Useful Friends!

Following the very successful and inspiring conference ‘Inspired6’ hosted by the Entrepreneurs’ Forum, I visited the ‘Guardian Literary Festival 2009’ in Hay on Wye, mid Wales, recently. I heard from many other inspirational speakers, including Willie Harcourt-Cooze (Channel 4’s ‘Willie’s Wonky Chocolate Factory’ man) who has overcome immense difficulties and taken massive risks in order to produce his single-bean chocolate. He’s an entrepreneur in every sense of the word. (He also makes very nice chocolate!!!)

I also attended a talk by ‘Grand Designs’ front man, Kevin McCloud. Everything he spoke about was in complete synergy with our business and it proved to me that the time is so right for it to succeed. I was lucky enough to meet Kevin McCloud at the book signing that followed and in the 2 minutes I had with him, managed to give him brief details about Restoration & Beyond and ask if it was something that interested him. He said he’d be very interested to know more and took my business card to check out our site. He also really liked our name. I intend to follow up with an email to see how we may be able to combine our similar interests.

Apart from that, our branding is almost ready to be unveiled and the new holding page will be uploaded to our site in mid June, then our first e-newsletters will be sent out. Anybody wishing to sign up for the e-newsletter should email us their details from our temporary site at http://www.restorationandbeyond.co.uk/ .

Restoration & Beyond is an online store for Period Home Owners, Self-Builders and people who have newer homes, but want to source high quality, ethically sourced furnishings and décor for their home. It will be launched in late summer 2009

Our expert researchers have spent months, traipsing the length and breadth of Britain to bring to our site the finest independent suppliers and service providers, the UK has to offer. Saving everybody else the hard work!

This is an exciting new concept that will revolutionise Period Home and Self-Build shopping. It is not a directory, but a time-efficient way of sourcing and purchasing everything from 14” skirting boards to eco-friendly paint, as well as the people with the expertise to restore Period Homes sympathetically and skills to help Self-Builders to create new homes to the highest of design and eco standards.

Our suppliers are encouraged to offer goods that are: from a sustainable source; eco-friendly; ethically-sourced; fairly traded; craftsman built; reclaimed; or made from recycled materials.

The site will be a place where you can purchase items for your home that you’ll love forever and that will continue to improve with age; or find craftspeople that understand your home and through sympathetic restoration will add true value to it, rather than the artificial price increases we’ve seen in recent years.

Restoration & Beyond bringing the past to the future.

The Idea

When my previous company closed, I was nearing the end of renovating and decorating my hall and stairs and the money was already committed. It was the day before the stair carpet was due to be laid and I was working with my Dad to repair any broken floorboards. A few were so broken that they needed to be replaced. The house still has its original floorboards and they are much thicker and wider than the modern floorboards that you can buy in DIY stores. After searching everywhere for a suitable replacement, including the skips at the recycling centre, in frustration, I said to my Dad, ‘Why can’t you buy floorboards for older houses!’ Then I stopped and thought – ‘Why can’t I’. It was that clichéd light-bulb moment and I suddenly thought that surely I wasn’t the only person to have this problem?

Development
I then started to search the internet to see what was already on the market and found that while there were some companies out there supplying these items, they were very difficult to find and didn’t always show up in the results of search engines. I then remembered how difficult it had been to buy new 14 inch skirting boards to replace some that was missing in my lounge. Cornice and ceiling roses in traditional designs and to original proportions also seemed to fit with my idea. Bit by bit the idea developed until I felt that it was strong enough to discuss with my friend and fellow director from Action in Management, Paula Smith. She thought it was a good idea but that it had a limited market. She was interested in developing the idea further with me and through further research and refinement, Restoration & Beyond was born.

We hope to start trading in June and will launch the site in late summer.

Thank you also to everybody who's voted for me so far. I really appreciate your help.

Excellent Response

Setting up a business takes a lot of time and hard work. Having the idea is the easy bit. We’ve spent hours and long evenings, researching statistics and spending habits of our customers and checking to see if we have any direct competition. Thankfully, though there are a few directories working in the same area, there are no other companies offering what we are. It’s a brand new idea and everybody we’ve talked to about it have been really excited about it; suppliers and customers alike. We had excellent response to a recent online market research study we conducted and of the suppliers who responded, 80% said they would like to be involved in our site. It really feels like it’s going to be a huge success and we can’t wait to start trading. The site is expected to be launched during the summer of 2009. We are producing e-newsletters to keep everybody informed of progress and what to expect from the site. We are trying to do everything online as it’s kinder to the environment and also wee all have enough to recycle as it is.

If anybody would like to register for our e-newsletter as it becomes available, they can do so by visiting our temporary website at www.restorationandbeyond.co.uk . Any retailers or specialist service providers who are interested in being involved with the site will also find an email link on the same website.

We are also in the process of trying to attract equity investment and have almost completed our final business plan and figures.

Tomorrow I'll let you know where Restoration & Beyond came from. Watch this space ...

Excited to be a finalist

I'm really excited about getting through to the final and I can see that I have some stiff competition. I still believe that I have what it takes to win and be the 'Face of Entrepreneurship' 2009.

Things are really starting to move with the business and we're not far away from starting to trade. We visited our solicitor yesterday to have all of our terms and conditions and contracts drawn up. Our branding is close to being ready too. We've got the right design and just have to work out the colours. There was a surreal moment yesterday when Paula (my fellow founder director) and I where pouring over colour charts trying to choose between 'smoked trout' and 'dead salmon' or 'elephant's breath' and 'pigeon'; we decided to avoid 'arsenic'!

We've got the Entrepreneurs Forum Annual Conference coming up next week and I'm really looking forward to it. It will be good to meet the other contestants and listen to the speakers. I'm also sure that we'll have many interesting and helpful conversations with the Entrepreneurs Forum members. The most scary bit is deciding what to wear for the evening! My 16 year old daughter has offered to 'style' me, which has actually made it even more scary! I'll let you know how I get on.