Category Success

How to deliver a great pitch to angel investors

caroline hughes 3 Comments

So last night,* Nick and I pitched our start-up, lifetise.com, to a group of angel investors.

Cue the montage

For those who last tuned in when we were working on Be Neighbourly, I feel that we need a montage to explain what’s happened in the past year. So here goes…

Being neighbourly didn’t work. People in London want to be neighbourly only conceptually. Not in real life. Not if that means talking to strangers. Especially strangers who know where you live.

Flash forward.

One idea to create an app for us normal people who don’t have assets, to help us figure out how to afford our lives. A retro eureka moment when we remembered the Game of Life (“be a winner with the game of life”). A decision to create a Sims-style game for your real life, that shows you how to manage your money and plan for the future.

Flash forward.

Find a games studio to build the game. Get excited that people are interested, then sad that we don’t have the cash to build. Apply for government funding (free money). Miss out by a score 2% lower than the qualifying standard. Re-apply with confidence, having totally nailed the responses to their feedback. Get rejected again because the government thinks it’s fine to get a whole different bunch of people to review the application, who give totally different scores. Fuckers. Lose the games studio to other, paying projects.

Flash forward.

Find another games studio. Try to pitch the concept to investors. Working on the assumption that raising £250k shouldn’t be too hard in London. Get investor interest but no moolah (no MVP no money).

Flash forward.

Find games industry legend who wants in and has a development partner who can build an MVP for £35k. Freak out about spending life savings on a punt. Do it anyway. Interview loads of 20 – 30 somethings about how shit their lives are. Hustle the hell out of anyone who’ll listen (and plenty who don’t) about how amazing our product is. Get on the radar of some angel investing groups. Go to more FinTech events than any one person should have to and network like a duracell bunny.

Flash forward.

Read too many blog posts on how to create the perfect pitch deck. Lose all cognitive function. Create pitch deck (many, many versions), business plan (many, many versions), grapple with a growth model and revenue forecasts, P&L and cash-flow projections for a business that does not exist and has no revenue. Do pop-quiz-style valuation calculations. Google everything to find somebody smarter who’s already thought these things through. Do that.

Flash forward.

Apply for angel pitch events. Create endless, awful, poorly-lit grainy videos introducing ourselves to the selection panel. Do 83 retakes before saying fuck-it, you can only see half my face, but that will have to do. Get through the selection process for FinTech Circle. Do celebratory chest bump. Then remember that we still don’t have a product to show on the night.

Flash forward.

Scream at developer team to please, please, please have something vaguely approaching a demo ready for the pitch event in 3 weeks’ time. Inwardly weep at the likelihood that they won’t. And you’ll be all fur-coat-no-knickers in the dragons’ den. Design a really bright pop-up banner and snazzy business cards to detract from the fact that you don’t have a demo.

Flash forward.

Finalise your pitch deck. Do a practice run to the FinTech Circle team. Get told you stand weirdly, so you need to sort that out. Practise ‘relaxed confidence boss-woman’ poses in the mirror.

…And finally, it’s pitch day. Nerves, adrenaline, focus, meditation, fixed smiles, power pose in the ladies loo. It all comes together.

So what did we learn about how to pitch to angels:

Go early in the billing:

We went first. Which we thought was brave / foolhardy of the organisers. Putting the “computer game to fix your finances” first on the bill in a room full of serious money people. I worried that we’d look lightweight compared to the blockchain and moneytransfer companies. I worried that the room was only half full so the angels who turned up late would miss our pitch. I worried about many things.

Turns out it’s better to open or go early in the list. You have people’s full attention. It was a hot room and people started to doze off in the second half. By the end I couldn’t remember half the pitches, so you have more chance of being remembered if you’re up early.

Prepare like a MoFo:

It goes without saying, but if you’re someone who’d sooner down a pint of fire ants with a chaser of rat poison than present to a room full of people, then (1) for gawd’s sake find someone else who can pitch for you, or if that’s not an option ‘cos you’ve got no friends, then (2) put in enough practice that you can forget about what you’re saying and just concentrate on not fainting.

I’m a confident little stand-up (some would replace ‘confident’ with ‘arrogant’ or ‘cocky’), but my legs still evaporate and my mouth freeze-dries when it comes to pitching. I got over it with a small glass of wine before we started and deep breathing from my belly (don’t do this if you’re holding a mic – you’ll sound like you’re giving birth).

Expect difficult AND stupid questions:

Just because you know your business inside out (you do, don’t you?), don’t expect anyone else in the room to have understood a single word of it. So when they ask questions that indicate they haven’t listened or haven’t understood, don’t look surprised. Just be grateful that it’s something you can answer.

Use it as an opportunity to add some interesting detail to particular points. We had a ‘hidden’ stack of 10 additional slides on our deck, just waiting for people to ask us the right question. It feels awesome to be able to point to stats to back up your answer. Especially if you can work the slide clicker.

Accept that there’ll always be at least one person in the room who feels it is their duty to ask a dickish question or to try to catch you out in some way. To those people, I say “thank you”. Because we’re ready for you and we’re going to use the tried and tested politician swerve.

So when the hand goes up from the twitchy-looking guy at the back who doesn’t appear to own any eyes, make sure you’re primed. Whatever he asks, you are going to answer the question you wish he’d asked. You’re going to take his mealy-mounthed question and you’re going to turn it into an answer about something you’re desperate to show-off. The positive energy from everyone else in the room will carry you through.

Hustle the hell out of it:

We missed most of the second half pitches. We were stood outside the auditorium talking to some angels. Remember why you’re there. Only one goal. Convince those with money to invest in your startup. This goes back to point 1. If you’re early in the billing, then people know who you are early. You can have many more focused conversations with investors than if they haven’t yet seen you pitch and they’re just making small-talk.

Out of all the angels in the room, we got interest from around 70%. We made sure we got their business cards, so we could make the next move. And we followed up with them the next day to set up meetings.

Giving your pitch is just the beginning. You have to be willing to network with everyone in the room. Don’t expect people to come to you. Get around everyone and find out who they are and why they’re there. We found that even those who weren’t interested in investing in Lifetise were happy to introduce us to someone who might be a better fit.

And finally, treat every pitch likes it’s THE pitch. Keep your energy and enthusiasm high – it’s the thing that investors have remarked on with our team – we are experienced (read: old) and incredibly enthusiastic. Investors want to work with people who are passionate about their business.

*Um, two months ago. I started this post the day after the pitch, but then got a bit busy with investor meetings. Sorry.

how to launch a successful start-up

caroline hughes 2 Comments

BeNeighbourlyLogo

Fanfare please.  We’ve launched BeNeighbourly.com, our neighbourhood community site.  Whoop whoop!  The good people of SW17 and SW19 do not know how lucky they are to be our pilot subjects.

It’s funny – with my corporate background, I’ve done my share of mega-ton deals.  I’ve met with a load of powerful people, controlling a lot of money.  Didn’t really faze me.  Just got on with it.

And yet, the time comes for me to send an email to a few dozen people (the ones that had filled out the Be Neighbourly survey back in March) to unveil the site, and anxiety has basically liquefied my insides.

What would they think of it?  Would it live up to their expectations?  Do they like the colour scheme?  The bee logo?

Turns out I needn’t have worried.  Most of them were on holiday…

what a difference two weeks makes

That was two weeks ago.  We’ve had over 70 people sign up since then and we’re starting to see a little bit of user-generated life on the site, which is really encouraging.  Although our numbers are modest, our conversion rates are high – a good chunk of people who visit the site register, so we’re doing something right.  I think it’s the bees…

Our whiteboard is now earning its keep.  We have a war map, charting our target areas for flyering (highlighter-boundaried and numbered “zones”; little crosses to denote sign-ups).  We have our daily tasks written in big letters to shame us into doing at least some of them.  And we have our weekly sign-up figures – which we update on a Friday in a scene reminiscent of the number round on Countdown, but with The Mack as Carol Vorderman.

The launch anxiety has been superseded by the reality of trying to get things off the ground.  I already feel very differently towards Be Neighbourly than I did just two weeks ago.  I’m less scared, more focused.  I’m now thinking about 3 versions ahead, whilst trying to build traction for version 1.  I’m much more comfortable talking about it as an actual business, now that there is something tangible I can point to.  I feel more gung-ho American about it, less mortified British.

And I’ve learned a heck of a lot about start-up life in these past two weeks.  So I’m going to share my new-found wisdom in the hope it helps others in a similar position.

things to remember when you’re launching a start-up

Right now, the only person who cares is you:  The fact that you’ve been living your start-up for several months and spending all of your spare time working on the concept, the workflow, the design of little bees and miniature hams etc., does not mean that anyone else has, or will, give it a second thought.  It is your business to care about your start-up.  And it is your business to make other people care about your start-up. “Their” job, generally, is to ignore it until it becomes commonplace.  For examples, see everything, ever.

This is just the beginning:  Launch is just the end of the idea phase and the beginning of the gruntwork phase.  It doesn’t matter how much audience testing you’ve done till now.  The fact is, you don’t know what people really want until you put it in front of them and see their reactions.  Now is the time to muster all your courage and your energy.  Because getting to the bottom of what people want takes time, patience and the hide of a rhino.  My friend Tes has a great web app helping school PTAs to spread the organisational burden amongst more parents and letting time-poor parents get involved in their child’s PTA without having to over-commit themselves (www.PTAsocial.com).  It’s taken her a year of hard work, but she just secured her first sale and she’s much closer to knowing what her customers want.

Always be closing.  You may think that your start-up concept is a no brainer.  Local happiness?  Friendly neighbours?  A fulfilling life supported by a loving, sociable community?  I mean, it’s even written in the bible.  Surely everyone gets it?  Dream on, dreamer.  Truth is, you’re in sales now and the same rules apply to selling social connection as to selling widgets.  You’d better get comfortable hawking your product, because this is your only job now.  And don’t expect anyone to get it first time – we reckon that for most people, around 3 – 4 “touches” (i.e. the number of times they come into contact with us or beneighbourly.com) is what it takes to convert a registration.

Get used to a million mini fails.  Like trying to hand out flyers outside Colliers Wood tube station on a Monday night.  Sure, it may be sunny.  You may be offering haribo and gingerbread men as sweeteners.  But this is still London.  And these people are still miserable.  You stand between them and home.  Your chances of survival are not good.  Move on (preferably at a run).

Advert6-HiveSW17

Don’t obsess over the data.  When you launch, the temptation is there to check your google analytic stats and user sign ups every 18 seconds.  STOP.  Take it from a master, it’s a monumentally distracting procrastination habit.  Pick a day of the week and make it stats day.  Buy some rosettes and streamers if you must and really go to town.  The only things I check on a daily basis are new registrations (because I send them a personal welcome email) and bounce rate (to check that there isn’t a major technical issue with the site).

Laser beam focus on the positives.  It doesn’t matter what they are. At Be Neighbourly HQ (aka our lounge), we daddy splash if we’re up and at ’em before 10am.  Forget your old measures of success.  These don’t have any place in start-up world.  In our world, the small, first wins are everything, because they are usually the hardest to get.  70 registrations in two weeks for us is phenomenal and surpasses our best expectations.  Now all we have to do is get them fully engaged…

Don’t be tempted to skip steps.  We’re have a strategy for each of our start-ups and we’re super-gluing ourselves to it.  Sure, we add to it as we go along, as we figure out what works (more cryptic marketing messages, evening flyering, contacting local organisations) and what doesn’t work (flyering outside of a tube, or a supermarket, or with The Mack handing out sweets to young children…).  But we don’t jump ahead of ourselves.  Our only job at this point in time is to get new users into the top of our funnel (ooh er), get ’em registered and get ’em interacting on the site.  This doesn’t mean I don’t have grand plans to take over the world with Be Neighbourly ***strokes large fluffy white cat.***  But I’m not an idiot.  We’re nowhere near anywhere yet.  So we’re sticking to the plan and absolutely no wandering off.

That’ll do pig.  Done is better than perfect.  Don’t sweat the small stuff.  Don’t overthink it.  Don’t anticipate problems.  Fuck it.  All of these are the right attitude towards building a start-up.  Mine (inherent perfectionism combined with a lawyer’s attention to detail) is not.  Last night I screeched that Be Neighbourly was an absolute sack of shit and it was utterly pointless continuing with it, because I realised that the way the developers had programmed the site doesn’t allow us to link to individual listings.  This morning I’ve taken a long, hard, look at myself and got over it.  For today at least.

Try to enjoy it.  Hahahahahahaha.  LOLZ.  ROFL.  etc.  Not really possible, but we’ll give it a go anyway.  I’ll admit it’s a very weird thing to be doing (and most people assume that it’s a hobby rather than a business – and in fairness, it is a hobby until it starts generating some revenue), but It still beats working for a living. See also: Positives; That’ll do Pig.

what every start-up business needs…

caroline hughes Leave a comment

When you’re trying to start your own business (or in our case, trying to start four businesses pretty much simultaneously, on a shoestring and without physically coming to blows), it is very important that you surround yourselves with things that will increase your chance of success.

We’ve had the post-its for a long time now.  I now class those as essentials.  We’ve had a few recent issues with some dropping off the walls due to our desperate open balcony door – floor fan – open bedroom window breeze inducing triangulation.  But we’re taking it all in our stride.

I keep getting The Mack to put new bulbs in all of the ceiling spots.  As if, somehow, the extra wattage will illuminate my ideas and stop them being so bloody dim.  It mainly just shows up all the dust.  And gives The Mack eye strain.

I’ve bought some plants.  For that all-important 4pm oxygen hit.  And for the seed-nurture-growth symbolism.  And finally, for sustenance – if all the projects should fail, we will be able to live off two different types of basil.  The mint plant has contracted some sort of blight.  It’s essentially dead from the roots up.  I’m choosing not to see that as symbolic.

But now that the launch of Be Neighbourly is imminent, I felt we needed something more.  Something that would make us feel importantly business-like, but that wouldn’t break the bank.  Something that we could, quite literally, pin our dreams on.

So I invested twenty-five quid and bought us a whiteboard.  It was delivered yesterday.  And it is magnificent.

Already, I can see how it’s helping.  Just looking at it makes me think of all the graphs I could be plotting, the targets we can set (Q3 and Q4), the inspirational Steve Jobs or Katie Price quotes I can write every morning.

The pens were missing from the delivery, but that’s just a minor setback.

I feel certain that the whiteboard, in all its splendid 1200mm x 900mm oversized impracticality, will give us that competitive edge.  The reverse side is magnetic.  So we can multi-task – conceptual mind-maps on front, securely fastened important documents on the back.

The magnets were missing from the delivery, too, but, again, no biggie.

It is the size of our dining table.  We don’t really have anywhere to put it (maybe we could get rid of the dining table?), and it is so cheaply constructed that the whiteboard surface has a definite ripple effect when viewed from the side.  But I don’t care.  It has a flip out tray for the missing marker pens.  It has an eraser.  And it makes me feel so goddamn businesslike, I want to air punch every time I look at it.

behold its splendour

behold its splendour

eliminating obstacles to success…one at a time

caroline hughes Leave a comment

I realised today, whilst strolling along deserted beaches to a beautiful lagoon in Tibau do Sul, Brazil, that I’ve written a lot recently about my travels and not quite so much about my business. Which probably leads most of you to think that all this “business” stuff is just my way of saying that I couldn’t hack it in the rat race and have decided to give myself the rest of my life off.

Nearly, but not quite.

If you remember, the idea wasn’t so much to drop off the grid entirely, it was more to set the grid to roaming. Seeing if it were possible to have a work/travel/bank balance.  Not spending more than 4 months at a time in the UK unless there was a very good reason (either I was incarcerated, or in traction, or my mum simply forbade me from flitting off again).  But getting some sort of business up and running to pay for the travels, so that I wasn’t burning through my cash.

Again.  Nearly, but not quite.  (Getting there.)

At the time I started all this, I hadn’t factored on The Mack getting in on the act.  With hindsight, it’s probably one of the reasons that we got together.  But I was so busy thinking that he’d Derren Brown-ed me into being his girlfriend that I wasn’t paying attention.  All that tappety-tap-tapping my shoulder and repeating seemingly innocuous words.  And leaving a trail of gingerbread men on my route to our first date.  I mean.  The Mack is ginger.  And he’s a man.  The fact that I didn’t see them because they’d been squashed by passing commuters didn’t stop their subliminal power.

Anyway, much as I would love to lay the blame for my lack of results squarely at The Mack’s door by saying that he’s diverted my focus, jumped on the start-up bandwagon, addled my brain with wantrepreneurial jargon… that would be (1) wrong, (2) wrong and (3) wrong.  Because, if the truth be told, I probably wouldn’t have got as far as I have if it weren’t for him.

Thanks to The Mack, I’ve identified the top 3 things that have been stopping me making progress on the business side of things and I’ve figured out a solution to each of them.

Issue #1:  Never Seeing Anything Through to the End

I am excellent at starting things.  And doing a nice design.  I am less successful when it comes to completing anything.  Or caring at all after about 2 weeks.  Or when someone distracts me with something shiny.

Apparently, this lack of motivation for really pushing through on my projects is down to my inherent pessimism.

You say pessimist, I say realist.  Let’s call the whole thing off…

Solution #1:  Learned Optimism

The Mack bought me a great book by a guy who made up the idea that you can learn to be more optimistic and that it will transform your life.  I was a little sceptical.  Oh wait…

I started reading it and my productivity levels went right up.

Unfortunately, I **accidentally** left it in the seat back of the plane to Buenos Aires.

What a downer.

Issue #2:  Contrasting Working Styles

I have discovered through this process that I’m quite difficult to work with.  I can’t quite put my finger on exactly why that is, but it seems to have something to do with the fact that I need to get my own way on everything because my way is the right way and everybody else is stupid and wrong.

I don’t know.  It might be that.  It probably isn’t though.  Probably it’s The Mack’s fault.  For being stupid and wrong.

Solution #2:  Working Space

I think that space is very important when you’re a couple working together.  Right now it’s about 4,500 miles and things seems to be going well.

Issue #3:  Hating the Game

I have a slight problem with the whole start up scene.  I think it’s the combination of self-congratulation and jaw-dropping naivety that sticks in my craw.  And when I say slight problem: what I mean is utter contempt.

I’m not even sure how I ended up working on start ups.  I think my plan was just to have my own business.  I don’t remember ever talking about wanting to build a start up.  Tappety-tap-tap….

Solution #3:  Hate the Player

Hell, this one’s easy.  Every time I catch The Mack reading one of Paul Graham’s essays or signing up to a General Assembly workshop, I openly despise him.

I think now that I’ve eliminated these issues, progress will come in leaps and bounds.  Stay tuned, people.

all hail Dr Gabrielle Gascoigne – one extraordinary mother

caroline hughes 4 Comments

I think for most people, if they were asked who has been their biggest inspiration in life, their parents would rank pretty highly on their list.  However, I suspect that there are very few who, like me, could take that question and very quickly turn it into a script for a weekday afternoon docudrama…

My mother is ridiculous.  And before you get mad at me for being disrespectful, please know that I say this based on 35 years of empirical evidence (and plenty of anecdotal evidence before that).  She is bonkers.  Certifiable.  A card-carrying, fully paid-up member of the monster raving loony party.

Uh oh, I probably shouldn’t have said that.  Politics is about the only career move she hasn’t made.  No doubt, now I’ve planted that particular seed, she’ll be out canvassing for the Harrow by-election come Monday morning, brandishing rosettes and attaching a loud-hailer to her car for campaign speeches delivered in the form of poems.

gymslip mum

My mum had me when she was 18.  Pretty unusual in those days and a bit of an extreme way of getting out of her A-level exams.  But she liked me so much that she ordered another three girls from the stork over the next seven years.  As you might imagine, there’s a smidgen of competition between me and my sisters for the title of no. 1 daughter, but there can be only one winner and, unfortunately for the other girls, it’s mine by birthright.

We get a lot of jokes about “four girls, eh?  A house full of women.  Your poor dad, how on earth did he cope? Ha ha ha.”

… Err, by leaving us…  Not laughing now, are you??

Mum brought us up on her own at a time when being a single parent was incredibly rare.  When I was a newly-qualified lawyer, working crazy hours, she used to ring me and tell me how worried she was about me.  What a difficult time I was having.  How on earth did I manage it?  I found her concern hilarious.  I’d remind her that at the same age (27), she was divorced with 4 children under the age of 8.  “Oh yes”, she’d say, “so I was.  How terrible”.

the wonder years

We didn’t have much money, but mum made up for it with with sheer craziness.  If the great British summertime was a washout and stopped us playing outside, she’d just put down towels in the living room and set up the paddling pool indoors.  It must have taken weeks for the carpet to dry, but I guess when your parenting is essentially crowd-control, you do whatever it takes to keep ’em occupied.  And we loved it.

Xmas TreeChristmas in our family is still THE major event of the year.  My mum’s house is a two-up, two-down terrace, yet we have a christmas tree to rival the sort you’d find in most town squares.  It’s standard for us to have to lop 2 foot off the top to fit it in the lounge.  Our style of decoration is known as “explosion in a Christmas tree factory”.  Our tree lights cause a power surge on the National Grid and I believe that we have single handedly kept the lametta industry in business.  Does anyone else even know what lametta is??

Mum insists on buying us hundreds of presents.  This last Christmas, we didn’t eat lunch until 7pm because it had taken us 9 hours to open them all.  And then there’s Second Christmas.  Which is where we get all the presents that didn’t arrive in time and the presents she didn’t get time to wrap…  They tend to be the panic buys.  Mine included a date stamp.  For my business.

One year I begged her not to get me any presents.  I had a good job, I didn’t need anything.  She was horrified.  So I suggested that she bought me a goat for charity.  She relented.  And then bought me a goat, 3 chickens, a donkey, a well and 15 bags of grain.  So I didn’t feel left out when the other girls opened their presents.

Discipline was non-existent.  She used to try to pretend otherwise, but it’s just not true – she once tried to ground one of my sisters when we were teenagers, probably for bunking off school.  My sister, through her tears, said scornfully “you can’t ground me, you’re hopeless at grounding”.  And she was right.  Mum just couldn’t see it through – she felt too sorry for us.  So she just let us off.

interesting career choices

Mum was always desperate to be a doctor.  So she went back to school to do her A-levels when I was doing my GSCE’s. No specialist college for her.  Nope, she just joined the local sixth form.  And she was doing sciences.  A 30-something, mother of four in a class full of spotty 17 year old boys.  The physics teacher said that she added an extra dimension to the class.  One of the wags piped up “yeah, sheer bloody mass…!”  Fun times.

The Royal Free Hospital turned her down for a place at their medical school.  Losers.  They said she needed better grades.  So she retook her A-levels.  And then took them again.  She and I tried the other day to calculate how many A-levels she racked up in the end.  We think it’s somewhere around 20…  I keep telling her she should sell off some of the earlier ones…

Her career path has taken some interesting turns over the years.  She did an undergraduate degree in photographic sciences (and graduated just at the time that traditional photography gave way to digital.  Oh.  Dear.)  She helped produced a short film for an eccentric wealthy Italian, subject matter: the omega centuri star constellation.  My uncle gave it the best critical review: “at 25 minutes, it’s about 20 minutes too long”.

She gave that up to become a carpenter.  Yep, you read that right.  My mum, with her 32 A-levels, went on a local YTS scheme and became a chippy.  She worked on building sites, where they swore at her all day, and she  f***ing loved it.  The day that we made her put her power tools in the loft, a little part of her soul died.  She still carries a retractable tape measure in the car…

doctor, doctor…

One Easter Sunday several years ago, we were all having a lovely lunch at my youngest sister’s.  Midway through, my mum said: “there’s something I need to tell you girls”.  We put down our cutlery.  She continued: “It will explain why I’ve been acting a bit weird and crying a lot over the past few months”.

My younger sisters started to cry.  We collectively assumed a terminal illness.  Probably only weeks to live.

“I’ve been accepted into medical school”, she said.

WTF???!!!!!!!

Now, the reason that this came as such a surprise to us, is because she hadn’t mentioned the whole lifetime-ambition-to-be-a-doctor thing for years.  We had absolutely no idea that she was even still thinking about it.  And unbeknownst to us, she’d gone all secret squirrel on our arses and decided to give it one more go.  And she got in.  And not just into any old medical school, but one of the top schools in the country.  UCL.

cheersSo, once we’d got over the trauma of thinking that she was dying, we went and bought champagne and congratulated her in the only way we know how.  Whooping.

you have got to be kidding me…

And then we wondered when she’d had time to do all of this.  And here’s where you should probably reach for the tissues.

Because it turns out that she sat her medical school entrance exams the day before she donated a kidney to my sister.

Freeze Frame.  Rewind.  Close up shot of sister lying in a hospital bed, her anxious mother by her side…

Yep.  My mum gave up one of her kidneys, so that it could be transplanted into my sister.  And the day before that operation, she sat some very important and difficult exams.  And she didn’t tell anyone.

As I said at the beginning: ridiculous.

Now, anyone who might have wondered how it is that I can give up my job, bum around and generally lack in anything approaching ambition?  I’m guessing that it’s starting to become a little clearer.  My mum is the most phenomenally courageous, barmy, lovely person that you’re ever likely to meet.  So it takes the pressure off.  I’ve got nothing to prove.  Never gonna get anywhere near that level of greatness, so I don’t need to worry about it.

She’s in her second year as a junior doctor now.  I wish I could tell you that it’s a dream come true for her, that she’s loving every minute and it’s everything she ever hoped for.

But remember, this is an afternoon weepie, so it’s never quite that simple.  It’s the NHS and she may be the oldest junior doctor in town, but she’s still a junior doctor.  So it’s punishing hours, terrible pay, zero support and stupid managers pushing even stupider made-up targets.

But that doesn’t stop her being a brilliant doctor.  All of that bonkers life experience has come together to create the best beside manner at Chase Farm Hospital.  Her patients and colleagues love her.  And we know it’s only a matter of time till she finds her niche and really starts to enjoy herself.

And if not, well, she can retire in 11 years…

If you want to know how proud we are of her, this little video should do the trick.  It’s her graduation ceremony and my sisters and I provide the soundtrack.  I suggest you turn the volume down.

Happy Mother’s Day, Ma.

——————

Ps: Girls – I see you your mother’s day cards and I raise you.  Read it and weep, sisters.

Prima Christina

caroline hughes Leave a comment

Christina Rinaldi is one of those beautifully cool creative types that, had I met her when I was younger, I probably would have found her pretty intimidating.

As it is, when you reach your mid 30s and kind of settle down with yourself a little, you realise that most of those cool, smart, funny, successful girls that you were scared of … well, turns out they were a bit scared of you too.    So that whole period of angst, insecurity and bravado throughout your 20s…?  Just a big ol’ misunderstanding, girls.  Phew!  Glad we worked that one out so quickly.

So, Christina is a former colleague of mine.  She is warm, funny, sassy and big-hearted.  She gives great compliments on outfits (and means them; and has great style, so they count for double).  She knows where to find the best Tom Collins(es) in New York and she’ll laugh square in your face when you’re surprised that your lobster roll is served cold.

Floral Manicure by Christina Rinaldi for the Jewelry Designer Angie Marei of Diaboli Kill Ring

Christina is the perfect example of how to go it alone.  She has the vision and the confidence that she’ll figure it out as she goes.  She’s not afraid of making mistakes and she has a work ethic that puts me to shame.  All of which is why she is well on her way to establishing a successful business for herself, whilst I’m still writing about it!

In addition to being a sought-after creative director, Christina is a phenomenal nail artist and has just launched her own range of nail polish in collaboration with The New Black, retailing at Sephora stateside.

Prepare to have nail envy…

One of Christina’s nail polish sets for The New Black

olympic fever

caroline hughes 6 Comments

I went Olympics and Paralympics-tastic this summer.  It was no coincidence that I gave up work just before London 2012 started!  My daytime freedom meant that I was everyone’s chosen +1 to events.

my sis and I flying the flag for Team GB

I went to the beach-volleyball, football, weight-lifting, athletics, road cycling, triathlon, wheelchair basketball and hand-cycling and I watched the TV coverage all day every day and all of the round-up programmes at night.

I whooped and held my breath and cried several times a day.  And I was inspired.  Massively inspired by the athletes, their sacrifices and their commitment, all for a shot at glory four years in the making.

Don’t get me wrong.  I think they’re all bonkers, but there is something in that unrelenting pursuit of goals that struck me as a universal truth.

keep clear goals, track progress

Keeping your goals clear and tracking your progress is, according to all the gurus on success (be it measured in weight loss, wealth, sporting prowess, political influence, pairs of Alaïa shoes), the surest way to achieve those goals.

Some people shy away from setting goals, especially if their dreams are financially motivated.  If your goal is to make loads of money, then go for it. There’s no crime in making money. Unless you’re making the money from crime. In which case this leads to an awkward moral dilemma and makes me question if I even want you reading my blog.

my goals

My goals right now are below.  In my own to-do list, I use these goals as a header and list out the steps I need to take to achieve each one (see first example below), with a deadline.  I find this helps my focus, which otherwise tends to wander.

Note that one of my goals is a “pleasure” goal.  To me, the whole point of this lifestyle change is to enjoy experiences.  I don’t use these pleasure goals as a reward for doing the business stuff.  Instead I just try to build them into my life, so I get the balance right between focused activity and focused inactivity.

1.   Set up the first simple online business that’s still at ideas stage now, before India trip in November.

  • interview web developers – by 30 September 2012
  • compile brief for site functionality and look and feel – by 14 October 2012
  • test projected site traction and SEO – by 21 October 2012

2.   Relax on the beaches of Goa and the backwaters of Kerala.

  • bit of yoga
  • pakora o’clock, followed by fresh tandoori red snapper and the best Bombay potato known to man

3.   Earn enough from the first business in the 6 months from launch to finance next business idea.

accountability

I’ve chosen to blog about my progress, as a way to keep me on course. Other people prefer to use personal finance markers or task completion milestones that they’ve set for themselves. Personally, I need the accountability that comes with making a very public commitment.

If an idea dies in a forest but there’s no-one around to see it, etc., etc.

You get my drift. Tell a handful of people who you respect what your goals are. And be as specific as you can. Trust me, it’ll make it much easier to keep them, when they’re not just your dirty little secret.

Alternatively, you can post them here in the comments section, if you want to, and I’ll do a little cheerleading for you.  Just please don’t post anything that you need to keep secret.  Or that is moronic.  I have a reputation to maintain, after all.

Team GB, Team GB, Team GB, Team GB!!!!!!