I started my business — and it failed (spectacularly!)

It was then that I came to the somewhat crazed notion that I could, should and would start a business selling pram sleep covers. Like in a morally wayward makeover show from the Noughties, I’d take a knife to the cover, overhaul its appearance and render it unrecognisable to its friends and family. The sleep cover world, in my mind, was about to be awakened.

I believed myself to be the woman for the job partly because I had worked in product development before, and partly because Instagram told me that I could be. The first reason, granted, was not completely deranged. I’d spent ten years working in fashion, researching and sourcing materials, and had a good grasp of the development and production process. The second reason, however, was completely unhinged. Somehow social media had taken hold of my brain — I was bombarded by women selling socks, flogging face creams and hawking handbags. A sea of she-EOs, riding the wave of self-made success all the way to the bank. And as per their Instagram stories and the inspirational quotes flooding my feed, I could do it too — all I had to do was start. Tomorrow was the first day of the rest of my life! Apparently I could do anything I set my mind to, according to people who had never met me. I’d always suspected that I’d be a good business leader and now the strangers of the internet had confirmed it. A delusional match made in hallucinatory heaven.

I set to work building my millennial (fever) dream of entrepreneurship. I found a patternmaker, sourced materials and began work developing my product. Over the ensuing days, weeks and months I had prototypes sent back and forth, fitting them on every pram I could find, and slowly but surely the cover started to take shape. I approached the redesign like a fashion piece, removing excess fabric, taking time to select trims and trying to create aesthetically appealing colour combinations. I had the cover safety tested and went absolutely feral with photoshoots, dragging barely consenting friends and family members into the shots. After ten months I started a small production run in a local factory, and then I was ready to sell.

I launched the business in September 2023. Although “launched” is a grandiose term for what it was: sitting in my pyjamas covered in baby sick and yoghurt, I clicked a button to make the website live, and announced it to my 15 inattentive Instagram followers. Once the shop was up and running I contacted influencers to try to get exposure: Carrie Johnson has a cover somewhere in her cupboard unless she has binned it, burnt it or Boris has mistaken it for an armless coat. I advertised on social media and in magazines. I even went through two rounds of Dragons’ Den interviews and was somewhat relieved when my application was turned down, aware that appearing on the show might lead to a public panic attack. While the programme would have been good exposure, I’m not sure that me hyperventilating between shrieks and sobs in front of Peter Jones would have been the kind of publicity that I was looking for.

Using £18,000 of money borrowed and from savings, I did all the things that I believed a person does when launching a company. I learnt about SEO and kept a vigilant track of spending. I tried to keep pace with the endless amount of content allegedly required by Instagram to grow, spending hours slaving away for just three people to “like” my reels (all relatives). I did everything that the internet told me to do and yet, ten months later, I had sold only seven covers. Not 17 or 70 or 700 or 707. But seven — less than ten but more than five. A robust handful. Just seven.

• When I lost my job on maternity leave, I lost myself

It’s hard to convey the full depths of quiet humiliation that you endure when you realise that something you’ve spent so much time, energy and money on has, completely and unequivocally, failed. When there is no other spin that you could put on a situation other than total and absolute, colossal nonsuccess. It’s a hard pill to swallow, and you need a moment to wallow. As I have two small children, it was difficult to find an adequate stretch of time to marinate in misery, but I seized the moments during naps and after bedtime to weep into the abyss, lying on the floor while my cat occasionally checked whether I was still alive or ready to eat. Ultimately, I didn’t know what else I could try or do other than plough yet more money into something that wasn’t heading in a remotely promising direction. I felt as if I had done everything — influencers, advertising, mum groups, social media — and nothing seemed to be sticking. Eventually, taking a pause and closing the website felt like the only sensible course of action.

It has been about eight months since I stepped away from my failed sleep cover “conglomerate” and I still have boxes of covers in my attic waiting for me to tend to them. Like an ex’s possessions, they sit there taunting me about my unsuccessful undertaking, waiting for me to make a decision about what to do with them. To try again or set fire to them? Flog on Etsy or fling into the open sea? These are all questions that I have yet to answer.

• Times Money Mentor: how to start a business

I don’t know how or why it was such a failure. The easy way out would be to blame lack of funds for substantial marketing, but none of the experiments I did with advertising appeared to have any real effect. A more likely reason is that people just don’t want fancy sleep covers and there isn’t a market for locally made, £65 pushchair covers made from European materials — something that a quick survey would have easily shown me but something that my ego, in the throes of perceived brilliance, wouldn’t allow me to conduct. While I salute those brave enough to embark on the path of entrepreneurship I have to concede that it’s probably not for me. The next time I hear the siren’s call of a seemingly singular idea, I think it’s best for my family, vanity and sanity that I just leave it for someone else.