GUIDE TO GROWTH
CHALLENGE MY £5m
Angel’s Face was started by Keely Deininger in 2007 as a kitchen table business based in London. She had worked as a designer for suppliers of top brands such as H&M and Topshop and her life-long dream was to start her own business. Angel’s Face has allowed her to both fulfil this dream and also enjoy watching her children grow up. Here, SME Magazine catches up with Keely
weeks earlier. Friends came around and saved everything. The best part of all they told me to carry on and get over it.
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have travelled to places I never dreamed of going and I have laughed every day. My best achievement is that I have worked with a lot of young people who have become the most loyal and hardworking team. We have faced everything together and taken on new territories and challenges. We have learnt from our disasters and moved forward together.
Keely, you started Angel’s Face back in 2007. What inspired you to set up your own business? I had been working full time as a design director for a large UK brand but with two small children and a new baby it became impossible to juggle family life and a full- time career. Something had to give so I left a job that I loved and started my own business. This enabled me to be around for my kids and still be a designer. I had spent years working in ladies wear and wanted to have a change, so I chose children’s wear. I thought it would be fun and less complicated – boy was I wrong!
What were the main challenges in the early days? The main challenges were having to do everything myself – there was no one to call when a PC broke. I had to learn how to fix it, and sometimes turning it off and counting to 10 didn’t always work. I had to do my own accounts, which was a challenge as I am not the most organised, so keeping track of everything was hard. My best advice on starting your own business is to team up with other people in the area who work at home so that you can share your skills and help each other with problems that come along.
You celebrated your tenth anniversary last year, what most pleases you about your achievements? I have enjoyed every minute of it, even the disasters like a flood that waterlogged the new server that we had installed two
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Can you give us some facts and figures about Angel’s Face? Angel’s Face now has an annual turnover of £2 million, having never borrowed a penny – our growth has been purely organic. We are now in over 30 countries with China being our largest market. We have a strong fan base in the UK and Italy who buy from our website and send pictures of their children to our social media sites.
Where would you hope your business will be in five years’ time? I would very much like to get to a £5 million turnover without giving up any part of my company. I still design every piece that goes into the collection, so giving that up would be a challenge for me.
What advice would you give someone who was preparing to launch their own business? Go into it with your eyes open, make sure you are flexible to move with the market, and if something is not working change it.
angels-face.co.uk www.smeweb.com
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