Eureka Moment
I had my first baby and received eight well-meant bouquets. I was overwhelmed and exhausted and it struck me as bizarre, to give someone doing more caring than they've ever done in their life another thing to care for. We launched as Gifts for New Mums, and now cover all occasions and also corporate gifting, with thoughtfulness at the core.
Finance
I started DBHF with £13k and we bootstrapped it, reinvesting as we've gone and carefully trialling everything before fully committing - marketing strategies, hires, systems. We've debt financed the business up to now, and were incredibly fortunate to see a boom during the Pandemic, where we were up by 600% YoY by the end of 2020, turning over £2.5m in 2021.
Regrets
We should have adequately capitalised the company in 2020 and 2021 when business was booming, but like most online businesses we didn't know the shift to online would dissipate to the extent that it has. The dampening of consumer sentiment in 2022 driven by the perfect storm of the cost of living crisis, inflation, Brexit and the war in Ukraine have made the last 6 months really challenging.
What would you have changed ?
Well, if we'd raised money earlier the last six months would have been less stressful, BUT adversity leads to ideas! We've rolled out fulfilment as a service for other businesses, with two clients already, which is a completely new revenue stream and utilises our incredible team and space and all the things we've learned in creating a thoughtful, bespoke service where accuracy is critical.
For more information visit Don't Buy Her Flowers
