Founding a Small Business during Maternity Leave at 28

Hi there (inserts waving emoji). Well, this is something new for me. I guess you can call it a document of thoughts, a written podcast (if that even is a thing), just blabbering through a keyboard or, you could even go as far as calling it my first ever blog post.

I should probably do an introduction; especially for those that are new here. My name is Naimah; British-born Bangladeshi Muslim, raising two beautiful boys (aged 5 and 1) with my husband in London, UK. I am the Founder and Creative Director of a small business called Tiny and You; specialising in timeless baby blankets and accessories.

Tiny and You started early February 2021 during a night feed; my youngest being fairly newborn at just under two months old at the time. I think back at it now and laugh at how mad I was. The sleep deprivation was so real; not only was I waking up every couple of hours for my little one’s feeds, but some nights I was staying awake in between his wake ups, researching and planning for this new venture of mine. When the morning would come and I would struggle to open my eyes and couldn’t even blame the responsibilities that came with my baby because pretty much every night, the adrenaline fuelling my soon to come business launch was keeping me up longer than I needed to be. I was tired … very tired but something amazing came from it five months later; a launch, the actual launch of Tiny and You … so I guess it was all worth it.

I became an entrepreneur of a small business at the age of 28. I recently listened to a podcast that mentioned the average age of starting a business was 42; I don’t tell myself this enough but going against the average in this instance is something to be proud of. Fast forward to March 2022, I wanted to write about how far I have come and what it has been like founding a small business all whilst being a wife, mum, daughter, sister and friend during my maternity leave in the middle of a pandemic.

What did I need to do to get my venture off the ground? I knew what I wanted to curate; timeless and sustainable baby products that were equally beautiful for both boys and girls. Once I had done some initial research and I had a rough idea of what the logistics would look like (which by the way changed several times and continue to do so), my husband was the first person I spoke to about it. He was my first cheerleader and without his support and encouragement, I would not have had the motivation I needed to progress to the next steps of making my plans a reality.

We came up with the name of the business together. It wasn’t overly hard because once we started talking, we knew we wanted the business to be for little ones and the grownups in their lives. Whether their parents, relatives or friends, it was about all those involved in the beginning of a newbie’s life; so, whatever the relation you have to a soon-to-be-born or newborn, we wanted to create an experience of love, congrats and joy that came. After a few weeks of playing around with words, Tiny and You was born, and I loved and took the suggestion of Baby Beginnings as our tag line because that’s what this was all about.

Branding, branding, branding. I think this has been one of the hardest areas for me. I have always had a creative flare and I was so passionate about doing everything myself for the business. I was also mindful and somewhat scared of my upcoming investments, so I took it on to create my own logos and brand guidelines. I did enjoy it and I am so proud of what I have achieved however (yes, there is a however), if I could go back, branding would have been the first thing I would have outsourced to someone who specialises in it. I had no background in branding (or any of the other roles required to start up to be fair), but once I had launched (and Instagram’s algorithm was showing me some amazing graphic designers out there after the one time I looked into it), I had my first ‘ahh, I should have done that differently’ moment. Saying that, I wouldn’t change what happened because, it taught me (and quite quickly), that it was still okay and I shouldn’t be too hard on myself; I was learning so much and these little eye openers were only going to make me more resilient and motivated to strengthen the identity of the business.

Before I started writing, I thought to myself, what on earth am I going to e-talk about. I’ve reached the end of page one on MS word and I’m questioning what the rule about word counts are on these things? Is there one? If you have made it to this point, thank you for staying with me and my words. Hopefully I won’t keep you much longer for today.

My journey so far has included sourcing products, sampling, more sampling and shortlisting the best products. Somewhere along the way I changed direction from carefully selecting products which were available in smaller quantities and equally available for other businesses, to deciding I seriously wanted Tiny and You to be a brand which offered an exclusive range of baby blankets. This decision came with a high Minimum Order Quantity (referred to as MOQ in the business world) and a significantly higher cost. This was most likely the scariest investment I had made prior to the launch. After several failed swatches and samples (which too came with price tags), I was finally satisfied with our first gender neutral knitted blanket with aesthetically pleasing yet breathable stripes and textures; making it not only exclusive to Tiny and You, but also different to the neutral blankets available in high street stores. The quality was so so important to me. I tried and tested samples on my own baby first with the view that; unless I was satisfied that it was gentle enough for my own, then it wouldn’t be good enough for any other newbie. Made with the softest most gentle cotton free from harmful chemicals and dyes, our first sample is still going strong and remains to be our personal most used baby blanket for our own tiny. 

One of the things I have to stress is, small business owners often play the role of several jobs larger companies would typically recruit individuals for; product sourcing, website designing, graphic designing, inventory managing, social media management, stock controlling, accounting, customer service, admin, packaging and posting; basically, anything you can possibly think of that is required to ensure the functioning of a business - we do! Single handedly more often than not! I would love to go into the details of all these things, but I am extremely mindful of how much I have written even though I have tried to keep everything ‘brief’.

If you would be interested in me continuing the story of my journey, please do let me know. It most definitely will encourage me to document all the things you may not easily be able to read or hear about from small business owners (not because they don’t want to - but is adding an author role to their already long job(s) description always possible?). I am so grateful of how much I have accomplished on this roller coaster journey and for selfish reasons, I am glad I have started writing because on the not so easy dull days, I can read back on this and remind myself, anything is possible if you put your mind, heart and time into it!

Naimah