Page 2 - Start Up Special: The Star January 2019

12 NINS www.thestar.co.uk Wednesday,January23,2019
START-UP SPECIAL
In association with
Sam Parsonage in her independent boutique in Walkley, Sheffield
Such a vintage year for Sam’s boutique
A pop-up shop in Sheffield’s Winter Garden boosted Hellen Stirling-Baker’s business - now she’s about to open her own bricks-and- mortar store.
Hellen launched in February last year selling ethically-sourced and eco- friendly toys, decor, cloth- ing and books for young children online.
But she soon realised she needed to get her business “out there” and took space in the Winter Garden.
That’s where she built up a “really loyal and love- ly customer base” - to the point where she decided to become a permanent pres-
ence on the high street. Small Stuff opens at 170 Crookes Road in February.
Hellen said: “Selling on- line is very tough and I knew I needed to get my prod- uct out there. By using the pop-up shop, my business has gone from strength-to- strength and I have built a really loyal and lovely cus- tomer base. Selling general- ly in this financial climate is difficult, but my customers love the stories behind my products and the fact that I sell high quality, well made items that will not only last, but can be passed down and reused and do not pollute the planet.”
Hellen’s business is top of the pop-ups for loyal customers
Sam Parsonage was sick of ordering clothing online and sending it back when it didn’t fit – so she set up her own shop.
Miss Samantha’s Vintage is an independent boutique that opened in March last year on South Road in Walk- ley.
Sam said: “I wanted to stop having to order three
items of the same piece of clothing and then sending two back, or having to trav- el miles to visit a shop that would sell clothes I wanted to wear.
“The business is slowly taking off, I’m getting more customers visiting from dif- ferent parts of Yorkshire, my website is really working well for me.
“I’ve attended events throughout the summer, Tramlines Fringe was a par- ticular fun event to work at.
“I’m truly independent. I have the help of an account- ant and a web designer and the occasional help at events, but everything else is done by me.”
MSV sells vintage repro- duction clothing, accessories
(including items made by lo- cal independent companies), hosiery and cosmetics from the 1940s and 1950s for la- dies, and ‘as the gents were getting a little bit jealous’, there’s a small selection of menswear too.
Fittingly, she is in a shop originally built as a drapers in the late 1800s, she says.
Hellen Stirling-Baker
Improving productivity
Fixing ‘leaky businesses’
Karthik Suresh thinks busi- nesses are missing out on huge productivity gains by not using technology well.
The founder of Jayamony Ltd, an IT consultancy spe- cialising in business analyt- ics, dropped out of a PhD in Nanotechnology in 2005 to become the first employee in an energy trading startup.
It gave him a great foun- dation in building software that automates work that or- dinarily could take weeks.
never know when the tim- ing is right, but I felt like I had set a goal to do this, put as much in place as possible and now it was time to make it happen. I set up Jayamony to help organisations use in- formation more effectively in their business processes to grow faster in the years a h e a d .
You can use analytics to better target prospects for marketing, create sys- tems to manage fast mov- ing inventory for your Ebay store, manage a portfolio of commodities like steel or electricity or create hyper- personalised reports to sup- port your advisory services to clients. It’s just knowing where to start - and whether that’s betttttter designed Excel spreadsheets or customised web applications we’re here to help organisations figure out the best approach for them."
Jade Strain gave herself three weeks to find clients after being made redundant from her job as a marketing manager - hence the name of her consultancy: ‘Day 21’.
Luckily she signed two straight away and with help from The Cooper Project at Sheffield Technology Parks - a free service that helps digi- tal businesses to get up and running - she cracked on.
Now, she goes into busi- nesses and helps them map out how to reach their objec- tives.
Jade said: “I was made re- dundant in February 2018 – on my 30th birthday.
“After the shock had sub- sided the idea to continue
Jade Strain
as a freelancer came pretty quickly and I set myself a deadline of three weeks to find some clients or get an- other full-time job.
“I use the analogy that a marketing consultant is like a plumber who fixes leaky businesses. I come in and stop customers dropping
off the sales pipeline, I find ways to join more custom- ers to the pipeline through email marketing, social me- dia, PR, affiliate market- ing, SEO, printed materials and content creation.
“Often, businesses don’t have the time to create and implement a marketing strategy. My aim is to free senior business members up to focus on running the company whilst I work on how to get there.
“I work with some bril- liant individuals as well, the best graphic designer, PR agency, web builders I know. This helps to offer the best service that I can, and so far sogood.”
There is huge op- portu- nity for busi- nesses now.
Karthik, pictured, of Mill-
houses, Sheffield, said: “I've
been thinking about this for
over15yearsasI'vealways
wanted to run my own busi-
ness. I made the decision to
goonmyownthisyear-you www.jayamony.
K a r t h i k a t k.suresh@jayamo- ny.co.uk or go to