Driving home from our local super market one day my husband and I were having a conversation about the possible pros and cons of starting up an internet business. To cut a long story short, the subject soon moved on to an idea we both had for the last several years. We wanted to create a shopping website with a built-
We knew many shopping sites already had capabilities allowing them to share with social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and Digg etc, which is great, and so are these sites! But we came to the conclusion that most people use this type of media mainly only to socialise, and don’t always a shopping at the front of their minds when using them.
If we could create a site that allowed its buyers to sign up as social users, then these users would have signed up with buying nice things in mind. This meant that when people logged-
At this point we believed we had something different and started to make a business plan and came up with the name ‘nanookie’.
Knowing we were in the middle of a recession, we wanted to make nanookie beneficial to small/medium businesses and help them find an excellent further revenue stream without costing them the earth. We set about evolving nanookie to benefit sellers and buyers alike.
After much thought, we came up with a business model that allowed small to medium businesses the opportunity to sell their products, whilst only charging them a subscription fee, and no commission charge on any sales! We were also adamant that there was going to be a free subscription package that would allow users to upload and sell several products (as well as creating their own shop front) free. We wanted to give sellers the opportunity to come and test nanookie for free. After testing, we were sure they would be totally smitten.
At this point we had a great business plan and model, but absolutely no finances to take the project to the next stage. We had come so far with the planning, and we had wanted this for so long. So we just came to the decision that we were going to do it! Of cause, we had no idea how we were going the raise the many many thousands of pounds to finance everything. We only knew in our hearts that we were going to.
In the following few weeks we were turned down for a loan from our own high street bank, followed by the other five local banks. I went online and applied to 13 different loan companies and was flat rejected by all of them.
We had to rethink. One particular evening my husband and I were having a brainstorming session whilst having a cup of tea in front of the telly.
As we thought on, the same thoughts circling round and round in my head, and I found it quite difficult to think outside of the box. I’m pleased this was the case now, and that I wasn’t too far away from reality. Because I looked up at the ceiling and thought “ the house”. I remembered back when I read Duncan Bannatyne’s book (anyone can do it). He mentions when he had to sell his car, house and his ice-
So off we set. Yet again, however, we found the same problems. Refusal after refusal, until one company in particular seemed quite interested. Several weeks thereon of convincing them, we had the funds in our bank account. It felt unbelievable. It was all down to persistence. All that needed to be done next was to sell the car to add to the funds. This went a lot smoother, and we wasted no time in hiring a web designer and marketing specialists to get things moving. We’d found the web design company on the internet, who looked very good indeed. We contacted them and they sounded great. They asked for half of the total web design cost up front in order to start the project. We duly paid them and the project began. Several weeks later we found some absolutely terrible complaints and reviews about the designers on the internet, which quite frankly alarmed us to say the least.
Apparently the company was using designs made from templates and sourcing their work out to India even though they said they were UK based designers. It wasn’t a problem that they sourced out to India. I think that’s great that there are jobs created there. The main problem was that they weren’t up front about this and if they were using templates then nanookie wouldn’t ever be the site it needed to be. It needed bespoke design work. That’s what we paid lots of money for. Another thing that alarmed us was that as soon as we approached them with the design proposal they registered our domain names in their name the very day we handed over the money. When we asked them about this they said they would sign them over to us at the end of the development.
A project of this size needed to have some face to face meetings to get the best out of the work and get some important points across. As much as anything else, we wanted to meet the people who were making our special new site. But every time we tried to arrange a meeting they said “we could meet but not at our offices, there isn’t enough room. We will rent a meeting room nearby”. This obviously was the icing on the cake and we soon realised that if we wanted a website with the sophistication we dreamed of then we could go no further with these designers. The marketing and PR specialists we had hired agreed and backed our decision. Unfortunately, in doing this we lost all of the many thousands handed over to them, and despite legal advice there wasn’t anything we could do. We also had to change the company name because web designers owned the domain names. We were basically at rock bottom again. We were knocked down, but we had to put it down to experience and get back up. The only thing we could do is try again. After all it worked the first time. Giving up was no option. If anything we were twice as determined as before.
We approached the mortgage lenders again and after a couple of weeks of contact and agreements we had managed to add to our funds. Brilliant! Believe me no more mistakes was the order of the day, and that is to say the least!
Our marketers soon go us in contact with another web designer, who this time came recommended. We again wasted no time in getting things moving and paid for the web design work and marketing in increments, after registering the company’s domain names in our own name.
One year later and many of nights with very little sleep, we had launched our new dream. Nanookie.co.uk was the world’s first Social Shopping Site where users can Shop or beautiful products, Chat to other uses with the same interests and Share products and shopping tips. With the site now live and the fully integrated payment system in place, we were now ready to mass market nanookie.
Unfortunately one week later disaster struck again when there was unforeseen issues with the payment provider, and the system was disabled. This meant that all the time and thousands of pounds integrating this specific system had been wasted. So at this point no users could buy or sell items on the site. But the way we saw it was that it was good that this happened in the very early days before a lot of transactions were going on throughout the site.
The only thing we could do is get right back onto it and get a new system implemented as quick and efficiently as possible so as not to inconvenience nanookie users.
At last after several months and many more begged and borrowed thousands of pounds later, we are so pleased to say we have a new extremely reliable payment system in place and are thrilled to say we are live and operating as a Social Shopping Site.
We have so many businesses and consumers already on board our unique friendly shopping community welcome so many more each day.
If anything all that tried to stop us only strengthened us and made us want nanookie more than ever before.
It’s a dream come true, and it has all been down to determination and refusing to let resistance overcome our persistence.
