Welcome to our little space

Hi everyone
Welcome to our little space.
Everyone will be made an admin so we can all manage the forum, I just started it because it was quick and easy but we're all administrators.
Now I have to work out how to invite everyone

Just take the Kids are set up and ready to go

Hi! Welcome.
I hope this is private and remains that way. I'd hate for it to come up in google searches...

I have never really participated in forums before - this is new to me!

We'll work it out together

Welcome everyone, and special thanks to Nat for reaching out and getting us all connected. xx

Yes, great idea girls, let's give the competition a run for their money!

+10

Probably a bit wanky, but shall we all introduce ourselves by giving a little spiel on our backgrounds, family and most importantly, our businesses??

Ooops, and I'm off to bath the girls, Maddy (almost 4) and Izzy (2)! back soon!

Not at all. Great idea.
I'm Danni, will try and change my UN from admin
I'm a Mum to one girl, who has just turned 9 and married.
I've been operating RBB for 3 years now, this is the third. I used to work with homeless and underage sex workers in Kings Cross but needed a brain change after that! A friend of a friend owned Hire for Baby in Sutherland, just near me and encouraged me to buy it but at over $100K I couldn't afford it.
After chatting with my Dad one evening he said "Why not start your own" so I did, with a $10,000 cheque from him. I only had 10 capsules which I had to buy retail and a few other bits and pieces. I had a logo from Vistaprint and a website done for $300. Its come along way since then and I've learnt more than I could have imagined I would.
I started RBB because I wanted a change but most of all I wanted to be more available for my little girl. She went to B&ASC on the days I worked and I hated it and she hated it too. And after the initial disappointment of not being able to buy the franchise I'm so very glad I didn't. I love doing it myself, mistakes and balls-ups and all.

Love to hear more about you all, why you began your operations, what your dreams are, what you hope to achieve.
And - does anyone have a business plan they follow? I'm terribly reactive and just do things "because".

Wow Danni, that's awesome, you have achieved so much in that time!

I'm Jen, I spent almost 20 years with the Commonwealth Bank, here in Adelaide, country NSW and my last post in Melbourne for 3 years as a business banker (don't hold that against me!).

I met my husband in my late 30's and have been a stay-at-home Mum since having the girls (4 & 2). Now the girls are getting a little more independent and Maddy just starting kindy, I wanted to start a business from home to keep me amused, earn some extra $$ and allow me to still look after the girls. Looked into Hire For Baby and ABC Nursery Hire (the latter don't have any branches here), but with the initial franchise fee of $9k plus stock and an ongoing cut of my takings (ABC), my husband encouraged me to 'back myself'. I too have spent an inital $10k (stock, website, graphic designer, advertising etc etc). I offically kicked off Adelaide Baby Hire in early January this year.

Like Just Take The Kids, I am located minutes from Adelaide Airport and popular Glenelg, so am hoping I can provide a unique service to travellers/tourists.

My financial goal for the business is to pay for the kids private schooling and I guess my personal one is to contribute to the household income, whilst hopefully grow a business I enjoy and can be proud of!

I love dealing with people and in particular find it enjoyable and very rewarding dealing with young families.

My turn

I have 2 children Joshua (4.5 yrs) and Carla (turning 2 on Sunday) and my husband Kristian. While I was on maternity leave with Carla I really did not want to go back to my current position of Human Resources Manager of an Aged Care orginsation - love the company but didnt want to deal day to day with staff issues - not a priority for me anymore. My sister (Tania) and I were trying to think of any idea and knew it had to be linked some how to the internet. Tania was at work one day (we work at the same place and I was her boss!) she heard someone on the phone heading to perth and looking to hire a seat. And from that moment we knew this was what we were meant to do. Given our location so close to the airport we knew we could make it work.

Like you Danni, Tania and I had the support from our parents (thanks dad for $10,000 - he loves his girls!) Rang a few wholesalers and Babylove were great so we went with them. Was lucky to have a mum in my mother group who was looking to get back into work and she designed our website and logo.

We had our first customer in April last year. Things have grown quickly over the last 9 almost 10 months. Tania and I are still working part time so life is very busy. I did step down from my managers role (have no regreats there!) and do 2 days a week and come home and forget about work. I think another 6 months of growth and I can stop my other job (need to convince the husband!!). Tania is 17 weeks pregnant so I have been doing most of the work - took her a long time to get to this point so happy for her to put her feet up!

The reason for me wanting to run my own business was to be able to drop and pick my children up from kinder/school each day. My mum did this for us so its important to me. I have loved it so far. I have meet some of the most lovely people and find it personally rewarding to help people and bring families together on holidays.

We have no business plan as such - its in my head!! Just going with it and enjoying the ride. So far our decisions have worked out ok except one which I will discuss when we get to our advertising discussion.

Sorry that was a bit long!

Hi ladies!

Im lucky last by the looks of it.... I can be extremely 'tech' challenged at times so it can take me awhile to figure out new things like forums!

So nice to hear from you all and a bit about you and your families and how your businesses came about.

Well like you all I have a family - Kisara 3 y 3 months, Rylah 1y 11 months and just about to have baby number 3 (8.5 months pregnant) ... So to say Im busy with just starting up this business as well is a little understated!

I decided to go into this for the same reasons as you all, the flexibility to spend time with family.

My back ground is property management and interior design but I stopped working over 3 years ago to start a family. About a year ago I was looking into ideas for home businesses and lucky for me (but not for her) I remembered the Hire for Baby lady telling me how incredibly well she does up here being the tourist mecca Gold Coast and having the franchise for the whole area she makes a killing. Well of course my plan became to steal her customers! (hahaha evil laugh...) Sorry but true!

After doing a lot of research and being inspired after talking with Danni I took the leap and finally launched just before xmas. It has been incredibly successful so far so I am really glad I did it. Im actually trying to wind down now for a month or so while I have the baby but its so hard to turn away business!

Like you Nat and Jen, my location makes things really easy and Im able to offer free delivery to the central tourist areas as I live really close to the main hub- literally 5 mins. I found that people love the idea of free delivery and my higher prices compared to competitors doesn't seem to make a difference.

No business plan either, just smoothing out the processes at the moment and trying to keep up with the demand. Hmm Danni you are way ahead of me there. Maybe I could just have yours when you've written it?

Loved reading that so many Dads have stepped in to support. It was a great leap of faith on all our parts, like you all I suppose, starting something from nothing. Given that Dad was so quick with the offer, I've worked my arse off trying to get it off the ground and show him that his faith wasn't wasted.

All your goals are pretty much reflective of mine. Private schooling for Ava, I do buy the groceries and give my self a small salary nowadays which is a big step!, but most of all to just be here to do the school drop offs and pick ups at this point. And really, I had worked for others all my life and its just so fantastic to work for yourself! I just love it.

Will start a new thread about issues that each of us may have faced or be facing and we can all share experiences etc.

Danni we must have been typing at the same time!

I thought I did a post but its not appearing - I had a list of suggested posts.

Will try again tonight!

Just start them - might as well get as much out of this as we all can.