Chris Baker - Brightideas

Name: Chris Baker
Age: 25
Business: Brightideas
Type of business: Mail order and online retail of colourful home and lifestyle accessories.
Start date: November 2004

Chris Baker has started a business based on the realisation that alot of home buyers are beginning to move away from drab minimalism, preferring to put some colour into their lives.

When did you first decide you wanted to start your own business?
Ever since I can remember I have wanted to start my own business and be my own boss. Having worked for large companies in media sales for a few years, it really made me realise that working for someone else was not for me and didn’t hold the future I wanted. The fact that I didn’t enjoy my job really made me focus on what I wanted to do with my life and it was a big contributing factor in taking the leap of faith to set up my own business. But I did always know I was going to set up my own business it was really a matter of waiting for the right time.

Tell us about your business
Brightideas is a unique mail order and on-line retailer of home and lifestyle accessories. The unique selling point of the business is that the brand identity is based on colour, meaning all products are offered in a large range of predominantly bright colours. The aim is to build this into a brand whereby anyone looking for anything of a certain colour will automatically think to look in the Brightideas catalogue or our website www.brightideasshop.com . The product range is still very small but over time this will grow to offer a large range of products in a large range of colours, so that the customer will be able to find whatever they want, be it for the home, themselves or a gift, in the colour they want.

Was it your first business idea and where did it come from?
No this wasn’t my first idea. I have had lots of different ideas in the past but this is the first one I have committed to. I initially planned to get into importing in one way or other and decided to go to a trade fair in China not knowing what I was looking for except inspiration. The trip gave me several ideas, but the bright idea for Brightideas combined my interest in interior design and fashion, it was a unique idea that could take advantage of a niche market and the mail order side of things meant I could keep initial overheads down. The more I thought about it the more I believed in it.

Was your decision to start a business inspired by any other companies or individuals?
I get inspiration from a huge amount of places. I am constantly reading books about business success stories, entrepreneurs and self development, which I think is really important because not only can you learn lots from them, it also gives you a mentality and belief of ‘if they can do it, then so can I’.
Perhaps the most relevant inspiration for Brightideas, was that of The White Company, which was set up selling predominantly white home and lifestyle accessories through mail order and has now become a highly successful multi million pound company. This really proved to me that by positioning yourself in a unique way and targeting a niche market, you can build a very successful company. So I thought if they can do it with white then I will do it with colour.

Secondly, the home furnishings and fashion accessories markets in the UK are worth around £5 Billion. The results from a consumer survey indicated that there would be demand for the Brightideas offering and a big enough gap to take a share of this market.

As I also mentioned earlier, I was very encouraged by research into other niche mail order companies becoming very successful. So to me there didn’t seem to be any doubt as to whether there is a market for my business, as long as the identity and image is conveyed effectively to the customer which would differentiate Brightideas from any competition.

Once you’d decided to start a business, what did you do first?
Well the first thing I did was leave my job which I wouldn’t necessarily recommend but in my situation I just felt that if I was going to do it I wanted to put everything into it from day one. I then spent about six months researching the market, writing the business plan, finding products and suppliers and doing the hundreds of other things involved in setting up a business. I had a huge long list of things that needed to be done and over time each thing was ticked off bit by bit. The process of planning and setting up a company does take a long time but I think it is important to take time to plan carefully.

What research did you do?
I looked at market research reports produced by companies like Mintel and Keystone, which can be found in most business libraries. These give a good overview of trends and forecasts into the relevant markets. I also carried out my own questionnaires on consumers that I had identified as my target market to get some feedback on the idea. As I mentioned earlier, I also spent a lot of time looking at other relevant niche mail order catalogues, to see how they had gone about things and how quickly they had grown. It is possible to get information on other companies through Companies house.

What advice did you seek?
I took advantage of all the free advice I could find, which included places like Business Link, The Princes Trust, Shell LiveWire. Business Link and The Princes Trust offer Mentor schemes where you are given a volunteer who will offer advice and help, which I have found a great help especially if you are setting up on your own, it’s important to have someone to bounce ideas off. Otherwise, there is a huge amount of information that can be found through books and websites such as startups.co.uk.

What other help did you get?
Otherwise, I pretty much did everything myself, which was fine as I had a very clear vision of what I wanted to achieve.