In business: Entrepreneur, Katy Holden

MY LIFE: BABY STEPS INTO BUSINESS

Katy Holden juggled parenthood and a growing enterprise making handmade baby accessories when she studied for her degree. WLV Life finds out how she did it – and how the SPEED initiative for new businesses helped her company on its way to success.

I’ll always be grateful to the University for giving me a chance. I had to interview for my place on the Education Studies course because I’d left school at 17 and didn’t have any A-levels. I’d been working in the NHS since 2010, when I left school – first as a dental nurse trainee and then as an assistant audiologist at Sandwell and West Birmingham NHS Trust – but I wanted to do something different.

Initially I was turned down and was told to complete an access course, but I took a deep breath and asked to speak to the Faculty lead and explained that I couldn’t afford to leave work to do a college course: I needed to come straight into university.

Luckily for me, Dr Chris Wakeman saw something in me and said yes. I was ecstatic and knew I had to work hard to show Dr Wakeman that he was right to take a chance. I proved my worth with two 90% grades in my first year. This gave me the confidence and belief to try something new.

My daughter Niamh was six months old when I started my degree in September 2016, and to start with it was a breeze. It helped that I really enjoyed the course and that I had such good support at home, with my parents and husband Martin.

In July 2017, we were really excited to find out we were expecting our second child. Sadly this wasn’t meant to be and I miscarried five days before starting the first semester of my second year. This was really hard, even more so that life had to resume as normal, with Niamh to look after and my degree studies.

The idea for Niamhs Neverland – my business that creates handmade accessories for babies and toddlers – came about half way through my second year of studying. I wanted to fill the gap left by my miscarriage: I’m not sure why, but suddenly Niamh and University weren’t enough to fill the time.

I started making things when Niamh was born and I really enjoyed it. In fact, I thought I’d go on to become a textiles teacher. An opportunity came up to list my products with a company and then I moved to Etsy and things snowballed from there.

To start with I didn’t find it too difficult: I was working as a supply teacher a couple of days a week, going to uni, running the business and looking after Niamh. Looking back, I have no idea how I did it!

Then as my studies got harder and the business got busier, I dropped the teaching. Third year was definitely the hardest. I knew I was heading for a First Class, and I was determined to make it. By this time the business was taking between 50 and 100 orders a month, I was doing my dissertation and assignments, attending lectures and exhibiting nationally. Luckily, my mum also helps to make the accessories, which has been a huge help.

In January 2019, my story featured in a bestselling book, Mumpreneur on Fire 4, and my Faculty lead, Faye Stanley, heard about it and asked to speak to me.

She told me about the SPEED business support project for students and graduates of the University and how it could offer support packages, match-funded grants and business consultancy for newly launched companies.

It was brilliant: SPEED has helped me immensely. It arranged some training with a business advisor and helped me to get Niamhs Neverland advertised in Tatler magazine, but best of all was the grant funding that enabled me to have three exhibition stands – one at the Baby and Toddler Show in Manchester, and The Baby Show in Birmingham twice. These were brilliant opportunities as I made four times as much as it cost me to get the stand. It helped to catapult my business in front of parents and baby businesses.

In the third year of my degree I found out I was pregnant again. I had the most awful pregnancy, and I cried into my laptop repeatedly, but Aubrey Rose arrived just after I handed in my last assignment in July 2019.

Niamhs Neverland is young, but growing and I’m grateful for everything the University has offered me, both in academic and business support. I’ve learned how to juggle a million things: I’m the designer, maker, seller, social media manager, packer, emailer and accountant. I’m two years in and it’s doing well, but I’m not yet at the stage where I can outsource the making of the accessories, so it’s all in-house (literally: we still work at home!). I’ve learned how to use my customer base to develop my designs and products and this enabled me to have my best month in January 2020, when I had 300 orders placed in 23 days.

Every day I learn something new – and the skills I learned at University opened up my mind to new possibilities and ways of doing things.