The Mumpreneur Diaries: Business, Babies or Bust - One Mother of a Year. Mosey Jones

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СКАЧАТЬ a proper mumpreneur when you find yourself fixing your make-up in the dark in an underground car park using little more than Touche Éclat and a pair of blue Noddy pants, age 2-3.

      I’m venturing out into the big wide world today. Often there aren’t just days but weeks when I don’t go much further than the edge of the village. But today I’m going up to town, to the smoke, to London. I’ve arranged to meet an old contact from my PR days who knows a bit about start-up businesses and how to go about getting them going.

      The thrill of being allowed back into the world of the grown-ups (mothers’ corner at playgroup doesn’t count) is swiftly extinguished by yet another wardrobe crisis. That joey pouch is refusing to budge despite me spending the last four weeks pounding on the treadmill. Bosoms are also an issue, insofar as they don’t stay inside anything that’s not made of metres of cotton jersey. Shirts are a definite no-no as my cleavage is paying tribute to Debbie Does Dallas. I eventually drag on a dress which somehow manages to be both frumpy (hemline) and whoreish (neckline) at the same time. Hopefully the Pepto-Bismol-hued pashmina will distract my friend’s attention.

      At least this time I remember the breast pads. Three weeks ago I was happily burbling away at Henry K on the radio show when I felt the telltale tingle under my armpits. This signals that I have exactly thirty seconds to deploy padding before the milk dam bursts and my top starts to darken in two very unmistakable ways. Halfway through dissecting the American Presidential Primaries I nonchalantly crossed my arms, hoping no one noticed me trying to stem the tide. I’m sure Henry thought it slightly odd that I kissed him goodbye and tried to leave the studio at the end of the show still with my arms firmly crossed over my chest.

      My meeting today is instructive:

       Could I cope if lots of mums wanted to use the service straight away? (Probably, maybe, in fact no, not really.)

       Could I survive financially if no one used it straight away? (See 1.)

       Had I thought about marketing, had I developed a distinct brand and did I have a budget set aside for it? (Yes, no and although I have a percentage of revenues set aside for marketing, 10 per cent of nothing is still nothing so, no.)

       Was there a distinct division of labour between Partner in Crime and me to establish roles, boundaries, remuneration, etc. (No, in fact I haven’t seen her in ages. Must do something about that.)

       Had I arranged my tax, insurance, qualifications, criminal record checks, etc.? (No, no, no and um, no. Oh dear.)

      There’s a saying: ‘If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.’ Well, there are precious few solutions that come out of my meeting but a massive list of problems. At least I had a fairly comprehensive to-do list. I suppose I should be depressed that I thought I was good to go and it seems that I’m not even 5 per cent of the way to getting going on my own. But strangely I’m not. Now I’ve got my list of things to get on with, and if they’re all completed satisfactorily, I should have me a business.

       Saturday 5 April 2008

      Boy One has a date at his friend’s birthday party. Twenty screaming children aged three and four rampaging round a playbarn fuelled by cheesy puffs, cake and lemonade. This doesn’t frighten me as much as perhaps it should because:

       it’s someone else’s party,

       in someone else’s building, and

       in two hours Boy One will experience a massive sugar

       crash and lie comatose and drooling in front of The Lion King until it’s time for an early bed.

      Therefore I can look forward to a longish period of peace and quiet this evening. I think I may sleep. Haven’t done that for a while.

       Sunday 6 April 2008

      Party was a great success except Boy One is now determined to have his own bash there in September. This will, I fear, be expensive and painful. However it has made me realise something about starting up this concierge service. Managing people doesn’t bother me, the tax situation is baffling but I’m sure I’ll figure it out. Setting up websites and whatnot is actually quite fun (new career as an IT wonk? Not impossible). But, by offering a party helper service as part of our package, it dawns on me that I could be stuck in a kids’ party filled with hyperactive three-year-olds every Saturday from now until the hereafter. This is terrifying.

      I also give Boy One his biannual haircut today. I usually wait until 40-year-olds start saying, ‘What a pretty girl!’ before deciding he needs a trim. We’re going for the long-locked surfer dude look at the moment. The haircutting experience usually consists of a large bar of chocolate to keep him still, large quantities of spray-on conditioner to get the dreadlocks out and the kitchen scissors.

      So far I’ve entertained the idea of starting up as a PR, childminder, doula, radio presenter and website manager. I don’t think we’ll be adding hairdresser to that list.

       Wednesday 9 April 2008

      We make yet another pilgrimage to the venerated grandmother north of the border. It’s nice to visit the old home town. In a life where I’ve picked up two fathers, four mothers, two half-siblings and three step-siblings, seven schools and twelve family homes – and that’s just up to age 16 – it’s nice to know that Gma and Gpa stayed put in the same village for all of my nearly 35 years. Gpa’s moved on to stay with some floozies with white dresses and wings and a big bloke with a beard, but Gma’s feet are still firmly planted on Scottish soil (as opposed to in it).

      Indeed, there is much to love about the old family homestead: discovering an old printing kit I was given for Christmas 1983, ink all dried up and letters missing; or finding the electronic keyboard Gpa made for me out of wood, a sheet of aluminium, some wires and a battery bigger than his fist. The benefit of having a relative with a double first in Physics and Maths and part of the team that developed RADAR was that he could take a bundle of wires, wood and metal and make something really quite wonderful. You can take your Barbie, I’ll have my home-made stylophone any day.

      Unfortunately, despite being fascinated by computers and the internet, my Gpa selfishly failed to install broadband into the bungalow before he popped off to electrify the angels’ harps. So here I am armed with a laptop and a feature on toddler play to file by tomorrow and no way of getting on the internet, not even with dial-up.

      We are but minutes from Silicon Glen where many of the IT advances were made in the 1980s and 1990s but I can’t get a signal on my mobile or connect to the internet. With my web habit this is a serious problem. Nor does Gma’s village have anything like an internet café. It has a café but the only cookies they’re interested in have chocolate chips and go nicely with a cuppa.

      In the end I resort to filing copy the way so many hacks did before the war – over the phone, using my voice instead of the beeeee-awwwww-bipbip-beeeennnnnnggg of the modem.

      I’m also too embarrassed to do this direct to the editor of the magazine. After all why pay a freelancer to dictate to you something that you may just as well have knocked up yourself? Instead I call Middle Sister who is handily at her desk in a super-cool sports and music marketing agency in London.

      I wonder what they make of:

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