the scariest thing I have ever done. I want to make it clear it was a really hard decision to make not just because it affected me but because it affected my husband as well. To go from having two incomes to live off to one is a massive step, and I wanted to make sure I paid my way. In December 2009 I finished working for a London Council, it was very low key as it was in the run up to Christmas and quite a few members of staff weren't in as they had taken early holiday. In fact on my last day none of the staff I'd worked with over the 3 years were on shift. There was a festive mood in the air and I think it might have even been snowing. I was given a bunch of flowers which reminded me of the good times (my husband had proposed at the library by turning up unannounced a year ago with a bunch of flowers and a ring). As I stepped out of the library doors at the end of my shift the air felt crisp and I was full of excitement for the future. I had a lovely relaxing Christmas and New Year and as 2010 began I was ready for a new challenge.
Money: Start up costs
With most business's you need some money to spend on start up costs. I had no savings at the time and only a small amount of stock that I had brought over the years as part of my hobby. I still had my graduate overdraft and about £2000 in the bank. My husband lent me another £1000 as a loan (which I had paid him back within a year). My biggest expense to start up where fitting out my stall with furniture, the first weeks rent and deposit and then obviously stock. Also to lower costs and be nearer to my new work place we decided to move. At the time we were living in north London, but in November 2009 we moved to South London, to a house with cheaper rent and transport links to both our places of work. Plus my parents live in South London which was a plus. Apart from 3 months I am happy to say I was able to pay the same contribution towards the monthly bills and rent as I had when I was working full time at the library. Then on 29th January 2010 Stuff Market Place in Croydon opened it's doors for the very first time.
Stuff Croydon
Well above you can see part of my stall at Stuff. I was on the middle floor of a three floor building and had a stall which I decided to paint bright purple. I meet some great people on my floor, and during the time we all became great friends. Not everyone was able to work 7 days, so often we would open and run each others stalls in their absence. The people who I shared my floor with were Gemma and Paul, who ran a Pagan shop, Josh who ran an old fashioned sweet shop, Helen who was a photographer and sold some amazing shots of nature, Ailsa who made steam punk and up cycled jewellery and Carl and Nixie who sold t shirts. All the staff were lovely especially Jim who'd collect the rent (which we nicknamed 'Jim time') and Rob who ran the Cafe upstairs.
I got a great response from the public for my jewellery and my corsets were a huge hit. The market was always crammed on a Saturday and we had lots of fun standing outside in the cold and advertising with a loud speaker for people to come and check out 'Stuff Market Place'.
Unfortunately it wasn't crammed during the week and the owners had trouble filling all the units so the market place often looked half empty. On our floor we tried to rectify this by opening up the other stalls and selling our second hand clothes, spreading out our existing stalls and all grouped together to buy some soap products and started a soap stall. Sally who ran a hat and fasinator shop on the ground floor also opened a stall on the middle floor and joined our little group. Out of all the floors I had the option of, I'm glad I went with the middle floor as we had a real team going on and meet up socially as well.
Over time the stall holders from the ground and top floor started to leave and sadly in April 2010 the owner of Stuff came around and gave us all our 2 weeks notice that the place would be shutting down after only 3 months. Thankfully my husband was running my stall that day and I was at a boot fair with my parents. I wasn't surprised at the news, I had suspected it might happen, but I'm glad I wasn't there when everyone found out. Charles says it was horrible that day, not only were the stall holders shocked but the staff had no idea either, and everyone was in tears. I won't lie, I was upset, but I didn't see it as the end. I knew my product sold and that I could make it a success, I just needed to look at other avenues.
The following day after everyone had found out was a Monday and when I went in a lot of people hadn't turned up to run there shops. It was just me, Josh and Gemma. Josh was angry, blamed the owner for not doing enough, and Gemma was just dead, like a zombie, she'd given up and felt there was no hope.
Over the next few weeks we banded together and discussed opening our own joint ventures. We went to look at several empty shops, one to look at starting our own mini market. We looked at shops in Croydon and Wimbledon with the aim of working in a team of 4 or 5 and then finally me and Gemma went to look at a shop with the idea of sharing it between the 2 of us. All the rents were just too high though and we left Stuff Market in April 2010 with no where to go.
On the last day we had a huge party and it was very sad everyone was crying as they said good bye. Out of the 21 business's that opened their doors in Stuff Market Place, 2 years later only 6 are still in business to my knowledge. Thankfully Dragon Dreads is one of them.
The new shop
The weekend following the closure of Stuff was the May bank holiday and myself, Josh and Helen from Stuff shared a stall at the Morden Hall Country Fair, and then every weekend I ran a stall at the Electric Ballroom Market in Camden, London. At the end of the month myself, Josh and Ailsa all traded at the MCM Expo convention in London which was a huge success. And then the big break happened.
As a teenager when I first started to make dreads I sold a few on a sale or return basis to an alternative shop in Croydon called Timebomb. Since then Timebomb had moved to bigger premises and I had kept in touch. Charles had suggested I speak to them again with regards to working together but I dismissed it as I thought it would have been rude and didn't feel confident enough to speak to them about it. Thankfully Karen and Richie at Timebomb had had the same idea as Charles, and seeing all the homeless business's from Stuff, and having spoken to Gemma and Paul about it, decided to open up their top floor to us as we fit in well with their shop. Karen phoned me and offered us half of their top floor as a concession stand to share with Gemma and Paul. We thought this was a great idea as we got on well with them, Timebomb already had a reputation and loyal customers and their clientele was similar to ours.
Myself and Gemma planned the layout, painted it and had a counter built. Timebomb lent us a till and we were away.
This is the entrance to our shop:
The counter
The shop was a huge success. We had regular customers and the corsets especially sold really well. We only had a small counter and myself and Gemma sitting behind it every day began to get a bit cramped so we started to cover each other so we could have a day off.
During this time I started to build my website I slowly started uploading my items bit by bit and over time started to develop ranges and collections of jewellery rather then one off pieces. We continued to run our stall in Camden on a Saturday (whilst Charles watched the shop) and started an EBay shop as well. It was during this time I understood the importance of on line trading and constantly worked on my website. It's taken me about 2 years to get it to the level I wanted to, and I've used social media such as Twitter, Facebook and Forums to get it up high in search engines, and to build my brand and public awareness through handing out zillions of business cards, flyer's and posters.
We also got friends to cover the shop for us to that we could start trading at the odd Sci Fi Convention at the weekend, and in September I did my first ever trade show (more on that to come). Things were going good but tensions between me and Gemma started arising, she was less friendly then she had been and started clamming up. I had no idea what was the matter and she stopped talking to me, although I was aware their business was in trouble.
Friendship and business
After Christmas 2010 Gemma and Paul came back to the shop and told me they were leaving. They couldn't cover the rent and their business wasn't working. I was sad to see them go, we had been good friends and I thought we would be friends for a long time. They left at the end of January and the last time I saw Gemma was at the Stuff reunion party a week later. She was acting odd at the party and I felt like something else was going on. After she left I heard Gemma come into the shop to collect her post but she didn't come upstairs to say hi, which I thought was odd. Then she completely cut me off, defriending most of the people from Stuff on Facebook and I've never hear from her again. Later I heard that the wedding had been called off and eventually Gemma and Paul had split up.
If I have any regrets about starting a business it's about how it can affect friendships. I think the strain of working with Gemma 24/7 destroyed our friendship and I often wonder what would have happened if we hadn't moved into Timebomb together. It's weird, the people I thought I'd stay in touch with from Stuff, I haven't, and the people I wasn't sure if I would I have.
Out of all of this one of the best friends I've made throughout this whole adventure has been Ailsa. We work together on several business things, give each other advice and it's just great to have a chat with someone who's going through the same things as you. I've also kept in touch with Helen from Stuff who has helped me build by website by taking product shots for me and advertising shots.
Timebomb take 2
After Gemma left I needed to feel the other half of the shop and get help with rent. Ailsa, Sally with the hats from Stuff and Wendy who I traded with in Camden all came on board and we redid the whole look of shop.
By April 2011 we decided the shop wasn't working out. Sally with the hats left as she'd been offered a full time job, and I was working 6 days a week in the shop and making on line orders when I got home, so was pretty tired. We worked out we could make more money from selling at Camden each weekend, travelling around the country doing events and concentrating on wholesale. So in the Easter holidays of 2011 we closed our concession stand in Timebomb and moved out. We looked at shops in Camden but the rents were to high. We still have our jewellery for sale in Timebomb. We moved the cabinets which were upstairs down and sell our jewellery wholesale to the shop.
Today
Dragon Dreads now operates a travelling business. We trade at events all around the country throughout the year. We still run our stall in the Electric Ballroom market in Camden at the weekend, and are looking at opening a stall in Spitlifields market in Feb 2012. We sell our jewellery to several shops across 8 different countries and are adding new stockists to our list all the time.
On the 29th January Dragon Dreads will be celebrating 2 years in business, and what a 2 years it's been. There have been ups and downs, but not for one day have I regretted my decision to leave my job and start my own business (especially in a recession). The best advice I can give anyone who wants to start there own business and become their own boss is go for it.
If I hadn't have taken that massive step I'd have always wondered, what if ......
