Mumpreneur Celebrates Her Third Year of Trading

London, United Kingdom, October 05, 2011 --(PR.com)-- From humble beginnings three years ago, this online nursery furniture, baby bedding and baby gifts retailer 4little1s.com was started. From a blank piece of paper around a kitchen table in Surrey and a glass of wine to a profitable company turning over £120,000. "Not bad for a stay at home mum," says Christianne James, founder of the company. Not only that, her plans are to keep going and expand over the next twelve months as we come out of the recession.

Christianne said "I used to work in City for a major International Bank, it was a great job however I always felt there needed to be a work/life balance in place, of which the bank job didn’t really offer. It was very one sided, and lets just say, it wasn’t on the life side."

She had a deep down interest in business and knew that one day she would start a business up. She recalls that having read Richard Branson's autobiography and becoming inspired, that you just need to give it a go and go for it. Of course starting a business just as the world was entering into financial chaos did raise a couple of eyebrows around the table, but she had covered the downsides and felt confident the idea would work.

She recalls that when becoming pregnant, she decided to take a look online as to what she could purchase without the need to go along the high street on a wet Saturday afternoon. She soon realised that it was not as straight forward as you might have thought.

Here are some of her business lessons:

- Believe you can do it and be confidence
- You cannot do everything – delegate
- Create a trusted team around you – Accountant, Website designers, delivery companies, PR, Marketing people and so on
- Get a mentor – Someone you can bounce ideas off
- Learn from your mistakes – Don’t be afraid of making them, learn, fine tune and move on. If a particular campaign or other piece of marketing didn’t work, learn from it and try another tack

Top 10 things she would recommend other mums to do when starting their own businesses

- Get buy in from your family
- Listen to other people
- Create a business plan / roadmap – it helps focus your mind and gives you a framework to work towards
- Set yourself some realistic objectives that you can aim towards
- As Winston Churchill once said - "Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never - in nothing, great or small, large or petty - never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense"
- Respond to all enquiries – You never know where it may lead
- Technology – Investigate what is available and use it to your advantage
- Social Media – Don’t underestimate how powerful a Marketing tool this can be
- Make sure you have backup childcare or work out in advance how you are going to run your business around the children
- Make every minute count

Her husband had been working in the City for a number of years in IT and had the technical knowledge, she had spotted a gap in the market for a quality online nursery retail and the rest was history as they say.

4little1s.com is an online nursery retailer located at 4little1s.com

Contact: Christianne James
Position: Director
Date: 5th November 2010

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