Every month I invite our lovely followers to peek behind the curtain at aspects of business life which aren’t always openly discussed. As the female founder and owner of a small (but growing) ethical business, I’ve had a growing feeling that it's important to share my journey and be transparent about the ups and downs of navigating the UK business world; growing my team of amazingly talented women and making difficult decisions, all whilst doing something I truly love; growing a sustainable brand which creates timeless minimalist handmade jewellery in London. By sharing my experiences I hope I can help other women in business and female led brands. It can be difficult being a female entrepreneur but it's the most exciting thing I have ever done. This is my round up of April at Wild Fawn.
This month is one of the quieter ‘behind the scenes’ months and a few of the team have been on annual leave, going to weddings and holidays with friends and family. Sofia, our amazing Operations manager, has gone on maternity leave this month which was a very emotional goodbye for all of us, but very exciting that we will soon have our very first Wild Fawn baby! Whilst Sofia’s away, I’ll be taking back some of the tasks in Sofia’s role but luckily for me, certain aspects fall to Nazia who’s in charge of wholesale (so actually makes more sense this way). I had a few days off to visit Sandgate near Folkstone with my partner Jennie and our dog Margot. The Airbnb was basically on the beach which was perfect for morning walks with Margot and the water was unbelievably clear and glimmered all day.
Some business related things from this month have been our quarterly stock take which takes a day or two to count absolutely everything we have (think business cards, care cards, every single chain, butterfly back, piece of wire, boxes). We’ve developed nifty ways to do this quickly but we were very happy to find out we’ve reduced the amount of stock we have since the last quarter. One thing that I’m always so glad about, is that if we have any gold and silver we know we can’t use, we can just send it off to get melted down (or do it ourselves) which we then get money back for. I love how amazing working with solid gold and sterling silver is at reducing waste, but it also helps us dramatically with cash flow; knowing we can always get (almost) all the money back if we need to from the raw materials. As with every month, I did our IOSS submission which is how we pay the EU for any VAT we collect for any EU sales under £135 (a way around the import fees customers used to receive in the EU at Brexit) and have started working on finding models and a location for our Spring/Summer ’23 collection launching early next year.
So what’s happening next? This month, Molly and I have been making big plans for Pride month to raise money for AKT charity. I’m sure you will see it all unfold on Instagram if you follow us, but if not, it will be on the website too. We’ve also been making plans with our PR company to do a press launch this Summer, which is a new one for Wild Fawn but very exciting (if you know of any press or people you think it would be good to invite then let me know!). More recently (as in the last few days) I’ve also been thinking more about EU expansion and setting up a base there, to make life easier for our EU customers and so we can continue to grow seeing as bloody Brexit has put a spanner in the works. It’ll be a lot of work (and no doubt expensive) but an important ‘behind the scenes’ aspect to mention, incase you were interested!
It’s now the very beginning of May and I’m writing this from my balcony in Turkey at 5am (I’ve come away for three nights to make the most of the bank holiday weekend). Jet lag has meant that I naturally wake up early to enjoy the sunrise every morning…there’s nothing better than this with a cup of tea in hand.
Emma x
(read my previous journal entry here: Confessions of a Business Owner; entry #3)
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